What we do to fish sometimes
Friday, the guys at work were schedule to be at some training. Perfect time for me to take a day off and do some fishing. The wife and daughter are at Disney so I don't even have to feel bad about being gone all day.
I check the weather, the wind, the waves, the water... all the good NOAA stuff. Lake Erie is supposed to be calm... "supposed" to be.
My buddy and I get up at 4am. I have the boat ready, full of gas, tackle, trolling rods, perch rods, and everything else we would need for a day on Erie. Heck, I even had a bag of ice in the freezer. We leave at 4:30 and arrive just outside Sterling State Park at 6:00am.
I stopped at Jeff's bait and tackle to pickup some minnows, worms, and find out of the fish are still in the same spot. Yup, still there. We launch around 6:30am and the harbor is dead calm. We clear into breast bay with a light chop.
Now would be a good time to mention that I ran big charter boats on Lake Michigan for years and my buddy lived in Alaska. Big water isn't a big deal for either of us. My 16 1/2 Allumacraft on the other hand might be a different story.
The chop on the bay turned in to 2 foot rollers out past stoney point. Still not an issue as they are rollers and the wind is west south west. We searched water for over an hour to find Perch. Nothing. I checked web reports (from my phone) and even made a phone call. No ther boats out yet to follow. I made a run out in front of the Fermi Power plant (about 7 miles from port) when I realized the wind was banking. Good thing I had years on the big water and know to pay attention to this stuff.
Water was starting to build 2-3 with chop on top. We did troll (only cause it was too rough to get up past idle anyway). Didn't put any boards out (too rough). Of course, once I get back in the bay, the wind is less. I can now see the perch boats. Good thing I didn't head out there first as I would have been stuck in it.
We found a spot along a rock wall and drifted. Caught a few white bass, tons of white perch and one yellow. Not to be detered (and it only being 10am). We decide to head in-shore. We load the boat, stow the unneeded trolling gear and head back to a lake close to home.
Full tank of truck gas and McDonalds stop later and we are on the water by 1pm. Fishing was slow but the lake was nice.
It was hot so we diceded to take a break. I have no reason to head home and possibly miss the evening bite. I pull my boat under a tree (2 foot of water), lower the anchore so we don't drift, and we proceed to take a 2 hour nap!
Rejouvinated, we hit fishing again. We didn't knock them dead but we figured out a decent program (twister tails again). No one color caught multiple fish. They were spread out all over and the short biting gills pulling my tails off didn't help.
In the end, I drove a little over 3 hours, 160 miles, a full tank of boat gas, drained my trolling motor battery to nothing, and caught 10 crappies (5 made it home for dinner).
Expensive Crappies.... but I wasn't working!
