Ashtabula June 16, 07

[monkeypuke]

Hi all,

Saturday June 16, 07 me, Shu with two of his buddy's, and captaincrabass and his son fished out of Ashtabula. We hit the draw bridge at 3 p.m. and started fishing around 3:30 p.m. Fishing was tough, the fish where scattered at all depths, our best bite was in 60 fow. Jet 30's and 40's back 100 feet with standards & scorpions. 82mm diver off the boards pulled the big fish again and Dougs son reeled it in like a pro. We had a great time, the lake was really calm and we ended the day with 17 walleye, 2 trout got off, 1 sheephead, 1 yellow perch, 1 white perch, and 3 white bass. Shu played that yellow perch just right and we got it in the boat. Doug here's the link for filling out a fish ohio http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/wildlife/Fishing/fishohio/default.htm walleye 29" 8.12 pounds, north of ashtabula. Thank you everyone for a fun day and a big thanks for running all the lines!

[Priority1]

GJ Ray.

[shu9265]

Yeah Man. We had a GREAT time! ! !

That perch was the toughest of all ! Thing near pulled me off the boat twice !

Good thing Ray hauled me back in by my shirt tail ! ! LOL

[Storm Warning II]

Notice any big changes in the surface temps over the last week Capt? Fish "de-schooled"? Have a probe down? Strange things going on a little east of you. I think eastern end of the central and the eastern basin flipped about last Wednesday and fishing should go crazy in about a week once the thermocline is set up.

[shu9265]

Notice any big changes in the surface temps over the last week Capt? Fish "de-schooled"? Have a probe down? Strange things going on a little east of you. I think eastern end of the central and the eastern basin flipped about last Wednesday and fishing should go crazy in about a week once the thermocline is set up.

I don't have a temp probe, but I can agree with the "strange things" going on.

Guys here in Mentor, EastLake, were getting limit catches last week, and now the fish seem to have scattered. At least that is what I have heard, will try and get out later on and see what I can find.

[monkeypuke]

Lake Erie usually flips only towards the winter or a really heavy blow. Whats happening is a normal thermocline set up period that the lake goes through every year with the temperatures. The thermocline is actually started to set up in 63-64 fow, and a couple foot shallower it's scattered. The walleye and trout are in shallow due to the smelt finishing up with their spawn season. The smelt are moving out of the shallow water and moving to deeper water. The smelt feed in or above the thermocline on larvae that gets trapped in it, and the walleye and trout will follow them to eat them. The surface temps can change by the day due to wind directions, and currents. Just my 2 cents..

[Storm Warning II]

The thermocline set up when the water has dropped ten degrees from a pre-set "flip" is what I meant by flip. Now I'm really confused. The smelt are still spawning??? I thougth the preferred temp range for smelt was less than 50? If they are feeding on smelt, why do they have such a preference right now for smaller spoons, I would think they would want larger spoons if smelt was the forage base at the moment? So if the thermocline is set up in 63 to 64 fow is it also in deeper water? I would assume it is the normal 35 to 45 feet down?

I am by NO MEANS an expert, I am just having a hard time wrapping my brain around what is going on this year. I appreciate your insight MonkeyPuke, you are the professional. It has been very strange to date. We are catching steelhead in 44 fow in mid June?????????? Some guys are catching more steelhead than 'eyes???

[captain_crabass]

We all tend to make things more complicated than need be, I know I do, active fish are food oriented, resting fish search for their comfort zone, Storn, look at what Ontario does in June, 20 lb kings in 50 ft one day and 450 ft the next, who the hell knows

[Toxic]

Well, whatever it is the fish are definitely scattered. A guy at work went on a charter from Geneva Friday morning and they were home by 10:30. They were in 42 FOW. My nephew's buddy limited out in 39 FOW. Sunday we didn't mark fish until we hit the high 40's to low 50's mark. We did not see the big schools like two weeks ago. And we also hit a lot of steelies Sunday. I guess that is why it is called fishing, not catching!

[Storm Warning II]

You are right Crab Ass. But 20# Salmon have BIG tails!!! Salmon, especially big ones, are also a lot more temp sensitive. We fished Olcott last Labor Day after the week straight of NE blow and it stacked the warm water up inside. Guys had been getting them staging between 50 and 90 fow. We never marked, nor caught a fish till we went way deep to find better temps. Ended up doing well in 350 to 400 fow!

Got some probe readings from a Capt. out of Erie (city of) today and the temps are right for the top 30 to 40 fow to be productive, but the schools have disintegrated. Why? I am asking these questions to become a better fisherman, you can never learn enough.

[monkeypuke]

Hi all,

I guess my answer for why the fish are scattered is due to them being on the move. I did get some reports from guys that did well on sunday in 30-40 fow east of ashtabula. And I got the same report from guys that fished sunday at the same numbers I was on saturday evening in 50-60 fow. As far as spoon size, a lot of people will pull scorpions all year and troll really slow. Once the water temp warms up you can actually troll up to 3 mph for eyes with bigger spoons. I'll start running standards and stingrays here in a week or two. As far as the trout bite being so good, I was told that usually by now they would be out deep in canadian waters, there not so maybe they'll be in our waters for a few weeks or the whole summer.