Burns Outdoors

Erie Quest Charters 

FISHY BUSINESS

GUIDE SERVICE

Listed below are Lake Erie fishing reports by Captain Rick from Erie Quest Charters

June 2nd 2009

Mike Schmitt, Andy Stevens and the crew from South Bend, IN

Mayflies or not, the walleye fishing remains hot, as warm as the weather is getting in the extreme western reaches of Lake Erie.

Big hatches of the mayfly, or June bug, will soon be under way in their typical mid-June emergence. Mayflies are prime fish food and often lead to belly-full fish that are reluctant to nip at anglers' nightcrawler-dressed spinners. But, fingers crossed, it not his week.

Top baits include weight-forward spinners in gold, fire tiger with blue or green prism-tape on the blade, and hybrid "mayfly" rigs such as Weapons and Walleye Wigglers.

Friday morning I left the dock at 6:00 AM with Mike Schmitt, a friend of Coopason's, along with Andy Stevens and the rest of the crew from South Bend. Knowing that Coop would want their friends to experience some of Lake Erie walleye fishing at it's finest... I headed out 10 miles to the West Sister Island area. The waves were 2-4 feet. I saw only 3 other boats in the area at 6:30 AM. That would change in a few hours, but so did the weight of our cooler.

Working the "low-n-slow" method, drifting and casting, with a horizontal sweep, we boated 17 walleye on the first drift. After a few "high 5's" we set up on on drift number 2. On a long 2 mile drift, we pulled 19 more walleye, with the largest being 27 inches.

Mike Schmitt shows a nice Lake Erie walleye

I looked at my watch...it was 9:00 AM and we had 36 walleye in the cooler. I knew Coop would be happy!
We moved out further, in deeper water...in search of a hog. We were rewarded with 25 more walleye...of which we kept the 12 biggest. Tally for the morning 48 walleye, that weighed 139 pounds at Szuch's Bait store.

We docked a little after 11:00.

I headed back out with a fun group from Chicago at 1:00 PM on Friday afternoon. We headed back to the same area near West Sister Island and the wind was starting to pick up. I saw several small boats that wished they had went towards home alot sooner, as these small boats were no match for Erie's 4-6 foot waves. Our bottom bouncer program was out. 3 oz. bouncers, 3 cranks up....it was a blast! It was ON and we had constant activity on all bouncer rods. All natural wave action! Nice...42 walleye, 121 pounds... in 4 hours.

Happy Chicago walleye angler shows off a dandy walleye caught aboard the Erie Quest

The walleye fishing was the same on Saturday with 2 "Limits" of Lake Erie walleye, 48 and 36 walleye, brought back by satisfied walleye anglers and guests aboard Erie Quest.
 

Tim Evoy, Steve Bishop and crew from Illinois display several of their 48 walleye!

To the east, a trolling capt. friend said he had been doing well trolling northwest of Kelleys Island, using Michigan Stinger spoons off Jet Divers, 50 to 100 feet back, "depending on where the fish are suspended." He said that the favorite color pattern was "monkey puke."

Tight lines....

Capt. Rick

Richard T Gaston Memorial Tournament

DNR