Lake Erie Fishing 2018
2018 was a tough year for fishing on Lake Erie. The Ferry was not running for the first couple of days due to snow, rain, high winds and flooding. After staying in a motel at Port Clinton for a couple of days we finally got to the Island and still sat out the weather for a few more days. With a very limited portion of the day on the water for the first week we ended up with only three fish total and two of those were 29 inch walleye. It was difficult to find clean water close to the Island. Going into the second week the fishing continued to get better each day. Fishing in the chute between Middle Bass Island and South Bass Island produced bigger fish while more fish were caught north of Kelly Island in cleaner water. The most productive lure was a purple walleye bandit and later in the week it switched to reef runners. There was not much consistency with speed, depth, lure, and color. The first week had surface water temps of 40 deg’s. The water started to warm up to 41 deg’s starting the second week and ending at 45 deg’s. We started off fishing for walleye suspended between 10 to 18 feet and later in the week dropping anywhere between 16 to 22 feet deep in 32 to 38 foot of water. 2018 was the least productive year we have had in 13 years. We ended up catching some of the smallest walleye we have ever caught in Lake Erie with a couple of 16 and 17 inch fish. We did end up catching 11 proud anglers with the largest being a 30 inch Walleye. The last day of fishing was very productive but we had to get off the water early because of the static electricity.