Lake Erie EverStart Practice, Sandusky, Ohio
Dan writes:
I had arranged to take a local journal reader, Larry Branch, out fishing with me today. Larry is fishing the non-boater side of the tournament, so this is not breaking any of the rules. We met at the launch ramp at 6am, and headed out to the lake. My plan for today was to go across to Canada, to Pelee Island and the Canadian shoreline beyond that. Everything I’ve heard in the last few days is that that is where the big bags of fish are coming from lately. The weather forecast was calling for 10-20 knot southwest winds. That’s not good, but I told Larry we’d head out and see what the lake was like.
We made it about ten miles, or half way, before encountering four and five-foot waves. I splashed one into the boat that drenched Larry from head to foot, so we stopped to fish one of the shoals out there and also to give us time to reconsider whether we really wanted to continue across to Canada. The further north we went the worse the conditions were going to get with this south wind, and there was every reason to believe the wind would get stronger as the day wore on, so we made the decision not to proceed.
After backtracking to Sandusky we spent the rest of the day on the south shore, working our way down to Ruggle’s Reef. By 1pm we had not caught a single smallmouth, so I gave up on them and moved inshore to see if there were any largemouth to be found. Larry caught two on a spinnerbait and I caught one cranking, but there was no size to them and they certainly cannot compete with the big-lake smallmouth. We spent the last two hours back out smallmouth hunting, but those fish just will not bite today.
Annie writes:
I am really enjoying this tent camping; it is so different than camping with a motor home. When the wind blows, you know. When it rains during the night, you know. And if you have a few holes in your tent when it is raining, you know, mainly because your stuff gets wet!. I think we will need to invest in a new tent if this is the route we are going to continue on.
Spent most of the day working on my college final. It is getting stressful and I still cannot get internet access, which I need.