Today we set out to chase Lake Erie walleye on the Western Basin and to scout ice levels for the upcoming weekend fishing plans. We set out from Port Clinton at 6:45AM and headed north to our first stop at G can where we historically do very well this time of year. We were met with a nasty pressure crack roughly a mile off shore where it was pooling water. It took us some time spudding to find a safe track past this pressure ridge, but once we were past it the ice was smooth sailing the remainder of the time.
We started about a mile east of G can and were happy to see about 7-8" of nice clean clear ice! We made a few test holes and began looking around with our Active Target Systems. We noticed right away that the fish were in a negative static body language which is to be expected with the high, rising pressure we had going on. We spent about an hour of our time in this area simply looking for active groups of fish and we saw very few that were not glued to the bottom. In fact, in that hour we tried 6 different holes and did not have a single fish come on the screen that showed any interest in chasing any of our baits.
We decided that this was probably going to be the case for most of the day with the pressure that was present and that we would be better off offering spot checking ice and looking for fish in general to target later this week when the weather stabilizes. We began working our way Northeast checking as we went with test holes and looking for fish, we checked from F can all the way to rattlesnake island. We found fish in most areas and they tend to favor the flats, which is no surprise as we find ourselves targeting these areas even when the water is soft. Just on the northside of F can we were able to find a nice active group of fish. We saw about 7-8 fish that were about 10' off the bottom on our test hole. We slid off to the side and punched a hole on top of them. Instantly the first fish started raising up to intersect my green Swedish Pimple about halfway down, one 6'' hop and she crushed it! She was a very nice healthy 26 incher. I grabbed my second rod rigged with a #5 jigging rap and sent it down as the rest of the pod was still hanging around. Instantly two of the marks began chasing aggressively. Three hops later we were hooked up again, this time with another 25 incher. Very nice quality fish!
We hung out here for another hour waiting for another batch of active fish to come around which never presented themselves. We continued North towards the island chain. I will say it was quite rough ice up there but it was the thickest we had seen yet ranging from 14"-20". We were met with more of the same, very scattered active fish. I could just barely make out fish laying on the bottom of our active targets. These fish were very negative and would not engage in any type of presentation. But, what it did tell us was areas that were holding large numbers of fish to target in the upcoming days.
Captain Matt
