More on Lake Erie water levels.

[OhioFisherman]

High Lake Erie water levels causing problems for boaters, marinas | fox8.com

 

https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/05/lake-erie-walleye-are-biting-stocked-trout-in-cleveland-area-is-a-hit-may-24-fishing-report.html?fbclid=IwAR1T4ZmItlld7NQ0fWvIdGca5bREzDSIbbl6D0urX1fZBLAzubQRdnXum7A

Fish are biting? If you can get out? Another good chance of showers and thunderstorms here today.

[Old Ironmaker]

Link brings me to a survey, no thx. Water levels here will never get any lower in my lifetime. Lost 20' of sandy beach that we will never see again according to all the scientists. Something like 750 cubic meters per second dump over the Falls to Lake O. If it is 751 cuft/second Toronto Island and Montreal will be under water. Good bye beach blanket bingo parties. On a selfish note my real estate agent says that loss of sandy beach lowers the selling price by up to $100,000. Just last summer I spent around 4K to fill and reset the undermined armor stone because of the effect of the water level being that much closer to the land. All the shoreline repair guys around here are booked solid. Some will not be able to repair there shoreline breakwalls or have them built because they never needed it before these water levels. They are predicting billions of dollars in damages along the shores of the Great Lakes in the near future. Some lakefront building lots are worthless in our county now because it will be rare to get a building permit now depending on where the 100 year storm line is. They are recalculating the 100 year storm line as we have had something like 4 of them in the last 10 years not 100. 

[OhioFisherman]

LOL, John click on the links with your right hand? both took me to news articles that way.  Oh ya the cost of shoreline repair can get very expensive very quickly, an old family friend from my Avon Lake days was in that business and always seemed to be busy when the weather was good.

[Old Ironmaker]

Right hand, left hand, no hand still a long survey. Plenty of articles out there not just locally. Not that many years back freighters were not able to ship full on the Great Lakes because of harbours being too shallow. One of my neighbours have or should I say had  a pool semi inground. Because the shore  was that much closer then before waves crashing on the breakwall froze much higher up then ever before. Ice ripped that pool right out of the ground. The steel railing and stairs are twisted like pretzels. Actually the stairs that went to the beach are 20 feet out in the lake. That's just 3 doors down, I imagine all the neighbourhoods that probably should have never developed in the 1st place have similar examples. The Fall storm of 86 pulled several cottages into the lake that were never rebuilt. Lawsuits are still ongoing with land owners at something called Hastings Ave. on the west side of Long Point On. The municipality and province will not issue permits to rebuild or even allow trailers on the lots. That was 33 years ago. Long Point has areas that are a few feet above Lake Erie's normal levels whatever that is now. There are several controlled channels that divert water from the bay side to the open lake side. I would think water levels are equal, it isn't that simple. I need to take a drive and see how that area is now. The same problems are present or will  be soon on inland lakes  in all the States and Provinces in the Great Lakes watershed. I remember when I was looking for waterfront property an old timer in my crew said "Buy high and dry." I'm glad I did, the place is a good 30' above the water and now it's an issue. 

Edited May 26, 2019 by Old Ironmaker

[OhioFisherman]

I don't see a survey on those links when I click on them John. The last time I saw Lake Erie was when Deg and Whopper from the board took me fishing in the Island area. We were on a friend of Phil's boat and we left a mud line leaving his dock in West Harbor. East and West harbor here were affected by wind direction, it didn't take too much of a breeze from the south - south west to push water out of ether of them. Hopefully this high water will help the spawn, I know some of those bays I used to fish needed a couple more feet of water the last time I fished them.

Never seen the north shore of Erie, some areas here have cliffs 20 - 30 feet high at the waters edge others no.

[Woodsman]

Link lead me to a survey.

Near the bottom of the survey was a tab "Skip survey".

Then the news story appeared.

[OhioFisherman]

Thanks Woodsman, I run a couple of ad blockers, they may actually protect me from that sort of stuff?

[Old Ironmaker]

Thanks, I see the reports now. As far as navigation on the lake I would rather have low levels than high. At least with low levels I can see some hazards in the blue zone shallows and stay far away from that area. High levels look like you have clear sailing but those hazards maybe inches below. There has been the mast of a wrecked sailboat at the inlet of Nanticoke Harbour where we usually launch, a very busy harbour including massive lake freighters for the Esso oil refinery and Stelco Steel where I worked for a while and commercial fishing. Low levels you can see the mast stick up a foot or so, at high levels it is just below the surface. We have tied jugs to it but they usually disappear after a few weeks. That's just 1 example, there has to be thousands similar out there, maybe hundreds of thousands all tolled. Bang, ouch. 

Edited May 26, 2019 by Old Ironmaker

[OhioFisherman]

I remember the jugs from Pointe Au Baril, your government might have gone broke trying to mark all the hazards there.

[Old Ironmaker]

24 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

I remember the jugs from Pointe Au Baril, your government might have gone broke trying to mark all the hazards there.

No kidding my Buckeye friend. I only fished there once and said I would never put my boat in there. There are many here that fish it as their main lake. They know that water, and better know it well.

Nice talking to you today Ohio while watching the Indy 500. 35 laps to go, a clean race today thank goodness. Ohio goziemas is good morning in Japanese. Good afternoon in Japanese isn't Pennsylvania. It's either konichi wa or konban wa, can't remember. Talk about off topic, again, sorry. It drives my wife nuts. Focus John, focus.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Old Ironmaker

[OhioFisherman]

I sheared a pin on a 5hp motor once there when I was young John, I had spares in my tackle box though, easy fix, still wonder about the cause though, must have been a submerged log because I had been over that area many time with no problems.

Ya it's a challenging area to fish until you get to know where to avoid or proceed with extreme caution, changing water levels just further complicate it.

LOL, drove a couple of wives nuts myself, practice makes perfect!

[AKRISONER]

Ohio I still have no friggin clue how you guys used to navigate without a good GPS unit on your boat. Navionics just did an update and for the first time ever sturgeon bay and the areas to the north of pointe au baril channel are now charted...Not sure I am a big fan of it to be honest. Means more boat traffic for my area and more fishing pressure...oh well i guess.

My brother back when we first got the place in 2008 was out with me in the tinner. There was a jug clear out in the middle of the channel, so we figured ok, thats either a rock right there in the middle, or you are supposed to hang to one side or the other of it, so lets go slow on the right side of the jug and see whats up...going slowly everything seemed fine until i saw a rock ahead of us...so my brother pops her in reverse and we back out and proceed to the left side of the marker...he takes off and boom...wrecks the prop and takes a chunk off of the cavitation plate on the skeg.

Turns out, that marker was marking a rock indeed in the middle...but also there was a rock to the right that was unmarked. I still have no friggin clue how I havent hit anything yet with the big motor. Dont ask me how many times ive ran into rocks with the trolling motor though :S at least those props are plastic and can be replaced on the cheap! My Stainless Prop...not so much!

When the water was low a few years back, my old man banged his prop right in the middle of the S turn...thats how low things were getting.

Edited May 27, 2019 by AKRISONER

[OhioFisherman]

LOL, Akri my first time there was in 1964, so I was just turning 14, GPS back then meant Going Pretty Slow? dead reckoning? make a mistake and end up dead?

Never really had a boat there capable of any speed, and it was so much different than the waters here, much more caution and a paper  chart on the boat at all times, the guy on the bow of the boat was the rock watcher!

I saw enough small motors there at the bait store with busted up lower units to seriously want to avoid hassles like that after driving 500 miles to fish!

[dave524]

51 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

LOL, Akri my first time there was in 1964, so I was just turning 14, GPS back then meant Going Pretty Slow? dead reckoning? make a mistake and end up dead?

Never really had a boat there capable of any speed, and it was so much different than the waters here, much more caution and a paper  chart on the boat at all times, the guy on the bow of the boat was the rock watcher!

I saw enough small motors there at the bait store with busted up lower units to seriously want to avoid hassles like that after driving 500 miles to fish!

I was 14 in '64 too, same year I remember going with a friend and his parents to their place just south of Point au Baril,   near Brooks Landing at the end of Dillon Road,  same thing,  rocks everywhere and many  in a place you would not expect, middle of what you would think be open water. 

Edited May 27, 2019 by dave524

[AKRISONER]

2 hours ago, dave524 said:

I was 14 in '64 too, same year I remember going with a friend and his parents to their place just south of Point au Baril,   near Brooks Landing at the end of Dillon Road,  same thing,  rocks everywhere and many  in a place you would not expect, middle of what you would think be open water. 

you cant trust "open water" with a GPS its not so bad because for the most part you can follow drive lines, aside from that though all bets are off. There are random rocks in the middle of huge basins. By far my favourite shoal in the lake though is the one right smack dab in the middle of the shawanaga river. You can drive straight down that river and its between 15 and 35 feet the whole way and just as you are about to get into the opening theres a rock that spans across the entire river. Easy to spot non locals when fishing in there. They always try to run right over the shoal. Im usually a nice guy, if you slow down and are respectful as you pass me fishing Ill warn you...if you blow past at full throttle, you are on your own. Ive seen a few lower ends taken off.

[OhioFisherman]

6 hours ago, dave524 said:

I was 14 in '64 too, same year I remember going with a friend and his parents to their place just south of Point au Baril,   near Brooks Landing at the end of Dillon Road,  same thing,  rocks everywhere and many  in a place you would not expect, middle of what you would think be open water. 

Hmmm, I was born in 51, the mind is starting to go! LOL

[OhioFisherman]

3 hours ago, AKRISONER said:

you cant trust "open water" with a GPS its not so bad because for the most part you can follow drive lines, aside from that though all bets are off. There are random rocks in the middle of huge basins. By far my favourite shoal in the lake though is the one right smack dab in the middle of the shawanaga river. You can drive straight down that river and its between 15 and 35 feet the whole way and just as you are about to get into the opening theres a rock that spans across the entire river. Easy to spot non locals when fishing in there. They always try to run right over the shoal. Im usually a nice guy, if you slow down and are respectful as you pass me fishing Ill warn you...if you blow past at full throttle, you are on your own. Ive seen a few lower ends taken off.

As I recall you had to stay left going in on that one, got some good smallies there once, but never again.

 

[AKRISONER]

2 hours ago, OhioFisherman said:

As I recall you had to stay left going in on that one, got some good smallies there once, but never again.

 

It’s the Walleye Fishing that people go there for. There is definitely big smallies that spawn in there that then seem to move back out when finished up.

 

caught an absolutely monster there a couple weeks back. second biggest smallie of my life while trying to drop shot some walleye. She didn’t even leave the net or water, hook popped out and I dumped her right back in.

[OhioFisherman]

Oh for sure Akri, that has been the most well known area for them since I was a kid. My dad got a 46 inch pike in there on one of his walleye opener trips, it was probably in there feeding on walleye.

[Old Ironmaker]

Remind me why I won't put my boat in there. When we were young and bullet proof we had a camp on The Ottawa. Dead heads pop up when you least expect it. We ran the rapids in the 14'ers. We would sit on the dock and take bets on which big bass boat was going to take the bottom end out of their 200 HP engines running the rapids. We towed more than a few Yanks in. Met many an Ohioan there. The oldtimers from Ohio had trained at Camp Petawawa prior to going overseas and obviously fell in love with the place. Something like a 16 hr drive for them. 8 hours for us from Hamilton with good traffic on the 401. 

[OhioFisherman]

13 hours ago, Old Ironmaker said:

Remind me why I won't put my boat in there. When we were young and bullet proof we had a camp on The Ottawa. Dead heads pop up when you least expect it. We ran the rapids in the 14'ers. We would sit on the dock and take bets on which big bass boat was going to take the bottom end out of their 200 HP engines running the rapids. We towed more than a few Yanks in. Met many an Ohioan there. The oldtimers from Ohio had trained at Camp Petawawa prior to going overseas and obviously fell in love with the place. Something like a 16 hr drive for them. 8 hours for us from Hamilton with good traffic on the 401. 

The absence of the blue pike and walleye fishing here drove a lot of people from Ohio to Ontario to fish for them, my dad took us to the Kingston - Bellevue area back in 1957 so they could fish for walleye. Even Pointe Au Baril had an Ohio connection, a bunch of people from one or more of the areas businesses had summer homes or cottages there.

[Old Ironmaker]

Belleville Ohio? That's the Bay of Quinte in the east end of Lake Ontario, a magnificent Walleye fishery. 

[OhioFisherman]

43 minutes ago, Old Ironmaker said:

Belleville Ohio? That's the Bay of Quinte in the east end of Lake Ontario, a magnificent Walleye fishery. 

Well we stayed at cabin on Beaver Lake near Erinsville, a family friend and his family had the cabin right next to ours. I don't believe they ever went to the Bay of Quinte to fish, but I do recall us going to another lake in that general area for a day, Devil's Lake.

[Old Ironmaker]

Yes my Buckeye friend there is a Bellevue Ontario, sorry. It is north of Sault St. Marie. That's way up north. When I was playing ball in a semi pro league we flew there in ancient DC-3's. I have been to the Sault as we call it many times as there is an integrated steel plant there. Flying above that area of Ontario it looks like there is more water dotted across the land than It has land to stand on. It was Algoma Steel when I was working in the steel industry. I read my company is interested in purchasing it now that the 25% steel tariffs your guy in Warshinton slapped on is has been lifted. They would buy the place just because it has Coke Ovens and basically shut the rest down, just as they did at Stelco Hamilton.  There will never be another Coke battery built again in Canada at least because of emissions.  

[OhioFisherman]

Belleville Ohio - Bellevue  Ohio, LOL John, we have both here in Ohio too.