Fishing report for the week of September 11, 2022: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: September 11, 2022

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[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on September 11, 2022 at 12:03:32:

Winding down fast now. Another fast two weeks has slipped us by. After a couple of near perfect weather weeks leading up to my previous fishing report, these past two weeks were more resemblant of typical September weather around here. Some dead calm days. Some choppy and yucky days where we still fished. And sadly again several flat out no go days where it didn’t matter how big your boat was or how bad you wanted to go fishing. Lake Erie simply said no. Trips for many charters including myself have started to thin out since the Labor Day holiday has come and gone. Kids are back to school now. After school sports practices and weekend kid events dictate many parents turn their attention to other things other then fishing. Hunting seasons which are just around the corner now will steal the attention of many other sportsmen. Most fishermen by now have plenty of fillets in their freezers already. Yes, things are winding down fast around here. Even though the Walleyes haven’t gotten the memo!

Fishing is still very strong with perfect scores of full limits on the halfway decent weather days. A bit tougher when you are battling the heavy seas. Aboard The Trophy it’s looking like we will be able to round out our remaining trips doing what we have been doing here for the last month or so. And that is just to run Dipsy Diver rods only. What a pleasant experience that is to be able to focus on just six Dipsy rods rather then those same six rods plus all the additional planer board rods too. I don’t know how I did it so many years before when fishing wasn’t as good running 14 or 16 rods all day long with no first mate to help me most of the time. I guess being much younger helped! But now with the lake literally so polluted with Walleyes and them biting as fast as they do on most days, there really is no need to do so. Unless you’re one of those people that want to catch them as fast as humanly possible and run hot all the way back to the harbor just so you can brag on Facebook or elsewhere how you caught them all in about a hours time. Not me. I’m never in that big a hurry! Lol!

The Walleyes as predicted are starting to move back in pretty good now even though the water temperatures have been reluctant to start dropping. Temps are still holding pretty steady in the 70’s. Pretty warm for almost mid September. We are still catching plenty of Steelhead well offshore also so they don’t seem to be in any rush to head up any streams or rivers any time soon from what I’m seeing. A remarkably quiet hurricane season on the east coast has prevented us from getting any prolonged North Easters here on the great lakes so I don’t see any drastic changes in the Walleye fishing for us any time soon either. In fact the weather looks to be quite stable for at least the next handful of upcoming days. This might end up being one of our nicer Septembers actually. No complaints from me if that holds to be true.

And I’m going to end this report with some incredibly sad news from my little marina, River Marine where The Trophy is docked. One of our fellow and most active captains, Jeff Fisher who now owns and runs the Taylor Made Charters unexpectedly passed away this weekend in his sleep and just did not show up for his charter the next morning. Jeff was truly one of the best of the best and learned so much of what he knew from Captain Taylor Click before Taylor retired from chartering and sold the boat to Jeff. Jeff took the business to new heights and built up a clientele that most captains on Lake Erie could only dream about. He worked very hard at what he did and none of his guests ever left disappointed. He consistently put his guys on fish even when so many others struggled on the tougher days. Jeff always showed mad respect towards my wife Joyce and I and affectionately called us “Mom & Dad” down there! I really struggled with the decision as to whether or not to share this sad news here in my report but so many of you who fish with me all know all the other guys down there. We’ve all visited and partied together year after year as the days catch is being cleaned at the end of the trip. Jeff's boat was the maroon and gray Cherokee identical to mine and was docked the closest to the draw bridge. Here is a fairly recent picture of Captain Jeff (center). I’m sure many of you will recognize him from this photo. He was only in his late 40’s. Rest in peace Captain Jeff. You will be dearly missed but never forgotten. Fish strong my friend.

Capt. Walt
Trophy Charters





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