Lake Erie Gold over Lake Ontario Silver during July 2015

Lake Erie has a way of working in contrast from Lake Ontario. When Lake Erie is angry with monster waves, Lake Ontario’s surface is often more subdue. Where warm water abounds on Lake Erie, Lake Ontario would yank a toe test out of the water in flash. Two years in a row we have observed the most comparable contrast to affect FINtastic Sportfishing and that is in fish catching productivity.

This summer, maybe even more then the summer of 2014, Lake Ontario fishing remains “hung-over” from the preceding cold winter. It continues to sleep in, slow to get up, and not as compliant to stay on a predictable schedule. Lake Erie on the other hand, is boasting the best summer Walleye fishing in many years, maybe even decades.

Current summer fishing status on Lake Erie is nothing short of awesome, but that’s not the only good news story for Lake Erie walleye. In 2014 the walleye hatch was reported to reach the numbers not unlike of the last peak in 2003 due to a cold winter and cool spring in 2014. Although formal reports of the hatch rate in 2015 hasn’t been announced, one can only assume that with a similar cold winter and cool spring in 2015 should be the catalyst to another bumper crop of walleye.

My son is 10 and if his interest continues in the trend of enjoying fishing, he might follow in his dad’s footsteps and might want to have a boat before he has a car at the age of 16. 6 years from now Lake Erie may not only continue to be world class walleye fishing, but it might tower with productivity and shadow all other walleye water destinations if the 2014, and potentially the 2015, crop of Erie walleye fuel the fishery. Aidan might be coming into his own, into the sport, at the perfect time.

This summer we turned focus more on Lake Erie than Lake Ontario, offering booked Lake Ontario Charters the opportunity to instead fish Lake Erie, if the winds would allow. That proved to be very well received and I enjoyed hosting folks more familiar with holding up Lake Ontario silver to instead hold up Lake Erie gold.

My Lake Erie focus began on Canada Day July 1st. That Wednesday the winds were up, rain came down and my clients Paul and wife Anita were at the Crystal Beach boat launch from London with their boat ready to have me onboard for a “On-The-Water Clinic” a package I offer for those who like to have more instruction and show how to utilize the equipment they have on their own boat. The waves were 1 ½ foot to start and we launched and began to run upwind towards Point Abino. His motor began giving Paul problems so we instead changed tactics and turned into the bay to fish for bass. We caught around 6 bass, when I suggested they use the time with me to show how to troll for walleye even though we were many miles from typical walleye waters. The motor ran fine at idle, but we weren’t going to run out and fish off shore so we set up in 25 FOW and trolled with the waves on our stern.

I told Paul and Anita that we will set out a spread not unlike we do for shallow walleye and spring time brown trout on Lake Ontario. 12 lbs test mono main line, deep diving tight action crank baits, and short leads to keep them from grinding into the bottom. I let out the first bait 60 feet back then attached the inline planer board and set it out on the starboard deeper side. I set the next board out on that side of the boat and inside the other board with 50 feet of line out to the bait behind the board. Before I can put out the third rod the first board pulls back. I hand it over to Paul and I watch behind the board waiting to see a smallmouth bass leap out of the water, but it didn’t happen, the fight was typical steady resistance not unlike a walleye. With the net in hand the glossy eyes and mouth rimmed with teeth showed we had a skinny water walleye. This was directly in front of the Crystal Beach Boat Ramp in 22 FOW.

Minutes later the Port side outside board pulled back with a shorter 40 foot lead and Anita cranked another walleye! WOW this is cool. We managed two smallmouth bass and a sheephead trolling for the next 20 minutes and then just before the reef at Windmill Point in 19 FOW the Port side outside board pulls back again but this time the board is heavy, steady pressure and no leaping bronze to the surface 40 feet behind the board. It was a walleye- a good one at that. At about half way to the boat the hooks pulled free and the fish came off. We fished for another 10 minutes when we called it quits as the waves started to build in excess of 3 ft. When we returned to the launch we talked to friends that are hardcore walleye fisherman that fished the 60 foot of water off Point Abino and they were skunked.

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The weekend of July 5th was a holiday south of the border but for Ontario Canada Day was in the middle of the week. This time I launched out of Port Colborne with a 5 person group that was about to experience a very interesting charter package experience. Brent Bochek of Fish NV was to help with accommodating the larger group like we do on other times, but the unique scenario this time is that a full 8 hours of fishing for the 5 guys, 2 boats and two styles of fishing at 4 hours a piece. 4 hours walleye fishing with me and 4 hours bass fishing with Brent. In the morning I took 3 guys and Brent took 2 and then at 10:30 we met up and changed crews so I had 2 in the afternoon and Brent had the other 3. Bass fishing was slow for Brent, but he managed a few for the afternoon guys. Walleye fishing was also slower with the East winds likely having something to do with the soft bite. The morning crew managed 4 walleye with one coming in at just over 9 lbs. The afternoon trip managed 5 walleye and a few that slipped the hook. Great opportunity to have the two different experiences for the 5 guys. I have never heard of this arrangement in the charter business so we might be on to something here.

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The second weekend in July was the CanAm Budwieser Shootout walleye tournament out of Port Colborne. I was stoked since I’ve been out of the walleye tournament scene for a number of years and hearing more positive reports of walleye catch counts intrigued me to enter the tournament with my friends Dave and Rob and our youngest member at 13 years old, Griffin.

Dave and Rob fished a number of times that week off Port Maitland and reported great catches. So I got a GPS coordinate from Dave and at Blast-off we were heading 23 miles west. The day started off with our biggest walleye of the day on a 3 colour Secret Weapon Rig off the Rigger down 15. That fish was our money fish for the tournament and on the official scale marked in at 9.23 lbs. Good enough for 3rd biggest walleye in the tournament and $500 cheque. We caught 11 walleye that day and didn’t lose a single fish, what a great crew. We landed 24th in a 55 boat field with our total weight of 6 fish falling short of being competitive. We needed another 8 lbs fish to swap out our 3.5 lbs walleye and we would have been top three. It’s so interesting to see how close you can be to winning in an event like this.

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Had a trip on the Sunday after the tournament out of Port Colborne and fished off of Mohawk Island in 70-80 FOW. Here’s the biggest of 5 walleye for the short evening trip with Jeff

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Salmon fishing was slow but we managed some good ones on the weekend of July 18 and 19th. Cutbait running deep and slow managed a few bites, but the bulk of the salmon caught were coming from the central and eastern end of the lake with Toronto having the furthest western swing of fish to make a few days with good numbers of mature salmon. Here are a few we managed to scrap up on our side of the lake.

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A few other trips out of Port Maitland, Lake Erie brought in Lake Erie gold. Leadcore on the boards in 5 – 8 colour leadcore lengths worked well. Also 40 Tripz Divers out 275 ft to reach those depths of 50-55 feet down worked well. The best rod by far on the boat all Summer long (July and August) had to be the 3 colour Secret Weapon Rig (SWR) on the rigger. Set the rigger 15 feet above your target depth and keep an eye on the rod tip. A little twitch, grab it, pop it off and let it swing up. It would often buckle over with a walleye using this stealthy set-up.

PANAM Games were in town for nearly the entire month of July. Working for the City of Hamilton (the host city for the Soccer events for the games) meant vacation time would not be available for some staff on standby for emergency planning. In my work field of Geographic Information Sysytems, mapping and information is a tool to emergency operations. I was on standby for the month, but that wasn’t entirely bad. The games ended on the weekend of the July 25th and it meant I can finally take 2 weeks of vacation after the games. The two weeks were planned as an opportunity to fish Lake Ontario during the first week as a “stay-cation” and second week on Lake Erie while we rent a cottage at Port Bruce, for the second week.

The first week of my vacation was the last week of July and I managed a few trips on Lake Ontario and caught a pile of Lake Trout. Many in excess of 15 lbs. Each trip we managed one over 18 lbs.

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The salmon had “checked out” for the week in waters off Grimsby. Some smaller shakers around, but little in the way of sizable salmon to catch. My Wednesday Afternoon Trip was planned to go on Lake Ontario, but I suggested to Harry, let’s go out on Lake Erie instead. Our 2 pm departure out of Port Maitland was delayed slightly. Harry was rear-ended in Dunnville while on route. Damage was extensive, but the car was drivable still so they met up at the ramp after exchanging insurance info and shrugged off the stress off the situation as they stepped on board. I felt bad for them and I knew I had to try extra hard to make the afternoon/eve an enjoyable trip. Our cruise out was smooth as silk and the entire evening was beautiful with calm conditions and biting walleye. Harry’s daughter Faith managed the largest of the night at just over 8 lbs and 9 other decent sized walleye made it to the cooler for them to take home with them. The trunk was still able to pop open on the car and with a few parts to move out of the way and back in their place, the trunk latched with a bit of effort.

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Then it was time to trailer the boat down to Port Bruce on the Friday before the Civic Long Weekend in August. From that Friday on through to Wednesday the winds blew and we enjoyed the first half of our trip doing family day excursions in the area of Alymer and Port Stanley. It wasn’t until the middle of the first week of August that Lake Erie’s Central Basin was about to see the hull of the Key Largo.

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Canada placed a second in the PANAM games medal count a “Silver” rating. Lake Ontario was also given a Silver rating, falling behind the Lake Erie walleye “Gold”.

Shane Thombs
www.FINtasticSportfishing.com