Erie Open Tx Diary May 6th and 13th

[SethV]

After moving out of western NY a few years ago to Oklahoma, I still continued to make the trip back to Erie every year to fish a few events.  Now, living in Detroit, I am much closer (45 min to west end, 5 hrs to the east side) and can once again spend lots of time on the big pond. 

May 6th, 2006

I left work on Friday night right after work and headed to Buffalo, NY for the first event of the year.  After making the 5 hour drive from Detroit, I grabbed a bite to eat and went to sleep.  I was up at 4:30 to make the short drive to the Small Boat Harbor in Buffalo.  For this tournament, I am fishing with Charlie, a friend and fishing partner who lives in Rochester, NY.  Because he only had 1 hour to drive to get to the launch, we elected to take his Ranger and leave mine at home.  These tournaments in early May are team events, with a 2 fish limit.

The sun came up and it was a nice morning with what seemed to be a gentle north wind.  Our time came for blast off, and we made the short run to the south gap of the harbor and headed out into Lake Erie.  Inside the harbor, there was a small ripple, outside we found a completely different animal.  The north wind kicked up some serious chop, with waves running 2 to 3 feet.  Not a big deal, but it can be a bit bumpy.  On the way out, we had 1 relatvily hard landing, and I noticed the lower edge of the passenger side windshield seemed to come loose.  The next thing I knew, it came completely loose, ripped over backwards when the wind got under it.  It bounced off of my head and was gone.  Wow, smacked in the head and I have not even got to the fish yet!  We travled the last 6 miles without incident and began to fish.

We had no chance to prefish for this event, so we were going in ?blind?.  Having some history of what these fish should do in early May with 47 degree water, we decided to start on the outer edges of the off shore humps in 27 to 30 feet of water.  I started with a green and orange tube, while Charlie was using green and black.  Within 2 minutes, I had the first one of the day, a 4 ? lb smallie.  Not a big fish, but it is a start.  We drifed up on top of the hump to 22 feet of water, and caught another small fish.  We repositioned for another drift, and caught a 6 lb fish right back in the same 28? location as the first keeper.  With about 10 ? lbs in the boat for our 2 fish limit, we knew we needed to upgrade that smaller fish.  It was an odd day on the lake, I continued to catch fish, while Charlie could not get bit for anything!  We never did figure it out.  I did not have a killer day, only getting between 15 and 20, but he only ended up with 1 fish.  We found that the fish would move around the outer edges, following bait.  We would catch 2 or 3 and then we would lose the bait for awhile.  Best thing seemed to be the green and orange tube.  I did get a few on the drop shot.  The spoon bite was really off.

The ride back to the harbor was painful.  The wind had built up to a strong west wind.  We were 12 miles out, and had to go straight east, with the waves to get home.  As the waves build on Erie, they do not space out, they are vertical walls of water, all breaking.  Most were in the 4? range, but there were series of rouge 6? monsters mixed in.  It is intimidating when you come over the top of a wave, and just see a huge vertical wall of water that is taller than you are right in front of you.  Charlie did a great job driving, and although we took a pounding and the GoreTex got a work out, we made it back ok.  After we loaded the boat on the trailer, we noticed the cowling was loose.  The pounding broke the lower rear cowling mount?shattered the thick steel bracket.  That lake is mean.

We never did find a kicker fish, and just missed the $ with our best 2 going 10.89 lbs.  It took 11.2 to get a check (2 fish limit).


May 13, 2006

Back to Buffalo for another tournament.  Same thing as last week, 2 fish limit, fish with Charlie, try to find the bigger fish!  Charlie had his boat fixed from the week before and we were ready to go again!

We drew out boat number 13?that has to be a good sign!  We decided to head back to the same general area as the week before, but focus on a small ridge that we found near the end of the day last week.  It is not on a map.  It is about 50 yards long, with a sharp 4? drop on the west side.  Perfect.

The ride out was much better than last week.  The lake was like glass, not a ripple?..but it was not flat by any means!  The rollers were left over from the wind the day before. They were well spaced, and we could comfortably run them at 45-50 mph.  Trim down to keep the boat planted and go.  Weird sight seeing a smooth but ?lumpy? lake.

We started on the ridge, and the bite was slow.  With no wind, the bite is usually slow.  Charlie caught a dink 3 lb fish on the spoon.  I followed up with a 4 lb fish.  Well, a 7 lb limit is not going to help, we needed to find something bigger.  We narrowed our search to the north end of the ridge, where we found a large group of baitfish.  I was able to replace the 3 lb fish with a 5 ? lb  fish.  I then hooked something huge.  Never saw what it was.  I played with it for 10 minutes, I don?t think she even realized she was hooked.  Swimming wherever it pleased, slowly ripping drag.  As I worked it closer to the boat, just out of sight it came unhooked.  Bummer.  It was no smallie, but would have been fun to see it (sturgeon, musky??).

We continued to work the small ridge, catching numerous 4 lb fish, but no kickers.  At about 11 AM, I hooked a nice smallie, our best one of the day at 6.78 lbs.  We tried all day to upgrade the 5 lber, but never could.  The number of 4 lb smallies on this lake is astounding.

On the way back to weigh in, we ran into a rain storm, thank goodness for a helmet and GoreTex.  At least the waves were flat.

Our 2 fish limit weighed 12.24 lbs and was good enough for the win.  Our big fish at 6.78 was also good for first place lunker.

These were a couple of fun weekends, now I need to get ready for the Michigan division BFL.

Thanks for reading!
Seth V

[Team houston]

Good read, Thanks

[Cheetam]

Good read, Thanks

Yeah, definitely!  Good job on the win and on the 6.7...nice fish...

[Dan]

Great job Seth. I could read articles like that all day. Sounds like a great time except for the pounding. Guys that haven't ever been on St. Clare or Erie have no clue to the type of ride you sometimes have to endure on the Great Lakes. A great thread would be to put some general driving tips on for those of us that have limited big lake driving experience. Thanks again for a great read.

[djkimmel]

Best I can do on short notice:

Big Water Boating

Walleye Boats for Big Water Bass

Great to hear about the big ones being caught Seth (although you may hurt my feelings talking about catching the 'little' 4 pounders...)