It is back to reality after a fun week of fishing Lake Erie. I was joined by Jon B. (Buckshot) from In-Depthangling for 3 days of prefishing. Jon was in search of the biggest walleye of his life and I was in search of the 5 biggest walleye of Jon’s life. Erie didn’t let us down. Attached is one of the biggest walleye brought in during the tournament, a 11 lb 12 ounce walleye caught by Buckshot!
Day one or our prefishing both my boat and Jarrad’s boat pulled cranksbaits suspended over deep water. We started out in areas that Dee Zee had some luck and it didn’t take long to tie into some nice fish. The next picture is a 11.3 lb monster that was caught while pulling cranks. However, after 8 hours of pulling cranks and only 3 fish a change was in order.
For the remainder of Day one I pulled spinners while Jarrad stuck with the crankbaits. We continued to eliminate water but it didn’t take long to figure out it was a spinner bite, as the spinners were getting bit hard and often and by the size of fish we were looking for. This is a picture of Jarrad and his new rig. We spent a lot of hours over the week trolling next to each other so I got to look at the white Lund a lot.
Day 2 of prefishing Jarrad pulled cranks and I pulled spinners. After a day of not being bit on the crankbaits, we were done pulling cranks for the trip. We spent the next 2 days establishing a pattern of depth/speed/blade & bead combinations that was producing 35-40 pounds a fish a day. Then came the snow and cold!!! We were forced to change up our whole program because of the cold and wind that moved in the day before the tournament. Smaller blades and slower speeds were the ticket for the new conditions. However, bites became few and far between. We were in the right spot on Tournament day, but after 3 hours of fishing we had 125 other boats sharing our little spot. This made the competition for those few bites tough. We were lucky to pull a few fish before we got crowded out of our spot. But, that is how it goes. Unfortuately, day 2 was cancelled and we were stuck with our day one weights. Maybe next year!
Great report Scott!!!
I had a great time….thank you.
The 3 days of prefishing with you were a great learning experience.
Congrats to Jarrad for finishing in the top 50.
John
yup…. a good time was had by all! Great report Scott…. and I agree, we have some unfinished business out there to take care of next year.
What a difference a week and a change of weather can make out there!
Looks like you guys adapted well and congrats for the work on dialing them in.
Glad you guys got to experience this fishery, I am hooked for life. I will be going out there for some time to come.
Looking forward to the next trip already!
Nice report! I am heading up there in 2 weeks. Hopefully I come back with the same results! Thanks for the info!
Were there a lot of boats pre-fishing this area? How did all of those boats end up there on tourney day? If it was you and Jarrad’s spot, they should all be patting you guys on the back. Congratulations on a good showing on a HUGE lake! Good luck in the next tourney.
I found these fish the second day of prefishing and we checked them out each day. Every day before the tournament we would make one or two passes through this school the fish were aggressive. We ended up fishing this spot tournament day and we were the only two boats working this area for the first 3 hours of the day. Then slowly boats from around us started moving in. When I say around us I mean miles.LOL
As the wind picked up we had more and more boats fishing this area. By the end of the day I know that over 2/3 of the field was fishing this area.
While prefishing we found 2 other spots that were really producing fish but on Tournament day we decided to stick to our A spot because it was a shorter run and allowed more time to fish. Erie is a big lake and an amazing fishery. We will be back next year to do it again
A few more pictures
Couple nice ones
scott,
Glad to see they came through fine. Thats some real high quality picture taking. Meeting buckshot for lunch, he still has the ear to ear grin of his face.
More Lake Erie Pics.
Dinner Time!
St.Croix Wild River 10-6 rods looking for that pig walleye.
Scott in his boat. Asleep at the wheel?
I have used my St. Croix 10ft. 6 inch Wild River rods for trolling light 3-ways and bait on the river and look forward to trolling cranks with them this summer. St. Croix sure makes some great rods. Also picked up some St. Croix 8ft. 6 inch rods which should work great for both applications too. Thanks for the pics. Looks like you guys had alot of fun. By the size of those eyes in Jarrads pics I know he did for sure.
Thanks, Bill
good report Scott, sure like the pictures you and Jarrad are holding. pretty awesome. may have to check Erie out one of these years. thanks Jack.
What’s nice about the St. Croix Wild River 10-6’s is that during windy days, especially on that body of water, you are able to get that line out of the wave. All one needs to do is just point the rods straight up. That way you don’t get the waves banging you line.
Bill did you get the new telescoping 8’6″?