A couple of great days and a couple of much slower days. Boy, if you could see my production so far this summer on a graph, it would look something like this: VVVVV Lot's of peaks and valley's ! We finally had a couple of really super good days out of Ashtabula. But for each good day that I had, we've also had a slower day or so. So far the size of the fish, regardless of how many we catch for the most part has been simply spectacular ! Saturday just for fun of it we weighed our top 6 Walleyes from our limit catch and it came up a whopping 57 pounds ! This first picture here in this report is of Saturday's catch and it's not hard to spot the top 6 fish that I am talking about...
The reason we were so interested was because else where on the lake on the very same day there was a big Walleye tournament taking place. Sadly I was not taking part in it but had I been, we would have blown the competition away ! The participants in the tournament weighed their top 6 fish and from what I understand, 49.6 lbs took first place while 49.2 lbs took second and third went to a catch of 47 pounds. All very impressive baskets in themselves ! But no where near the crazy basket we could have fielded. We just got lucky and stumbled into some real hogs that day. And I'm beginning to think it's more luck anymore then skill anyway with as erratic as my production has been thus far. We fished the same exact area the very next day with very different results. At least in numbers of fish caught. Have I ever mentioned, such is fishing ?
Anyway, we have trolled up some very nice one's everyday in about the same areas that we normally like to fish this time of year. The fish do appear to have moved out to 50 plus foot of water now where just a week ago the 40's seemingly held more fish. I did a long troll on Sunday under very rough lake conditions straight north from 60 to 70 foot and back just to see what was out there and I found out. Nothing ! We marked very few fish on the fish finder and caught absolutely nothing out there until we got back down into the 50's. But how do you know if you don't try ? I was trying to set us up for a longer troll back in the 4-5 foot unexpected and unpredicted seas and although the troll was nice once we turned around and headed south again, it ended up being a big waste of time. It won't be long though and the fish will be out there. They always are.
It looks like today's unexpected wind is going to be with us through Monday anyway and then things might get more pleasant again. If we ever needed calm seas, it's right now this time of year. The schools of fish are not that very big yet and if you can't circle the wagons and work these little pockets tightly, well the production goes way down. That's what happened to us today after a big day on Saturday where the lake was flat and I was able to work a little half mile spot. You can't spin tight circles in heavy seas. Perhaps when more migrating Walleyes move down the lake to join the existing fish that are already in the area we can get back to making longer slides. One can only hope. I am still thankful for the fishing that we are experiencing though and know it could be so much worst and I am certainly in awe over the size so far this summer here out of Ashtabula. We'll see what this new week brings !
Capt. Walt
*It is imperative that we get out early. These fish most of the time feed like crazy right at dawn and then really shut down when the sun gets higher. I am at the boat at 5:00am everyday and we need to be off the dock by 5:30am at the VERY LATEST ! For all of my upcoming trips, I urge you to be there as early as possible so we don't miss out on this opportunity. Also there are no fishing license sales at the marina again this summer so you guys have to get them on your own ahead of time. You can do so online or the local K-Mart or Wal-Mart here in Ashtabula which both are open 24 hours a day.
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