Lake Erie Trip

I did a bad bad thing. I set up a fishing trip on Mother's Day. I just couldn't help myself. Fisherman's Wharf had up pictures on their website of all the walleye being caught on jigs. You have a good shot of catching some big ones this time of year. I spoke with my wife and she didn't seem to have an issue with it so I traded Father's day weekend with her. This was also the only time I could make it to lake Erie since my schedule is full for the remainder of spring and summer on the weekends.

Mike from the club called Friday evening. He said that the weather Saturday was detering him from wanting to fish. With the cold front and winds coming through I agreed that it would not be a great day to fish. That was a bit of a dissapointment as I had not fished the week prior.

We still had the trip to Erie planned so I would still get to fish. Gene showed up around 6:30 Saturday evening. His brother showed up around 7:00 and we started towards the lake and would pick up Chris along the way.

With a few stops on the way we made it to Fisherman's Wharf in Port Clinton around midnight. We figured we would sleep in the van to save money and be there at 6:00 when they opened. It was super cold and windy out that night. Gene was coughing, Chris was shifting, and Glenn was texting. I don't know what I was doing but Chris was the only one that could sleep. I slept for about an hour until the Jet Express came by and blared it's horn to have the draw bridge raised.

After that we all were in and out of the van the rest of the night and had given up on sleep. Finally at 6:00 Fisherman's Wharf opened their doors. We walked in and they said that the headboats would not go out due to the winds blowing so hard and the lake not laying down. They said if they did take us out, the fishing would not be great anyway.

We tried a couple of spots you could fish from the bank. We only got a couple bites. We decided to go try a lake closer to home. After about 20 minutes in the car I said we should try the Sandusky River running through the town of Freemont to see if the White Bass run was going on.

We stopped in Freemont and the river was lined with people. Gene caught the first white bass on a bobber and minnow. I caught the next one on a roadrunner. He caught a couple more. Then I felt a fish hit. I could feel it on my line but I would pull back on the rod and it would barely move. I wondered if it had wrapped around a rock. I pulled the fish closer and closer to bank. Each time I would tug it would come a little closer then just sit there. Once it got close to bank it decided it wasn't coming any closer. It took off for the middle again. My drag quit working and the pressure on my line was enough that my 12 pound test would surely break. I went to grab line and try pulling it off at the reel and all of a sudden there was no fish. I lifted my line expecting to see that it had been broken. Instead the lure had pulled free from the fish. That was a little dissapointing as it was a big fish. Probably a catfish but still big.

I caught a couple white bass pretty quickly after that, then Gene and I continued to catch a few more. Glen and Chris were not as fortunate and were unable to catch a fish.

Chris kept snagging and gave up. He had been sitting up on the rocks for about a half hour when we saw game wardens approaching in each direction checking licenses. They made it to us and Gene Glenn and I showed them our license. They then approached Chris. He tried to tell them that he was not fishing but they said that they had seen him fishing. He did not have a license so they took him over the top of the levy.

After about 45 minutes they came back over the top. Chris told me that he would not be to work on Monday. Then one of the game wardens asked if he worked for me and I told him yes. The game warden proceeded to tell me that in that county if you are not a resident and are caught fishing without a license that they have to put you in jail until you have court and since there was not court on Sunday they would have to take Chris in. He then said that we could get a bond for him and that would cover his court cost and they could release him. I followed the game wardens to the police station and paid for the bond.

By the time Chris and I got back the fishing had slowed quite a bit. We decided to head back home. Glen had lost his hat at the previous place we were fishing on Erie, so we drove back there to look for it first. When we got there, the water was up from where it had been. It had raised about 4-5 foot and the place we were standing was a ways out in the water. Apparently all the wind had created a wind tide that morning and his hat was nowhere to be found.

We drove back to Columbus with 10 white bass on ice. They weighed between 1 - 2 pounds each.