Well I have to say, Saturday was a pretty good day out on Erie. We arrived at 7am at the McDonald's to meet up with Don, Mark, Mike, Chris, Steve L. After enjoying a healthy :-\' meal and a coffee refill, we headed to Elizabeth Park to launch. Thankfully, Mark was able to bring me a gallon of oil because I totally forgot I was out. So after filling up my oil, we launched and headed out.
The weather was perfect. It was a wee bit nippy to start, but the water was calm with a slight breeze out of the North which calmed as the day went on. We couldn't have asked for better weather.
Not being at all familiar with this area, we followed Bender and DLaporte out and started fishing a shallow flat. We found lots of weeds, but zero fish. After an hour of this, we moved out deeper and fished a main lake area that had lots of structure, but still couldn't hook up with our first fish.
An hour or so later, Steve and I decided to move a hundred yards or so West into some good looking structure we saw on our map. This was definitely the right move! Almost immediately we hooked up with our first keeper, a near 4lb football Erie Smallie! Now that's a nice was to start out your first day on Erie at a time where the fishing lately has been pretty tough! Fortunately we marked the spot where caught that fish because the pattern was repeatable, but it was a very tight zone where the fish were.
After drifting 50 yards or so, we moved back above the coords where we caught that first fish and dropped a marker bouy. What we discovered was a ridge that stretched for about 25 or 30 yards that rose up to 10' but right next to 18' on the West, North, and South of it. Every time we drifted the spot we caught fish, including our best smallmouth of the day going over 5lbs on the Boga Grip.
(http://scruffychurch.com/graphics/photos/eriesmallie.jpg)
Our second fish of the day was a near 7lb sheephead. Now, I know we all don't like catching sheeps when we'd rather be catching smallies, but I have to say, this was the best fight of the day. It was obviously not a bass as soon as I set the hook, but it was a lot of fun getting it to the boat. It made several runs and took a bit of time to land it. I'd rather be catching smallies of course, but I really don't mind catching sheeps at the same time because they are fun to catch.
Anyway, we ended up filling out our limit by about 1:30 with a few more 2lbers. All in all it was a great day because my expectations for my first time fishing this area (especially this time of year) were quite low. So we were very pleasantly surprised. I think I might head back there in the next week or so! ;D
While we were fishing in the same general area as Tom we only had one bass there. We moved up to a spot that Don knew closer to the river mouth and caught a few more later on, but in general it was a very slow day. The lake was so calm I am now thinking that maybe we should have made the run over into Canada a ways or fished up in the river. Who knows though, there is so much water to try to decide on it is overwhelming!
Mike and I started out close to the ramp and caught a mix of largemouth and smallies, mostly small but we did have a few keeper sized fish. We moved and fished a large flat at the back of one of the islands and had one smallie about 3+ pounds on a spinnerbait and some short hits before we moved on. Also seen Doug Cummings there with a couple clients and he said they had caught a couple fish there too. Headed out by one of the lighthouses and fished for awhile with only one short fish to show for it. Moved a short ways into Canada and caught quite a few short fish on a hump before I finally hooked into a good sized fish that looked like it may have went 3 1/2+ but lost it before I could lip it next to the boat. Moved on and fished several other areas with limited success before we had to call it a day.
Although the day started out cold it slowly warmed up and the winds stayed down to make an early October day on Lake Erie quite pleasant and fishable. I wouldn't mind trying it again soon.
Mark