Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lake Erie

I went walleye fishing on Lake Erie yesterday with 5 other guys. Earliest I’ve ever been out. We jigged off the bottom in about 17-18 feet of water. We caught 35 fish of which 32 were keepers (over 15”). I caught 7 including 6 keepers. It was cold in the morning. We dressed as if we were hunting in late November early December. Windy and cloudy with 3’ waves. About 11:30-12:00p the winds died down and the sun came out. I had to start peeling off clothes. Great day on the lake with friends. We are going back this Tuesday and fishing Wednesday.

Ron

That sounds like fun,how about the perch?
Should be hitting now as well,and are great eating.

One of the greatest Walleye fisheries in the World! Back when I was guiding, it was a challenge to decide when you would stop running Detroit river trips and move operations to Lake Erie.

Have fun out there, great year classes in the lake right now!



Frog---OUT!

We won’t go for perch until late summer. They are in fact great eating. Walleye is pretty tasty as well.

Ron

When you peel them out,do you keep "the cheeks" ?
Eyes are fantastic eats.Only have eaten it deep fried with shore lunch style batter

Caught some big eyes in the Detroit river, with my father, when he was alive, the freezer was always full of walleye!, the cheeks are good, iv taken them off Salmon, and large Trout also!

We drove up from Georgia to go camping in Quetico Park, Ontario. We started catching walleye. Damn those fish are good eating. Nobody in central Georgia ever heard of walleye. I mean, fried catfish is good, but not as good as walleye.

One of my favorite fishes!

#jealous

I lived in Toledo in the late 70s and fished for walleye often. It was hard to not limit out on nice, up to 27” fish.

Crappie is the gold standard in the south. Catfish is a trash fish.

One trip I've always wanted to do. We go up a couple times a year for the Steelhead circus

Ron what caused the demise of perch in the Central Basin?

I'm going up for 2 days of fishing May 2 &3 , can't hardly wait.

I think the netters got em, remember seeing tons of nets out before they disappeared.

I have a 36' Silverton docked at the marina year around(other than winter), great fishing and will be right in the perfect path of the eclipse on Monday....so packing up now for a few days of hanging out. It sleeps 6, full kitchen & bath, dual 350 inboards, Captain's flybridge.

We fish the central basin 40/50 trips every summer. I supply fish for my immediate family and a few friends. Our freezer is usually well stocked with Lake Erie walleye. Hard to beat deep fried walleye but we bake and grill it also. When we are planning trip, we watch the weather pretty close, it can go from flat water to six footers in matter of a few hours or less.

Sounds great. Being on Lake Ontario my limited experience has been trout & salmon but most of my life I've heard about the walleye action on Erie. I'm northwest of Rochester and a guy I used to work with made his annual "pilgrimages" to Erie just for the walleye, despite living so close to Lake Ontario.

Eastern basin Lake Ontario walleye are getting to be a pretty big thing these days although I don't seem to recall ever hearing much talk of walleye west of Oswego.

Most of my walleye experience is St. Lawrence River.

No better fish to eat. Perch and crappie are good also, but walleye is tops in my book. We've always made it a point not to kill the big spawners, preferring the ones from legal minimum up to 22 - 24" or so.

Back in the 80's one of my brother in laws did a lot of fishing in the St. Lawrence and did pretty good on them, IIRC. I think you are correct about not much action west of Oswego. Most of my Lake Ontario experience is west of Rochester, mostly out of Point Breeze in Orleans County. Which in 2013 was voted one of America's "ultimate fishing towns". That's all western Lake Ontario and I can't recall any guides there even mentioning Walleye. This coming season I'm gonna ask one of the guides about the lack of Walleye in that area. Water depth maybe? I've seen depth readings on the fish finder close to 600 feet deep a few miles north of point Breeze. I know Erie is the shallowest of the great lakes, IIRC its only a little over 200 ft. at its deepest point. My knowledge of Walleye is pretty much limited except knowing that they are good eating.

Bob, I was told that they had some bad hatches over the last few years. The Western basin doesn’t seem to be as bad.

Ron