Last week's Vacation and this week's trip to Erie

 We'll start with Vacation..

First off I want to extend my apologies to everyone I didn't get a chance to see when I was home. In the way past I always only took 1 week to go home, then it turned to 2 when I started going to Canada for a week. Both ways gave me enough time.... Until this year

Either I can't manage my time as good as I used to (insert "WHAT?" here) or I was just busier than in years past. Either way I screwed up, that being said I vow to NEVER take just one week again. Sending early apologies to my parents who will have to put up with me for an additional week. 😆

Now all the stuff that did happen.... I went fishing... alot.

I went and shot on Tuesday with the gun club group of the family, minus the Hovis's who were up on LOW. I shot good for only shooting trap once a year, however I excelled at eating brats after we were done, while swatting mosquitoes. My eyes were sharp and my aim was on. 👍

Corey and I fished together 3 times this trip. Twice on Prairie Lake and once with Dave, I didn't get any pics of the day we fished with Dave but here's some from Prairie.

Another of Prairie lakes finest

Say what you want catching a fish this small takes alot of skill...

Notice how when we get a pic taken our arms are completely extended..... it's suppose to make the fish look bigger. 

I don't think it's working.

Like I had mentioned earlier I also went fishing with Dave, Pete, and Isaiah. The big lake was a little too bumpy so we made one pass in with the waves that yielded on hit on a slider that didn't hold. We heard they were catching walleye in the bay so we tootled around in the bay after walleye. We were able to box 3? keepers, shorts, and some "others"

we picked up a small pike

a couple clams

The day Dave, Corey and I went out we had a pretty rough day. Once again we tried to get out on the big lake only to turn around again and try the bay for walleye. We caught a couple shorts and a really nice white bass when we were pulling lines, that nobody got a picture of.😡

I also made it out to Eagle and fished with my Dad and my uncle Reg. We worked pretty hard hitting all the usual spots only to find the walleye on the lee side of the lake. 

Dad caught a stick that gave him quite a battle....

They picked up a couple keepers while I was having a hard time catching a pike. It wasn't until we dropped off Reg that I was able to hook up with a couple decent fish.

Dad managed to catch some fish too....

Like I said before it really does take a skilled fisherman to catch a fish of this size. 

Dad, Jason and I ran over to the bay to catch some walleye on Monday but only managed to hook a bunch of smalls.

 

And as does everything, another vacation came to an end. I had alot of fun with alot of laughs and I want to say thanks to everyone that made that possible.

Now with this week

I hooked up the boat and headed over to Erie to restock my walleye supply. 

 On my way over I made a pit stop and noticed that they might be coming off a May fly hatch....

Not sure but I got this pic...

When I finally got to Marblehead I put in at Mazurik launch. I wanted to try the East side of Kelly Island but when I got to the landing it was a little bumpy, so I decided to fish some memories of years past. If I was only able to make one pass in with the waves, fog or smoke....so be it at least I would be able to fish.

 As it turns out there were still fish where I had marked them and I started to carve out a limit. The haze didn't clear up all day and man was it thick.

The fish were hitting a little on the soft side I had 3 come unbuttoned at the boat, before I could net them. I also had to sort out 3 or 4 shorts that will live to get caught next year. 

 

Alright so here I was at 2pm on the verge of my limit with 5 already in the box. I was on the same troll as previous when I had my back rod fire. I picked it up and started bringing in my last fish, when I got him landed my other rod went off. So I picked it up and started bringing that fish in. When I got him landed I started comparing the fish. My first fish looked a little smaller than the second so I unhooked him and let him go. I watched him as the motor slowly kept the boat moving away and noticed he was not moving. As a matter of fact he was belly up and I saw there was blood in the water. So I turned the boat to chase that fish down while letting the other one loose. Long story short with 6 and 7th fish release and #6 nowhere to be seen I was back on the hunt for my limit fish. I can only think that #6 waited for me to release his cousin before righting himself and carrying on with his day.

AN HOUR LATER I was able to finally pin down my limit fish, pack up and head to the house.

Bonus for the day... Mazurik launch added a new fish cleaning station and restrooms. I will be fishing there more often. Really nice facilities.

Fear not true believers

 There will be a vacation post as well as a weekly post next week.

Lake Michigan Limit

 Well it would've been had I been on Lake Michigan fishing for salmon. I was however on my 2nd trip to Lake Erie, and from what I've been seeing I did pretty good. For the last couple weeks we've had a NE blow on Erie, it's been light but constant. Sunday it blew pretty hard with 4-7 foot rollers with some 9's thrown in for good measure. Well, needless to say that really muddied the waters, and as we all know walleye like cleaner water. I really didn't think too much of it until I got to where I wanted to fish and looked down. I would guess Monday would've been less than a foot on the sechi disk. Anyway I dropped some lines in and within the first 15 minutes I had one in the boat. It was then I made the mistake of thinking it was going to be a short day. That was not the case, I trolled for 10 or 11 hours changed lures often and only lost one fish at the boat. I didn't know then that the one I lost would've been my limit fish. With one fish short of a limit I packed up and headed for the landing a very tired man.

Not a limit but still a good day.

I can't wait to try again after vacation.

First time to Erie this year

 Headed out early only to get there a little late, finally clocked it and it's about 3 hours to launch....Oh well.

Started on the West side of Green Island and boated a couple in the same amount of time. Then as the day wore on I headed more to the West and started fishing memories and low and behold the fish were still there. I ended up with my limit and started packing up at noon-thirty. 

Yeah I know I cut some tails off, I'll try to do better next time.
 Really good day for day 1.