Lake Erie take 2

With turkey season over it was time to get back to fishing. Sunday night after work I ran up to Coldwater to hit the Gander that is there, then go across the street to Walmart to get my shopping for the week done. I got up @ 2am Monday morning so I would be able to eat and call into work to see if I could work. Well, they didn't need me to work so I decided to get ready to go fishing. I texted my buddy Reggie and waited, I knew he had to get his kids around by 6 or so. I finally called him around 6-7 to see if he was up and at'em yet. When he answered I asked him if he wanted to go fishing and that Lake Erie is on tap for the day. He immediately answered "yes" and let me know he could be at my house by 9ish. Outside of the fact that this was going to be a really late start, which I had already come to terms with, but wouldn't let him live down. I let him know that would be fine and I would be ready and waiting. So I got out to the garage and started getting the boat together. I have been getting the equipment needed to fish this lake together for the past couple of months, it has been mostly consisting of lures. Erie walleyes love warm to hot colors, lotsa purples, pinks, greens and whites w/purple so after a couple hundred dollars in lures and reels later I thought I was ready to hit the lake.
Well, Reggie finally got here and we were on our way. We stopped to get our license then off to Catawba Island State Park to launch the boat. After we got the boat launched it was a 20-minute boat ride to where we were going to start fishing, just northwest of Rattlesnake Island.
It was a horrible start, I didn't even have 3 lines in the water before we had 2 fish in the boat.

They wanted green but also hit white, perch and purple gold Bengal

 We started trolling and just kept going over the same track we were on when we hit the fish. We were able to boat 11 one being a 26" that we let go.

 We also missed 5 or so fish between the two of us, when we decided to pick up we were 2 fish short of a limit. The wind was starting to pick up and that turned into 1-2 footers with caps really quickly, also it was getting kinda late. We only fished for 5 or 6 hours because of the late start, remember kids you can't fish all day if you don't start in the morning.
All in all, we had a super great day on the lake

selfie

  Reggie picked things up pretty quickly, we caught fish and did it safely.

We finally got to my house a little after 10 got the boat in the garage and got the fish cleaned by 11. Thankfully I was home, but Reggie still had an hour run to get to his place.
It was a very long, very fun day and I had a blast and hope Reggie did too.

These ducks walked right over to us, I think they're still waiting to be fed.

 Oh yeah, that safety record went right out the window when I was on the last walleye. I had the carcass and was just about ready to drop it into the trash when I ran the tip of my fillet knife into the meat of my hand between my thumb and pointer.... Suck.

I don't usually take pics of my food but, MMMMmmmm walleye.