Lake Erie fishing report for the week of May14, 2017: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: May 14, 2017

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[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on May 14, 2017 at 18:20:45:

Getting a few! Season number 31 is well under the way for me and “The Trophy” is already busy plowing the near shore waters off of Ashtabula Harbor. And like I said, we are getting some. Perhaps not limits yet, but not exactly horrible either! This report is not going to be terribly long because I really hadn’t planned on posting anything at all till a little later in May when limits are a little more easy to come by. But I have been getting so many texts and e-mails from my so many faithful followers asking when I was going to resume posting my reports that I thought I would throw something up here for everyone!

Actually it’s a miracle that we are catching anything at all! The first two weeks of May up here along the lake shore have been so cold, so rainy and so WINDY that the lake is really tore up. Even the deeper waters of the central basin here has been one big mud pit. I just can not believe the amount of rain that we have had either. The lake itself and its tributaries are near record high! After being docked at River Marine here in the Ashtabula Harbor for what seems like forever, this is the first time that we have had to actually build a step on the dock just so that my guests could board the boat!

With several trips now under my belt now, I am not at all disappointed by what I am seeing on the fish finders. Dare I say, it’s about as as good looking as it could possibly look for this time of year? Loaded with nice crisp hooks at many different points in the water column with plenty of bait balls thrown in as well to keep these fish that I assume are mostly Walleyes interested. Maybe too much bait with most of these fish well fed and not all that eager to eat our plastic baits! Lots of bait, murky water and cold east, northeast winds for two weeks straight now and like I said, it’s surprising that we are getting as many Walleye as we are! But I do believe that they are there.

Techniques are typical early season shallow water trolling. Aboard “The Trophy” we’ve been pulling our big planer boards and loading them up with a spread of Tru Trip Jet Divers and mostly shallow lipped stick baits. Nothing new here. Marking fish deep but catching the stealth higher fish that you rarely mark as the boat trolls over head and spooks the fish off to one side or the other. I have also this spring bought into the hype over the deep diving “Bandit” crank baits that seems to be all the rage anymore. These cranks pulled off the boards with just straight up braid is really pleasant to work with but I am yet to be convinced that it is more productive then the old Jet program that we’ve pulled for so many years now. We’ll see. So far I would say of the around 20 or so big Walleyes that we’ve captured, its been about 50/50 with the Bandits verses the Jets. We’ll see what this week brings. I have a heavy schedule facing me right off the bat so it shouldn’t take long for me to form a strong opinion! So it’s game on. Check back next week!

Capt. Walt

Trophy Charters





[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

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