Erie Western Basin

[RickyP]

My boat is at Toledo Beach Marina just south of Monroe, MI. I am curious as to how others view the season so far. For myself, who became an addicted troller 4 or 5 years ago, it has been tough so far. My usual program of dipsies and stingers hasn't produced nearly as consistently as in years past. We seem to mark a fair amount of fish, with very few suspended. Almost all of them seem to be within a foot or 2 of bottom. I have caught very few fish from the 12-14 ft range.

It also seems as if this year has produced prolific numbers of mayflies. The first hatch I saw was the first weekend in June and Sunday morning my boat was covered again. This is going on 6 weeks worth of mayfly hatch. I don't remember it being this long and dragged out in prior years. We were fishing yesterday and I still am seeing mounds of what appears to be mayfly larva on the bottom waiting to hatch.

The weather patterns seem to be off this summer also. We have yet to experience an extended period of stable summer weather. The fronts come through every 2 or 3 days accompanied by wind and storms.

Please share your thoughts. Thanks.

[Johnnyg]

Well so far this has been A great season for me.
We have limited out 7 of 9 times out. The 2 times were in the heart of the may fly hatch, we still got 2/3rds of a limit.
Missed alot of the May season due to work.
We limited out Friday afternoon in 4hrs(24 fish) around G can / weather bouy. Middle of the day started at 3:30pm.
First part of the season the boards were great, it's about 50/50 now.

[j9f]

Interesting topic. I fish out of Brest Bay. I am now 31 and don't remember not trolling for walleye so I can't tell you how long I have been fishing the area. You are pretty on with your assesment in my opinion. A lot of very good recreational fishermen and charters have been struggling also. Things have picked up in the past few weeks.

There are a lot of excuses. This year was a strong mayfly hatch for the Monroe area. There have been worse, but not in the past five years. The hatch was very early and lasted over two weeks. There have been a few stragglers this week, but not much really. In the past, I have always belived that the hatch produced the best fishing of the year. This year, there were some areas that were so thick on the surface that you could not troll through them. It also shut down some of the drifters.

The strange thing is that the hatch was very early yet the water temp is very slow in coming up. That is another popular excuse around the area. Unstable weather being another. The fish have been moving around. You hit them hard one afternoon and they are gone by the next morning.

Another excuse earlier was the dirty water. Problem was that we were catching 5-7" eyes like crazy at times. More than I have EVER seen. I don't know the science of it, but I would be really suprised if the year old eyes see that much better than a 15 - 30" fish. It could be that there are so many young agressive hungry fish that the larger eyes were forced elsewhere or something like that.

We have been catching a lot of suspended fish for the past two weeks over deeper water than most years.

I basically think the lake is on a different schedule than normal this year. Early ice out, excellent bite (and weather) during the spawn, early and long mayfly hatch and cooler water temps due to a stormy and cool June. I am hoping that the lake is just behind schedule, we'll know by the end of this month.

If nothing else it has been more challenging than the past few years which has been fun. It was getting too easy in past years if you were fishing for numbers.

[Trophy]

I trailer my boat so I can access the "hot" bite no matter where it is. I have been running out of Wild Wings all summer so far,and have been fishing the West Sister area up to G-can. I have had an excellent season so far. I haven't had many trips that didn't result in a limit, or a few short. On days that we have a good drift fish have been agressive on harnesses, flat days I've had good numbers off spoons. I really can't say this year seems different than any other with the exception of the hatch from last year being everywhere. I caught about a dozen again today.

[Wallywings123]

I`ve only fished Erie for 4 years now but this has definitely been the toughest.On the bright side though, it gives you a chance to try presentations you might not normally try and it makes you feel pretty good when one of those starts catching fish.

[RickyP]

I guess I have been spoiled. Erie can do that to you. The last 3 or 4 years I could get a 3 or 4 person limit of decent fish in 3 or 4 hours without crossing the Maumee shipping channel until the middle of July. Then the weather always seemed to cooperate for those long runs out to West Sister when the fish moved out to deeper cooler water.

As you said j9f, the early season was really good. Had several limit catches down around Turtle Island in April. Also did really well in early to mid May trolling just over the Ohio line. Then about mid to late May, the fish seemed to scatter as we had several big blows. For the most part since then, we've had to work hard to get 5 to 15 fish per trip. I've been anxious to fish the West Sister G-can area but it seems like the weather conditions are never right.

I'll be fishing Friday through Monday this weekend, and if the weather cooperates I will try the long run to West Sister/G-can area. If not I will give it a shot in the deeper Ohio waters off Stoney Point which you mentioned in another post. Last weekend we were aroung e-bouy which produced slow results. We marked a lot of fish, but only managed a catch rate of about 1 per 1/2 hour.

I hope we do better, but even if we don't, it has been a great year. Just a little slower than the last 3 or 4.