How Many Fish Can Come Out Of One Spot?

Last Saturday I invited a friend to join me in fishing a weekly open at Indian Lake. Taking off at the 7:30 blast off we were fishing within little more than five minutes. It was less than five more minutes and I put a keeper in the boat, in less than 15 more minutes we had our limit, but we didn't stop there. In the 1st hour we boated better than 20 fish, with 1 or 2 lost along the way, all out of a spot not twice the size of my boat. One of which my partner lost was 2+, jokingly I immediately told him that cost us the win, little did I know how accurate that would be. We moved around over the next several hours only catching a few fish, one of which was a Saugeye (dinner). With it only being a six hour tournament we found ourselves back to our starting point the last hour. Wouldn't you know it they were still stacked up. In total we took over 30 fish off that one little spot. Come weigh in time I watched the weights and thought we would be close, but short of cashing a check, so we opted not to weigh in and take them back to the spot. Just for fun I got out the digital scale and weigh bag before releasing the fish, 11lbs 4ozs. My partner was instantly upset knowing the winning weight was only 10.7lbs. It took me a minute to calm him and explain we still needed to weigh the empty bag, 1lbs 5ozs. We made the right call not to weigh in after all, but the one he lost still cost us the win. Time and time again people claim that the front of the boat has the advantage, especially in my boat. I find that hard to swallow when we made 15+ passes over the same spot catching fish each pass, only he caught three fish all day including the funning around we did after the tournament. This is not to brag or to say he can't fish, just sometimes it all comes together and sometimes it doesn't. Some of you may be thinking this is just a fish story, that there is no where around here that you can catch that many bass out of that small of a spot. I told him before we went there that I did the same thing in that same spot this time last year, later in the day he said "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it."


Going to St Clair over the Holiday weekend, let you know how we do.

Lake Erie Fishing

The past two weekends I made the trip up to Lake Erie. Over Easter weekend I fished four days with varied results. Friday it was blowing NE 30 mph and with the cold temps I was off the water within a couple hours of not catching. Saturday the focus was catching some crappie and I had to switch to bass in West Harbor just to make the day worth while. Sunday after trying for walleye for a couple hours I opted to slide over to the Portage River for crappie. Finally after two and a half tough days of fishing I started catching. The portage produced 50-60 nice crappie to bring home. They would not bite on my normal tactics, following a tip from a friend I had to use a Bass Assassin skirted grub in in an odd color combo. The lure had a pink & purple body with chartreuse tail. For those of you who are wondering how I was able to keep so many, Lake Erie is not listed with the 30 fish restrictions as the rest of Ohio waters. This Saturday a friend called to see if I wanted to go back up to Erie to see if we could get on the big smallies near Ruggles. After just an hour or so it was very clear that the muddy water was not going to pan out. So we loaded back up on the trailer and slid over to West Harbor for large mouths. I was being a little stubborn and insisted I would catch some fish on a lipless crankbait like the week prior, of course that did not work. So I picked up the one of my old standby baits, a green pumpkin Brush Hog, and put on a clinic from the back of the boat. Within six hours of fishing we had seven fish over 3 lbs and several more that were close. Not bad fishing for a backup plan. If you have never thought to fish anything other than the main lake up at Erie you are missing out on perhaps the best fishing in the state. I have many days up there in excess of 100 large mouth. If you are looking for an adventure that is not too far away and has some of the best fishing in the country don't overlook the inland waters around Lake Erie.