We arrived in the Erie area on Thursday evening and parked the boat, unloaded our gear at the cottage and went to get some dinner.  On the way, I called some friends who had gotten up to the lake on Wednesday.  They were going to fish Thursday.  I got my friend on his cell and asked him how it was.  He said they had a horrible day and that he'd see me at the ramp tomorrow.  This is a guy who never complains and his glass is always half full.  Hmmm.

Thursday we arrived at Walnut Creek access area at 8:00 and got the boat in before the other folks arrived with their boat.  What had happened was the steering cables on their boat had frozen up over the winter and they couldn't steer.  They worked most of Wednesday repairing the boat and didn't get to fish. Anyway, the sun was out, the lake was like glass and off we went.

We boated 12-15 bass all day.  It was tough.  The weather ended up being over 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and not a breath of air was moving.  I haven't fished Erie in May in weather like that in 15+ years.  It's hard to drift fish without wind. :-)  Two of the fish were over 20 inches and over 5 lbs.  None of them were under three pounds.

Saturday was like a different season.  The weather was 40 degrees, 40 mph winds, six foot waves and rain - lovely!  We went down to Presque Isle Bay and launched our boats.  Our friends had heard that just outside the channel was a good spot and they wanted to give it a try. My boat can handle the waves but we were getting very wet from the pounding and spray.  Saner heads prevailed and we returned to fish some of the lagoons in the Bay.  Even in the lagoon the wind was really pushing us around.  The main Bay had waves and white caps.  We caught a bunch of largemouth and then the other boat decided to pack it in.  We met them at a little pub on the water for lunch and then went back to fishing.  That afternoon we found some nice fish on the way back to the ramp - both smallmouth and largemouth.  One guy using a chartreuse curly-tailed grub was landing fish one after another.

All in all a tough trip but it was a lot of fun.  We caught fish, weren't working and had a great time!  Nothing beats sitting on the cottages glassed in porch enjoying a cold one and watching the sunset over the lake.

What ??

No photos this year ???

Without photos it still makes my Clarion River Smallies sound GREAT



Thanks for the report Joe,
I enjoyed it !!!

Welcome to Erie weather.    dd