Lake Erie walleye

[OhioFisherman]

If you had good luck on your side of the lake this year it may get better?

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/walleye-catch-rates-highest-recorded-in-20-years-population-set-to-increase-in-lake-erie

[porkpie]

It's hard to imagine better.  We had many trips where the rods started popping the minute we set lines to the minute we'd had enough and pulled them.  But hey I'll take it!  Some very good news for Erie trollers!!

[OhioFisherman]

porkpie, most of my walleye fishing on Lake Erie was back in the 1980's with my dad and one of my brothers, it was the same back then, I don't recall ever spending 8 hours on the water fishing for them, most days we had limits by noon or 1 O clock.

Yep good news for those close to Erie, but in my case most of my family members started going to Ontario to fish for them because of an acute shortage of them in Erie. Once than changed it got difficult or impossible to convince them to make the trip north.

[LeXXington]

Now if the wind on Erie would only co-operate

[b_cdot]

Can't help but feel bad for the guy that lost his thumb to this walleye

[ch312]

I wonder how many walleye it'll take before baitfish and perch populations begin to decline? 

With the insane number of fish out there this year I can't imagine it getting better. We had a couple trips where two of us limited out (6 fish each) with 20-24" fish in less than an hour and threw back smaller and bigger fish up to my season best 33" in the mix. I find the 20-24" are perfect eating size. 

Many times it was pointless even trying to set more than two lines.  

[porkpie]

I am going to do my best to control the population..... Might need some help though LOL.

[OhioFisherman]

11 hours ago, ch312 said:

I wonder how many walleye it'll take before baitfish and perch populations begin to decline? 

With the insane number of fish out there this year I can't imagine it getting better. We had a couple trips where two of us limited out (6 fish each) with 20-24" fish in less than an hour and threw back smaller and bigger fish up to my season best 33" in the mix. I find the 20-24" are perfect eating size. 

Many times it was pointless even trying to set more than two lines.  

ch, that is kind of an interesting question, I really have no idea how it is on the north side of the lake, but on the south side we get huge schools of emerald shiners around the piers and break walls in the fall. I haven't been out in a lot of years now, but some of those schools seemed a 100 yards long. We also get huge schools of shad, and I have caught steelhead that were eating them, so I imagine the walleye do too?

One of the bigger walleye caught in that fall brawl thing here came from Sandusky bay which is fed in part by the Sandusky river, the site of one of our spring walleye runs. The bay is a spawning grounds for a lot of species of fish and is loaded with carp, I wonder if the walleye are feeding on some of the small ones? They are in the same area, it's smaller, eat it? There has to be billions of them swimming around?

I used to net my own bait in area streams on the way to the lake, around the lakefront all the bait stores ever seemed to have was emerald shiners or very small golden shiners as a substitute. If I was fun fishing for smallies I liked bigger minnows, so 4-6 inch chubs were the way to go to limited small fish bites. At times I even had to keep some suckers for bait, but those only seemed to catch walleye, and some of our rivers here that feed Lake Erie have big sucker runs in the spring.

I have never seen a " native " golden shiner in any of our streams here that feed Lake Erie or in the lake itself, but with the bait stores selling small ones by the pound as bait? You have to imagine some are getting into the lake to establish a population?

I have caught steelhead with small perch in their bellies so walleye may not be their only problem? and there seems to be plenty of gobies now?

[OhioFisherman]

13 hours ago, LeXXington said:

Now if the wind on Erie would only co-operate

LOL, always had a love - hate relationship with that lake myself, the best fishing in Ohio, if you can get out.

[Mister G]

On 12/23/2018 at 10:04 PM, LeXXington said:

Now if the wind on Erie would only co-operate

Just use the current conditions to your favor. Heavy winds we drift, light winds we troll.

[OhioFisherman]

Always the plan for me, but some days it still wasn't much fun being out there, rocknroll is music!

 

[Old Ironmaker]

The lake has been as calm as a baby for the last week. Today it is dead clam. Too cold for this old mudder. 

[OhioFisherman]

The weather forecast is saying almost 50 for tomorrow and almost 60 for Friday here John, a bit breezy with 18 mph winds but out of the ssw and se so near shore shouldn't be too bad. Can't recall seeing it, any casting from shore walleye fishing on that side of the lake? It has a cult following on this side and they stick some pigs doing it.

[dave524]

29 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

The weather forecast is saying almost 50 for tomorrow and almost 60 for Friday here John, a bit breezy with 18 mph winds but out of the ssw and se so near shore shouldn't be too bad. Can't recall seeing it, any casting from shore walleye fishing on that side of the lake? It has a cult following on this side and they stick some pigs doing it.

There is a group of die hards that get them all winter at the mouth of the Niagara River all winter at Fort Erie.

[OhioFisherman]

Wondered about that Dave, once they made a comeback on Erie here that late fall shore bite really caught on, and a lot of the piers and shoreline areas are known for it, although some are real sketchy areas to be in at night,