We had our first club tournament of the season yesterday on Erie, and I was wondering about water temps. We had 45 to 47 degree surface temps. The water was stained and the smallmouth did not cooperate. 10 boats found 3 fish. Fish were very hard to find, we ran to 4 different known spawning areas around Kelly's and nothing was going on. We threw the tackle box at them from shallow to deep and nothing. My question is about what water temperatures do they turn on and start moving up? Large mouth cooperated in the bays thankfully and I was able to weigh in 17.56 in green fish and that water was around 51 degrees. Hopefully they turn on this week, we have our Ohio TBF Region 2 tournament next Sat. and Sunday. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears, I'm still a rookie at this smallmouth thing.
I don't think the spawning areas would be the ticket yet. With water still in the 40's I would be dragging the deeper humps and gravel patches in 20-30'. I have very limited experience fishing Erie in April, but this is the only way I was ever successful this time of year (out of Sandusky). But if the water was muddy, I think you did the right thing with the largemouth.
Sounds like you made the right call..Good luck at the TBF...The smallies will be up by then..Remember they may be spawning in deeper water than you would think..There is a pretty good article on Smallmouth spawn in the new FLW magazine...
Thanks for the in-put guy's. I was thinking smallies moved up sooner, now I know. I need to read up some more.
I know this is kinda late but look closer!! the smaliies are gonna winter in the deeper water areas, But when they move up there gonna be stacked in a certain area. You ever look at an area and think there gonna be here! Little dips turns and corners are gonna hold them fish. Good to see U got on what Id call a money pattern. Sooner or Later were gonna see a winning bag of bucketheads-skeeterman-
I spent the last few days down in ohio. Fishing the bass Islands we did pretty good we fished mostly 15-30 Ft with plastics. The morning bite was slow but after the sun got up so did the fish.I fish this area every year at this time and do pretty well. good luck next time
Fished Erie first week of May..out of Buffalo fish were big and at about 29 feet drifted tubes and got most on Sonars
I thought I would post how the Ohio TBF Region 2 tournament for me. I finshed 36th. I decided to stay on my greenfish bite instead of running out on the lake. The first day I weighed 9.8lbs (Ohio has a 3 fish limit on Erie) with my biggest being a 5.6lb. pig. The second day wasn't as good as I weighed 7lbs. but that was actually because all the boat traffic leaving West Harbor kept running me off my spots. I really think that I might have found a largemouth pattern that could cash a check during the summer when the western basin (Ohio water) bite shuts down. It's only a 5 or 10 min. run from most launch areas and with the price of gas it could actually make it somewhat profitable. The other spots I have in the harbors are nowhere near any kind of boat traffic so thats why I can't wait to get on them. A 15lb. bag is not out of the question.