Life On Tour

Annie and Dan Keyes Angler: Dan Keyes.

August 20, 2001 • Daniel and Annie Keyes • Archives

Lake Erie EverStart Practice, Sandusky, Ohio

Dan writes:

I’ve been here for two days and still haven’t met with Scott Parker, my practice partner, yet. We finally got together at the launch ramp this morning. He had an equally bad day yesterday, catching no bass at all, and a buddy of his who’s been here for over a week was able to catch only one all day. Scott had caught a few on Saturday off Kelley’s Island, so we decided to go out this morning and work that area over, trying to locate some more.

We had a northwest wind today blowing 15-20 knots. Worse than yesterday, mostly because of the direction, and it got worse as the day wore on. It was impossible to fish anywhere but the lee side of the island, which is what fifteen or so boats were doing, but nobody was catching anything. We eventually agreed that the smallmouth simply were not biting, and that we should go look for something entirely different.

After strapping everything down we made the wet and pounding ride back to the mainland, where we spent the afternoon flipping and cranking for largemouth in the harbors. I finally caught my first keeper in two days cranking some rip-rap, and we caught a few short fish as well, but it would appear that the largemouth are not much more aggressive than the smallmouth at this point.

We finished the day up in the far end of Sandusky Bay itself, again fishing the rip-rap, but caught no more fish. The two of us are extremely frustrated, and are left wondering what could have shut these fish off, and what we need to do to catch even one fish, here in what is considered by many to be the number-one smallmouth fishing spot in the world.

Annie writes:

It rained most of the day, so Cooper and I had to hide out in the tent. I had plenty to do as I am still working on my final paper for my English class. When Dan came home I drove into town to try and get our cell phone modem to work, no luck. It has worked every other night, but tonight it is not going to happen. Dan found out there is a computer in the main building, so tomorrow I will give that a try.