5/13/13, Saginaw Bay, Au Gres, Fishing Report

[Trophy Specialist]

You certainly didn't need ice in your cooler this morning to keep your drinks cold. Not only was there frost on my windshield, but there was also frost on the docks too. The cold temps combined with the brisk winds made it rather chilly indeed. None-the-less, my charter customers had a very successful day on the Bay. I had the Kool-Aid Drinkers party on my boat today. They didn't get their nickname from doing what they were told without question, but rather because they were actually drinking Kool-Aid all day. The bite today was ultra light with most of the fish just latching on and not pulling much at all. The walleyes were widely scattered too. In fact we probably had over 50 walleyes on today and never had a double header once. The action was not steady either. The winds kept coming and going and whenever the wind calmed down, the fish would quit biting. When the wind kicked back up, we would get some strikes. We fished the same pattern as my last few trips with the outside boards pulling Chrome, Rattling Shad Raps and the other six rods loaded up with crawlers fished on the bottom with bottom bouncers. All the fish that hit the Raps were bigger ones. Those Rattling Shad Raps are also one of my favorite crankbaits on Erie when we are fishing in low-visibility water, such as the current conditions out of Au Gres. We did take some nice sized fish on the crawlers too, but we also took some barely legal fish on those rigs. We only took one undersized fish today. Speed was critical today with hits coming at 1.4 to 1.5 mph. Any slower and we were dragging the bouncers; any faster and the fish just wouldn't hit. We took fish over a wide area today ranging from 15 to 30 feet deep. I marked scattered fish where ever I went, so just covering water as efficiently as possibly seeking out active fish proved to work best. Today's limit catch extended my streak of 100% limits on charters during May. Taking all these limit catches in tough fishing conditions really exemplifies the world class walleye fishery in the Bay this year.

Capt. Mike Veine

[JWheeler]

Nice job Mike And to think, it's only going to get better from now through the end of June.....

[Priority1]

Mike, Nice work. Thanks for the report.

[EdB]

Thanks for the great info Mike and congrats on a nice catch.