For many reasons I had to cancel my charter in Lake Eerie, so instead I just went out to the Maitland River where there’s usually some decent smallmouth fishing. There were several little guys (I probably caught around 100) but no lunker smallies. Oh well, it was still fun. I caught most the bait I used, crayfish and helgramites, both worked great, and the bass were also hitting plastics. I recommend the Maitland if you wanna take your son or daughter out for a fun day of non stop action. If you want details of exactly where I was, just ask.
Lake Eerie Port Burwell Walleye
In the coming week, I’m goin on a charter with some buddies up to Port Burwell. I haven’t made it to Lake Eerie for walleye yet and I’m really looking forward to it as this year is supposedly the best year for walleye since the 80’s. If anyone’s been up there lately, I’d be glad if you could give me a report on how it is. After the charter I’ll tell you how it was and post some pictures.
West Bay Lake Nippising
Let me start my reviews by talking about my most recent fishing trip. My father and I headed up to the narrows of West Bay Lake Nippising to see how the early summer walleye fishing was. We left on the 8th of July and got back on the 15th. We were in a rental cottage directly across from muskie island, (if you want directions and details of where we were, I’ll send you some maps.) Now the business part, fishing. All in all the fishing was right on par with the rest of lake Nippising. We caught probably an average of 5-7 walleye a morning and 3-5 walleye a night, all between 12 and 20 inches, no lunkers. The smallmouth fishing was decent as we caught many medium sized ones, with the largest about 4 pounds. The Pike fishing was pretty good, all the shallow bays were full of tiny agressive gators and the best method for pike proved to be bottom bouncing with worm harnesses. Yes, you heard me right. We would drift through depths of about 25 feet, with an arsenal of either silver or red harnesses and the large pike were hitting them like crazy. We had best luck with: Senkos for bass, spinnerbaits and worm harnesses for pike, and bottom bouncing worm harnesses for walleye, although the biggest walleye (22″) was caught on a tiny white grub with a 1/8 oz jighead.
I recommend West Bay Lake Nippising for a fun week of consistantly good fishing, although go before August, because water temperatures were unusually high, which may explain slow afternoons. Good luck and happy fishing!
The Modern Fisherman 