3/3/26 Lakeborn Co Fishing Report on Lake Erie

Well folks, shorter report than usual. We remain in a holding pattern with the weather lately.  The ice is continuing to break up, there is currently open water in front of Huron, Lorain, Marblehead. However, the harbors are still frozen. I am sure that the ice in the harbors has become rotten, I am waiting for a nice day this coming week, I really want to break out of one of the marinas and begin chasing fish again. I am not much for sitting around the house.

I have been busy this week delivering boats to their new homes. We were able to move two of our waterfowl boats off to make room for the 2026 models to come in. We try and do this every couple years to make sure we keep our clients on the most modern vessels and to help reduce the amount of break downs and servicing required with older equipment. Not every outfitter can do this and we are very blessed to have developed a business model that allows us these great opportunities. These are all things that have to get cleaned up before we begin moving forward with our fishing season.

Despite being on the road this week to both Nashville, TN and to Boltimore, MD we were able to continue to be productive. Our shipment of Muzzy V2s Bowfishing bows came in this week and we are currently setting them up. These will be our new bows for clients this coming season. We then outfitted them with Boondocks outdoor Zebpro reels and they will be sitting on Gargod rest. These are a very nice set up that our clients will be able to enjoy for seasons to come. We are looking forward to that. We do have our calendars open for Bowfishing trips to start early April sooner if the ice allows.

Duckwater update, we have FINALLY received our Cisco tracks that we have been waiting for, for a couple weeks to finish outrigging her for Lorain. Our southern LED interior lights showed up as well and we were able to get them installed. These lights put out an amazing amount of light which will make those early morning departures that much easier! We even outfitter her with Starlink internet service for our clients to remain in cell phone range even when we are 20

miles off shore. You will never be without cell service on our walleye vessel ever again! Talk about an awesome upgrade.

We have opened our calendar up starting 3/20/26 this year for the Duckwater to begin running trips and will continue until the end of September. If you are looking for a nice trophy fish for the wall now until the end of April is when you need to get here as these fish are going to be the biggest they are going to be until next spring.

I was glazing over the walleye population reports the ODNR published and 2025 we had another boomer crop of fish, this would make the fourth season in a row. What does that mean? Well, it means there are A LOT of fish in the system right now and plenty more coming up behind them. The average walleye takes 3 years to reach the legal size limit of 15” that we are allowed to harvest but that means they will have be able to spawn two season unharmed. The fishery is strong, and only getting stronger each spring. We are on a very positive up flow!

See you out there!

Captain Matt