A few really incredibly good days ! And a few just average days as well where we worked very hard to end up in the teens for the number of Walleyes caught each day. That describes the yo yo action we experienced this past week. And what I thought was supposed to be a pretty nice weather week was far from it with plenty of windy, rainy weather with strong thunder storms thrown in for good measure. But through it all each day we continued to catch some of the heaviest Walleyes that I have seen in quite some time. It's like there are no small ones out there right now here off of Ashtabula Harbor here in the central basin of Lake Erie .
We had a rare treat on Saturday when a 32 1/2 inch, 15 pound Chinook King Salmon decided to attack us. It hit a port side outside planer board wire line rigged with a Jr. thunder Stick. After a spectacular fight which ended up in the tangling of all of the starboard side Dipsy lines, we managed to capture the beast. As if the 10 and 11 pound Walleyes that I seem to be netting every day now weren't heavy enough for my aching shoulder ! LOL We also had a few nice Steelhead show up here and there this past week as well. Nice bonus action for those that were lucky enough to hook up with these wild screamers.
There seems to be two bands of loosely scattered Walleyes out there right now. There are some nice fish being caught in the 65 foot of water range between Ashtabula and Geneva right now. We worked in that area a couple of days but for us the Yellow Perch and other "nuisance" fish made the fishing rather tough. And although I enjoyed the fuel savings, I hated working so hard to keep the crap off long enough for the Walleyes to have a shot at the lures. The second band of fish seem to be hanging in the 12 to 17 mile mark offshore. Big water for sure when you're fighting strong winds and waves and worried about thunder storms each day !
So we are entering the final week of July. By now the Walleye fishing around here should be stupid easy but it has been far from that on most days. I have learned to relax some and just let the chips fall where they may. It's funny to hear almost every day now all of my regulars tell me " hey, you remember we were done last year by 9 or 10 in the morning ? " I just laugh and tell everyone, well you're in for a longer day today. I hope you packed a lunch ! LOL Also it sort of amazed me that after last weeks fishing report where I talked about most of my groups coming as a smaller sized group that I got bombed with "6 packs" almost every day. LOL, Just goes to show casually mention something and look out ! Oh well. We stumbled our way thru it all and "The Trophy" made a few extra bucks. Not all bad in today's tougher economy. We'll see what this coming week brings us. Stay tuned ...
Capt. Walt
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