Fishing Reports

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I keep hearing more about last weekend.  For trollers another good crankbait report came in from SE and SW of West Sister.  Reef Runners (cheap sunglasses, gold shiner, and firetiger) 40-60' back at 1.7 to 2.0 mph caught limits.  For casters harnesses with gold hammered blades at a 10 to 15 count caught walleye.  Yellow perch limits were caught 400 yards due east of the Gull Island Shoal buoy in 42' of water.

On another note a Denied reader that trailers his boat up Ohio state route 4 said that just south of route 20 on the northbound lane of route 4 there are potholes that tore up his trailer.  It might not be a bad idea to avoid the area if possible.

This Friday and Saturday the Saginaw Bay Walleye Club-Michigan Walleye Tour is in town.  The tournament will go out of Catawba State Park both days and could have up to 120 boats.  If you are coming up you might want to find an alternate launch like Mazuric or the West Harbor Ramp to avoid parking frustrations.

Marc and I are going to fish the tournament.  We'll be pre-fishing on Thursday and in the tourney Fri./Sat.  I won't be posting the next few days, but I'll summarize where we fished and how we did by the end of the weekend.

The latest observation at the South Bass weather station (the Vermilion buoy is apparently down) has 17 knot S winds, 70 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

More reports of great walleye fishing continue to come in.  The most recent reports are all from West Sister and all were limits.  The spots were 4 miles SE of West Sister (should be around "B" can) in 26 to 28' of water, E of the pack that was S of West Sister, and W of West Sister in 24 to 26' of water.

Techniques that worked included 2 ounce snap weights (50 feet, 2 ounce snap weight, 50 feet, then the board) with harnesses (rainbow/gold blades) at 1.5 to 1.7 mph and occasionally stopping the motor; 1.5 ounce bottom bouncers with harnesses (size 6 holograph blades) at 1.3 mph; and deep diving reef runners (emerald shiner, chartreuse head wonderbread, mud minnow) 66 feet back.

I like catching fish any way that will work, but it was good to get a crankbait report.  Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can only catch fish on harnesses or spoons this time of year.  The crankbaits, by the way, took fish up to 28".

There are scattered thunderstorms in the forecast the next few days, but Friday is the only wind forecast with anything over 10 knots (15 knots for Friday).  Between storms the catch-fest should continue.  I did hear that a few mayflies have started hatching, but I haven't seen it first hand yet.  When they are in full hatch it can make fishing a little tougher, but they certainly can still be caught.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot SW winds, no waves, 70 degree water temperature, 78 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

The only word to sum up this weekend is "Wow"!  From the number and quality of reports this might have been the best weekend of walleye fishing in the last few years.  Walleye were caught in a lot of places a lot of different ways.  The weather has finally lined up at a time that a lot of fish are around.  Here is a summary of the best spots from the most recent reports:

North of Gull Island Shoal, east along the border (good size, slightly less than limits).
West of West Sister and 3 miles south of W. Sister (limits).
North of "D" and "E" cans of the range (limits up to 26").
North of North Bass, around the red can (limits and big fish).
Michigan- Edison stacks and Stoney Point in 20-21' of water (limits).

The only "slow" walleye report came from Beaver Creek, but that area will pick up as the fish move east.

All walleye reports came on harnesses or spoons.  Spoon colors mentioned included confusion and chicken wing.  Harness colors mentioned were gold, and the following Northland colors- Rainbow Chub, Golden Shiner and Silver Shiner.  Line-out lengths greatly varied.  For jet20's 40 back, for Jet30's 80, 120, 50, 90, 100, 110 and 120, dipsy's 65 and 80 back, and don't forget the 1.5 ounce bottom bouncer 25 back.  The only report that specifically mentioned speed was 1.5 to 2.0 mph.

For yellow perch fish were caught in good number and size 0.5 mile north of the Toledo water intake.  Spreaders with metallic blue blades outfished anything else (remember that from last year?)  There must be something to those blue metallic blades.

Perch were also caught (by Marc) north of Kelleys Island shoal.  It was slow going at times, but they caught some good fish up to a whopping 14".  Marc was using single hooks to feel the bite.

That's it for now.  Thanks for all of the information.  Let's hope this action keeps up.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 3 knot E-SE winds, no waves, 72 degree water temperature, 77 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Check out the water temp.  In just over a week it went from the upper 50's to 70.

Travis

The early reports from the weekend are confirming what most of us expected.  There are a lot of walleye being caught.  Out west the walleye have been hitting north of West Sister Island in 28 feet of water and also southwest of West Sister and "A" can.  The best reports have come from trollers pulling harnesses behind bottom bouncers or inline weights (2 ounces).  Chartreuse or gold blades worked well.  Around the islands I've received reports from north/northwest of Niagara reef in 25 to 30' of water and also between Middle Bass Island and Middle Island.  Around Niagara spoons and worm harnesses took equal numbers of fish with coppermellon being the best spoon color.  West of Middle Island Jet40's with harnesses caught fish at 100' back, with 25' back catching a few.  Green, copper, and chrome blades all caught fish.  Yellow perch were caught in 35' of water near the Lucy's point buoy, but the size was small at 7-8".

I didn't get any reports from the Kelleys Island area, but earlier in the week that's where the big walleye were coming from.  I heard of one that was over 31" and 12.2 pounds.

The wind and temperature forecast looks great for the forseable future.  The only question mark is what the possible thunderstorms will bring Tuesday through Thursday.  Other than that the fantastic fishing should continue.

I want to thank everyone for all of the reports coming in.  You guys are what makes this site useful, I just summarize what you tell me.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 3 knot S-SE winds, no waves, 64 degree water temperature, 68 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

Based on second-hand reports it was very good again today before the storms got here.  Some spots not included in yesterday's report that have been good are the Kelleys Island airport reef, E/SE of Gull Island Shoal, SW of Gull Island Shoal in 34' of water, and the Camp Perry "D" can.  Harnesses either trolled or drifted near the bottom continue to rule, and weapon-style lures are working for anglers casting out west.

Today I had two requests for information about the crawler harnesses that I use.  I tie my own and the following is a description of them:

I use 20 pound fluorcarbon and tie 5 ft long harnesses.  I use size 1/0 octopus style wide gap gamakatsu hooks.  I use two hooks about 3 inches apart from point to point.  I use plastic quick change clevises so that I can quickly change blades.  Most of my harnesses have chartuese, red, or purple beads to space the spinner from the first hook (I don't mix bead colors very often, I just use one color on each harness).  Size 5 colorado blades are the smallest that I use, with size 7 magnum willows being the largest.  Most of my harnesses have a single blade, either colorado or magnum willow.  For central basin trolling I run willow blades because they pull better at higher speeds, and sometimes I will use harnesses with two willows.

I always use a ball bearing swivel and a cross lock snap at the terminal end.  That way I can attach the harnesses directly to an inline weight, bottom bouncer, jet diver, or dipsy.  With a dipsy I will sometimes use a snubber, but I'm not convinced that they are necessary.

Some commercially available harnesses have at least one treble hook, but in my experience they just snag more often when fished near the bottom, compared to octopus style hooks.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 7 knot E-SE winds, 0.7 feet waves, 58 degree water temperature, 61 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

Two good western basin reports came in today.  Camp Perry "A" can produced again on bottom bouncers and harnesses.  Rainbow trout and green/red blades were best.  North of West Sister (N 41 47.127 W 83 07.184) was also hot with jet20's back 62 and 80 feet with confusion and orange crush stinger spoons.  I'm not sure if the reporter noticed or not, but the coordinates were dead on a contour line.  I plugged the numbers into my Lakemaster computer mapping software and the waypoint was glued on a contour.  It just goes to show that if you find an area with fish it pays to focus on structural features in the vicinity.  Many days I've put in waypoints on each hit only to watch the waypoints line up on contours that I wasn't even intentionally fishing over.  For situations like that map cards with contours are invaluable to stay on the spots, but even without contours you can continually hit your earlier waypoints and stay on the best spots.  Open water "roaming" walleye are much less random than they sometimes seem to be.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 7 knot S winds, no waves, 58 degree water temperature, 64 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

As far as I'm concerned this is prime time for western basin walleye.  The forecast is awesome (other than possible storms Thursday/Friday) with 2 feet or less predicted through Sunday.  All winds are from southerly directions and temperatures are in the 70's and 80's.  Big fish are still around and limits with some trophies are possible.  At the risk of being over-enthusiastic this could be one of the best weeks we've seen in quite a while.  If you are able to get out in the next week this is the time to do it.  I'm tied up through the weekend, but I'll be out a few times next week.  Right now you can fish in a lot of different places from Toledo to Huron and catch fish drifting or trolling.  My starting point (since I chase big fish) would be "up the middle" (the area from North Bass to Gull Island Shoal and Kelleys Island) or around Pelee, but there are a lot of other areas that will produce fish.

The latest reports that included limit catches came from the "E" buoy area and the Gravel Pit, along with one mile north of "A" can of the Camp Perry range.  The "A" can fish were caught on bottom bouncers and harnesses with rainbow trout colored blades.  The Gravel Pit fish were caught on gold harnesses.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot SE winds, no waves, 56 degree water temperature, 57 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

I wanted to add a few more thoughts to yesterday's post.  I mentioned speed control, but never told you how fast we were going.  Speed didn't seem to be as critical as my last time out, but we stayed under 1.5 and we were usually around 1.1 to 1.3.  Changing speed by stopping or turning was not necessary, we got hits just by staying in 20 to 25 feet of water.  I also didn't mention how fun it was catching those fish in extremely clear water.  We could see the fish a long way from the boat as we were reeling them in.

Today was rough with winds around 30 knots and waves at the buoy around 4 feet.  A few more reports from the yesterday came in.  Two more spots that produced walleye were 2 miles west of Kelleys Island in 30 to 33' of water and also on the border north of Lucy's Point of Middle Bass.  The fish were caught on 2 to 3 ounce bottom bouncers 90 to 125' back with pink willow leaf crawler harnesses, #1 dipsy's on a 3 setting 60' back with gold harnesses, and jet30's with spoons 150' back.  Good spoon colors included orange crush and anything copper or gold.  The only speed mentioned was 1.7 mph.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 17 knot N-NW winds, 2 feet waves, 54 degree water temperature, 53 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

Dad and I had our best day of walleye fishing this year.  The morning started out rough with 20 knot NW winds and rough seas.  We took our time and cruised for over an hour to go to the NE corner of Pelee Island.  Once we got east of Pelee it wasn't bad, but trolling bags were still necessary for speed control.  From 8:45 to 12:30 we caught 12 walleye.  Most were from 5 to 7 pounds with one that was only 3 pounds or so and one that was 29" and 10.5 pounds.  We stayed a few more hours but only caught one more walleye off of Pelee.  All but two of the fish were caught on worm harnesses fished behind inline weights.  2 ounces 20' back was best, but 1.5 ounces 20 back also worked.  All of the fish were caught in 20 to 25' of water.  The same size 5 green (painted) colorado blades that worked well a few weeks ago worked again.  Another blade that caught fish was a size 5 chrome colorado blade with some purple on it.  A Tennessee Shad deep husky jerk 90 back took two of the fish.

On the way back in we stopped W-SW of Gull Island Shoal in 40' of water and on one last pass caught a 28.5" 8 pound walleye on a 2 ounce inline 40' back with a harness that had a size 7 magnum willow blade.

All in all it was a great day.  It was nice to catch numbers of fish with such a good average size.  We only caught a few drum.  The water temp was 57 and the walleye hit hard and put up a good fight.  3 or 4 of the fish actually sunk boards.

There were very few other boats up around Pelee, we were mostly by ourselves.  There were two decent packs, one north of gull island shoal and one W-SW of gull island shoal (where we caught the last walleye).  From talking to some guys at the ramp it sounds like there were a lot of fish caught today.

Unfortunately the Sunday forecast isn't very favorable with 15 to 25 knot winds and 3 to 5's predicted.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 9 knot S winds, 0.7 feet waves, 56 degree water temperature, 57 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

Today was a windy day with a few thunderstorms.  At times wind gusts approached 30 knots.  This whole week hasn't been the best weather, but a few reports have come in.  Walleye were caught in less-than-limit numbers between crib reef and niagara reef in 20 to 26', and also in 17' of water west of the Toledo Lighthouse.  The reef fish were bigger, in the 22 to 26" range with the Toledo fish less than 20".  Jet40's back 40 to 60 feet (with spoons I assume) caught the reef fish and gold harnesses caught the Toledo fish.

This weekends' forecast is fishable, but includes winds up to 20 knots from the west and southwest, becoming northwest by Sunday night.  I'm planning on fishing Saturday for sure and possibly Sunday.  I'm still trying to decide whether or not to head up to Pelee or stay around Kelleys for some big post-spawn females.  It will be a game time decision.  For limits the reef complex, west sister island and Toledo area are still great choices.  Also the West Reef/Northwest Reef area should produce some big fish this time of year.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 19 knot WNW winds, 3 feet waves, 53 degree water temperature, 53 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

A report from Monday said that a limit of walleye was caught trolling jet 20's and small spoons around D can and south of Niagara Reef. The fish were 20 to 24".

Marc wanted me to mention that he messed up the smallmouth season in his post a few days ago.  The catch and release season runs through June 23, and they can be legally kept starting June 24.  I corrected his post below to reflect the right date.  If that's the worst mistake that he makes this year he'll be in better shape than me.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 7 knot W winds, 0.7 feet waves, 53 degree water temperature, 55 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

To echo some of what Marc said yesterday the best bites that I've heard of from the weekend were the "D" can area and also from "A" can towards West Sister.  A report from yesterday said that trolling west of the rattles was slow.

It won't be long until Huron to Vermilion starts picking up.  Reports from the Castle have been slow, but the fish caught have been in the Fish Ohio class.  Another area to keep in mind is around Pelee Island.  The walleye season opened in Ontario waters this past Saturday and the is prime time to catch big fish up there.  Be careful of the nets SW and SE of Pelee.  It can be like running a gauntlet at times.  They don't mark them very well.  Sometimes beat-up empty jugs are all that you will see if you missed the flags.  Unlike Ohio trap nets that are set on the bottom the Ontario gill nets may be near the surface and you don't want to run over them.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 15 knot SW winds, 2 feet waves, 53 degree water temperature, 51 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

Marc here again! Travis couldn't get on because I was working on the website. Please note that the Camp Perry weekly firing range schedule is now active (See above) If you fish this area you should check it out. We will update the weekly schedules as we get them from the range officers.

With the weather acting up again the fishing reports have been slow but we are getting some. Bottom bouncers and harnesses with gold spinners are taking walleye and purple jigs are still taking them too but not as fast and furious as a week or two ago except in the Maumee Bay area. The best jig bite has been very early in the mornings. Some of the charters are leaving the docks at 5 AM to take advantage of it. A can, L Can and D Can showed promise this week with some big fish up to 11 pounds showing up but mostly 2003's in the 18 inch size. Maumee Bay out to the Channel markers continues to be one of the better spots . Some reports of undersize fish are showing up at Maumee Bay and that has some of us wondering if the 2004 hatch may have been a success in at least a couple areas. These are the first possible 2004's that I've heard of being caught and I had been under the impression that the 2004 hatch had been dismal at best. Hopefully the DNR's test nets will give some hope for better news.

The trollers best reports came from north of Kelleys and the Rattlesnake/ North Bass areas. Spoons and jets appear to be taking the majority of the fish at Kelleys and harnesses west of the islands. Trollers are also having some luck around L and A cans but the fish are smaller with some 3-5 pounders taken.

Not many perch reports are coming in but Lucy's Point, west of Kelleys near American Eagle Shoal and north of Vermilion and Old Woman Creek had some fish taken.  East of Gull Shoal had one great report with lots of jumbo's on ice.

No one is talking about smallmouth but while at Cranberry Creek on Saturday on of the guys said they did well at the castle and down to Sherrod Park earlier in the week but Saturday was slow. Note:All smallmouth must be released immediately until June 24th during this closed smallmouth season.

The water temps dropped up to 6 degrees in some areas and that has turned the fish off from the good bite that was going on. With a few days of stable temps and calm winds the bite should pick up again. Let's all hope for gradual warming instead of the rapid increase in water temps we had last year that sent all those catchable walleyes east.

Dead sheephead have been a hot topic of conversation recently. There is some good discussion going on over at the Sea Grant site about it. There is also a good story on Gobies and Smallmouth by Steve Pollick in the Toledo Blade.

Have fun catching and send in those reports!
Marc

Today the temperatures fell throughout the day and we got some gale winds.  At least the wind was from the SW.  I doubt that many people ventured too far from shore today.

I received Turtle Creek report from the past few days.  It sounds like the best bite has moved out around "L" can, and even up to "A" can.  Worm harnesses, either trolled or drifted, have been the bait of choice.

Yesterday I added a new helpful hints page (see the link above), and I added some more information to it today if you are interested.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 21 knot SSW winds (the South Bass station topped out at 35 knots this afternoon), 4.6 feet waves, 53 degree water temperature, 56 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

Some rain is coming through this evening and the wind picked up a little bit.  The 10 day forecast has precipitation listed on every day with highs in the 50's and lower 60's throughout.  The good news is that the offshore forecast has winds primarily out of southerly directions through Saturday.  I also don't mind seeing the cooler temps.  After last summer was so hot I don't want to see a repeat and have the big fish leave so quickly again.

Reports have said that the Toledo Harbor Light produced walleye limits on Sunday with jumbo perch mixed in, all on purple hair jigs without minnows.  Monday the same group that reported success on Sunday went to the same area and zeroed.  A Tuesday report from Kelleys Island only produced two walleye that came on a drift in 33' feet of water NE of the island.  Drifting harnesses near the bottom caught the two fish after trolling didn't catch any fish.

If you have been out lately you have no doubt noticed all of the dead drum floating around.  The following is copied directly from the ODNR weekly Lake Erie fishing report and explains what has been found to this point:

"In the past few weeks many dead freshwater drum have been reported floating on Lake Erie and washing up on the shoreline.  Samples have been taken from the drum and all symptoms point toward a viral infection.  A lab analysis will be available in 6 to 8 weeks to confirm the cause of the die off.  Although a few other species have been found with the drum there is no evidence of the viral symptoms in anything but drum.  The other species found dead are common this time of year and can most likely be attributed to normal spawning stress induced mortality.  The drum die off will continue to be monitored and results of the lab analysis will be reported when available."

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 11 knot E winds, less than 1 foot waves, 54 degree water temperature, 58 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

A few more reports have confirmed that Saturday was definitely very slow, and that Sunday was much better.  Walleye were caught 0.25 miles west of Niagara on jet40's 40 to 50' back with Pooh Bear stinger spoons.  K can continues to be a good bite, but is best just before sunrise and then slows down.  Maumee Bay is producing a lot of fish.  That bite should be at its peak right now and will continue to produce fish as the Maumee River walleye migrate out. Another good area the last two days has been north of West Reef and North Bass Island.  I heard about a 4 man limit in less than 5 hours today on harnesses trolled behind inline weights.  Yellow perch were caught yesterday east of Gull Island Shoal with 94 perch landed by 4 people

Yesterday I failed to congratulate everyone that did well in the LEWT.  Like many others I was left wondering "what if" considering that one good fish would have moved us way up.  We had a few fish on that I believe would have been the kicker we needed, but it wasn't meant to be.  Yesterday was a great weigh-in with lots of teams within striking distance, the teams that finished at the top deserve a lot of credit.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot ESE winds, less than 1 foot waves, 53 degree water temperature, 53 degree air temperature, and rising barometric pressure.

Travis

The WBSA LEWT tournament was postponed on Saturday and moved to today because of the winds Saturday morning.  Although there weren't any of Lake Erie's famous 5 fish 40 pound limits, there were a lot of fish caught.  32 pounds from north of Kelleys won the tourney.

Dad and I finished 15th with just over 20 pounds.  We had a great day, we just didn't land that kicker fish over 8 pounds that we needed to get into the top 10.  We caught 10 walleye along the south shore of Middle Bass, mostly SW of the old Lonz's Winery.  All of the fish that we caught came on one ounce inline weights 30' behind the boards with crawler harnesses fished right around 1 mph.  We lost nearly as many fish as we landed.  We were going so slow it was hard to get good hook ups.  Even at the slow speeds it still took a turn or complete stop to trigger hits.  Some times the board was completely dead in the water and then would sag back when it got hit.  One trick that helped keep our speed low was to keep the big motor in gear (even though it was turned off) while we were trolling just in gear with the kicker.  Having the big prop in gear creates extra drag.  Others caught fish at higher speeds, but that's what worked for us.

We were in 31 to 33' of water most of the time and bright green blades with red or chartreuse beads were our hot colors.  We had a good fish hit a deep husky 120' back, but it got off 20' from the boat.  We really learned a lesson in speed this weekend.  On Friday we fished from 1.2 to 1.4 mph and didn't catch fish when others did.  Saturday was tough for everyone and we only caught two.  Even though Saturday was tough the two fish came at 0.9 mph and that's why we trolled so slow today.  0.9 to 1.1 mph produced all of our fish.  This was definitely a post-spawn, post-cold front bite.

Tourament fish were caught around Kelleys, Middle Bass and North Bass to name a few places that I know of.  Drifters have caught fish around the Toledo Harbor Light and K and L cans.  A good perch report came in from 35' of water off of Beaver Park.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot E winds, less than 1 foot waves, 51 degree water temperature, 50 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

I'm really in a rut.  I found a lot of fish today and caught a total of one smallmouth bass.  I trolled inline weights, snap weights, jet divers and bottom bouncers all with harnesses, and also some crankbaits.  The fish were north of North Bass and around Rattlesnake, but they weren't interested in my offerings.  That wasn't the case for everyone.  1.5 miles west of Green Island limits were caught the last two days on jet 20's with spoons trolled 20 to 25' below the surface.  The fish were 17 to 26 inches.

Marc wanted me to pass along that Dean Clifton is doing well.  He has been busy catching up on chores that have built up over the past 25 years.

Marc also said to mention that WBSA member Karl Warnke won the D&D lodging raffle, and Marc heard that a 5 fish 50 pound bag of walleye was caught recently, but with the tournament coming up the details weren't disclosed.

The only perch report of the day said that perch fishing has been very good between Ballast Island and Luci's Point of Middle Bass.  With a little sorting good limits are possible.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot ESE winds, less than 1 foot waves, 53 degree water temperature, 55 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

A few more walleye reports came in today.  Jig fishing at Crane Creek was slow, but over at the Toledo Harbor Light it was hot.  Purple hair jigs without minnows were the ticket.  The other report came from the passage between North Bass and Middle Bass.  Fish around 20" were caught on harnesses with bottom bouncers and dipsys with spoons.  Some of the hits were as high as 12 to 15 feet down over 30' of water.

The forecast continues to look good with 1 to 3 feet being the worst waves predicted all the way through Tuesday.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 11 knot W winds, less than 1 foot waves, 53 degree water temperature, 58 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

Today the wind was flat calm and by evening the lake looked like a mirror from shore.  I'm looking forward to some good reports from today.  It's nice when the wind and waves don't determine where you are able to fish.

One report came in from yesterday.  Five 4 to 6 pound walleye were caught north of rattlesnake on bottom bouncers and harnesses.  I also heard through a reliable grapevine that D can of the Camp Perry range was on fire yesterday.

Not that I put a lot of stock into extended forecasts, but Saturday through Monday are looking great right now.  Winds less than 10 knots all three days and highs in the 50's warming to 60 by Monday.  Three days of stable, calm weather could really set up a great bite later in the weekend heading into next week.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 7 knot SSE winds, no waves, 53 degree water temperature, 59 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis

Tomorrow (Wednesday) looks to be a great day with 70 degree temperatures and less than 10 knot wind in the forecast.  Get out and take advantage of it if you are able to.  The rest of the week doesn't look bad, but there is a chance of storms or showers Thursday through Saturday with a little more wind, mostly out of the west.

Two reports came in today.  The first said that jigging has been great the last few days around K can of the Camp Perry Range.  The other report came from our friend John Hageman at Stone Lab.  He has good news on island area fishing for walleye, smallmouth bass and perch.  The following is his full report:

"There's been 10-40 trailered boats per day fishing between South Bass, Middle Bass and Rattlesnake. Probably using bottom bouncers and silver bladed spinners. Haven't seen any results, but they're still some (8-10 boats) fishing there again today. 7 3/4-12 1/2" perch all around the islands, 27 feet to 39 feet of water. Females mostly spawned out now. Caught approx 25 smallmouth from one spot off South Bass in 2 1/2 hours, 13-18" using bass minnows. Water temp has been running 54-55F in the Islands area mentioned."  Thanks John!

I'll be fishing the WBSA LEWT tourney this Saturday out of Lamberjack's Marina at Turtle Creek.  There is still time to enter if you are interested.  Check out the WBSA "Tournaments" page.  I hope to get out and fish Friday to pre-fish for the tourney.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 5 knot S winds, 1 foot waves, 50 degree water temperature, 53 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.

Travis

A few more reports came in today.  A walleye report from a few days last week produced 16 walleye with all but one being from 23 to 29.5 inches.  Most were caught W of Green Island and SE of Rattlesnake Island on Reef Runners and Deep Little Rippers.  Best colors were hot tamale (10 of the 16 fish), raspberry dolphin, and eriedescent.  Other spots where fish were found were west of Kelleys Island Shoal and between Middle and North Bass Islands.

A great perch report came in from 1.75 miles out of Beaver Park Marina in 38' of water.  Limits of jumbos were caught in 2 hours.

The latest observation at the Vermilion weather buoy has 13 knot E winds, 1.6 feet waves, 50 degree water temperature, 53 degree air temperature, and falling barometric pressure.

Travis