Perch, Perch, and even more Perch ! "The Trophy" was 100% Walleye free this past week. I ran no Walleye trips at all this past week nor did I have any desire to do so. Rather, we turned all of our focus on to to Lake Erie's second most sought after fish, the prized Yellow Perch. And this first full week of strictly Perch fishing was picture perfect for us with boat limits on each and every outing. A few of the days were crazy easy and a couple of the days, well we had to work for them just a little bit harder but the end results were all the same. A nice cooler fish full of a really nice mix of all different sized Perch each day , including many, many Jumbos. Totally awesome !
The weather was so so this past week. We had mostly decent weather with just a couple of really unfishable days. I'll take it compared to some of the falls in years past where entire weeks and worst yet, week after week was simply a no go. This coming week looks to be OK as well. One can only hope that we'll be as fortunate come all of October. It might make up a little for the very sucky spring that we had this year. The damage was done though. In the spring this year I was heavily booked but could not get out half the time. Now regardless of what the weather does, I just don't have that many trips left. I guess there is no point in dwelling on it. It is a seasonal business and just like a farmer, Mother Nature ultimately dictates what kind of year that I'm going to have. And 2011 will go down in my books as just average. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. Just average. My hopes and prayers for next season would be that we get a great Walleye hatch which we desperately need along with a ease in the marina fuel costs. I wonder what my chances are ?
So my 25th year of running Walleye trips in 2011 will go down in the log books with a final count of 2,274 Walleyes caught aboard "The Trophy". This is down from the 2,787 brought to the boat in 2010. Understandably so when you factor in the poor fishing that we had at Port Clinton this spring due to the horrific weather and the summer Walleye fishing coming to a screeching halt here in early September. Usually we have good Walleye through most all of September. Again, you can thank Mother Nature for that one. The really bad weather that we had Labor Day week sent our big schools of migrating Walleyes packing early. Perhaps the traditional fall hotspots such as Vermillion & Huron will have a nice run at them as they work their way west again. Still at 2,274 Walleyes landed this year, this is nothing to sneeze at ! We easily carried a 6 pound plus average. That's thirteen thousand, six hundred and forty four pounds of fish ! Or almost 7 tons of Walleyes ! Even I have to say WOW !!!
Well we won't put those kind of weights together for the remaining 5 weeks of Perch fishing but we should be able to catch a couple of thousand Perch with the remaining trips that I have left providing that the weather holds. A bit of a trade off until you go and sit down at the dinner table ! Man, those Perch are sure tasty ! They may not fight quite like a Walleye or Steelhead or be nearly as challenging to catch but they are fun to fish for. And the fact that they are so good to eat is what really brings my Perch crews back year after year. I still have plenty of open dates for anyone looking. This coming week I have Tue., Wed. & Thur. all available for a Perch trip. October has plenty of days open as well including a few open weekend dates. Speaking of October, we'll be there with next weeks report already . September slipped by pretty dog gone quick ! Well that's it for another week. CYA in October !
Capt. Walt
I have bumped our Perch trips departure time back even further. I am now telling everyone that we are leaving at 6:30am. You still should be at the marina by 6:15 at the very latest to get all loaded up so we can be ready to roll by 6:30am sharp. I myself will still continue to be at the boat right around 6:00am. And for those that still don't know it, there are no fishing licenses at the marina. You need to get those ahead of time. Call me if you have any questions or concerns.
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