Lake Erie (Vermilion) 6/13

Sunny and calm, not exactly the ideal Walleye fishing conditions. A couple of friends and I hit Lake Erie out of Vermilion hoping for a day of casting for Walleye. The reports have been good and one of the guys that were with me had a phenomenal day on Tuesday. The weather forecast said that there would be winds out of the North at 10 – 20 mph and the waves would be 1′ – 3′. We got out on the lake at about 8:30am to find no wind and the lake was like glass. Having left 90% of the trolling gear at home, we had no choice but to go with our original plan of casting weight forward spinners tipped with night crawlers.

We started off in 28′; of water, that’s where they had been biting on Tuesday. We began casting 3/8 ounce Erie Dearies and 5/8 ounce Parrish lures in a variety of colors. We immediately began to catch fish, but they were the wrong species, mostly Sheepshead with a few White Perch mixed in. We didn’t land our first Walleye until about an hour in to the trip. It was about a 3 lb. fish and came off a green Parrish lure. We caught 2 more Walleye within the next hour, another 3 lb’r and a 5 lb..fish the would be the biggest of the day.

As we casted, we noticed that the trollers were having a great day. We turned on the radio and found out that they were hitting in 30′ of water on Stingers spoons on size 20 Jet Divers at 2mph -2.5 mph. Figures that we didn’t have a single spoon in the boat. We tried flat lining crankbaits (Reef Runners and Thuderstick Jrs.) only the find out that the Sheepshead liked them very much. We tried trolling for a couple of hours then decided to go back to casting. We hadn’t produced a lot of fish, but at least they were the target species.

We went back in to 25′ of water a resumed casting. We did mange to boat 2 more Walleye, another 3 lb’r and one that went about 15″. We let the little one go and added the 3 lb’r to the cooler. It would be the last Walleye of the day. We gave it a valiant try, but the weather was not on our side. Who would have believed that after the spring we have had that anyone would be complaining about 77 degrees and sunny? I guess that only a Walleye angler can understand.