Char_Master

Anyone been out of Dunkirk for Lakers (or any fish) in the past week or so? Winds are looking decent enough so I think we may trailer our boat up there for this coming weekend. Pull some cowbells and spoons in deep water. Any recent reports, tips, etc.? I also just found out that there was apparently a fairly large sewage spill (almost a million gallons), you guys think it’ll hurt the offshore fishing at all by the weekend? Thanks in advance.

Guys above have it covered, White Perch (Morone americana). Delicious little fish! They compete with native White Bass in Erie so I usually end up grilling more White Perch every year than I do Walleye.

Well this was our last weekend of Spring Lakers for the year. Hopefully we’ll be at them again this Summer after the thermocline sets up in a month or so. Fished yesterday and today, took every fish 115-130 FOW on the bottom or not far off, 1.5-2.0 mph at the boat. Surface temps were 51-59° so I can’t imagine it was too much cooler down there this time of year. Went 5/5 yesterday with cowbells and spoons and 3/4 this morning with spoons, dodgers, and flashers. Hit a 37” 20# fish yesterday and a 37.5” 23# today! Unfortunately, the 20# was hooked in the gill raker and the 23# wouldn’t go back down (guessing it didn’t decompress). The former swam back with tons of energy but I doubt it survived very long after losing blood. Kept the 23# to use as catfish bait and aquarium fish food since I didn’t want to waste the meat on seagulls haha. Other than those two, we hit several 10-18 pound fish, all of which were released unharmed. June is going to be a slow month for me but maybe I’ll make it up to Lake O for some Lakers in while I’m waiting for Erie to set up for summer fishing. Hope everyone had/is having a good weekend!

I tried a Silver M-2 Flatfish right on the bottom towards the end and still nothing. What speed have you been running? I’ve been doing 1.4-1.8 for the most part and I’m wondering if I’d get more spoon action at a higher speed. But at that point it’s too fast for cowbells so I guess I have to pick one or the other.

I’ve seen some guys pulling nice ones up there! The Spring Laker fishery on Erie should still have another two weeks or so left anyway if you want to make it up. Memorial Day weekend is almost always the last good weekend we have for them every spring. Once the water hits a uniform 50-52°, it’s done for awhile. Then you have to wait for the thermocline to set up in July for the Summer fishing.

Fished off North East Sunday and went 5/5 in 4.5 hours or so, not bad for a Spring morning session! A bit better size than last week too, all of them were in the 29-32” zone. Even had one fish go on a blazing 50-60’ run as soon as it popped the release, only to dive and thrash for the rest of the way to the boat! Fished 58-120 FOW and took every fish in 88-112 FOW tight to the bottom. Surface temps 42-47°. Once again, I ran every style of lure in my arsenal, but caught them all on cowbells and gambler rigs on the downriggers. No idea why they haven’t been eating spoons or Dodgers for me this year, but they’re loving those loud, noisy chains of metal blades! Hoping to get out one or two more days this month before the water gets too warm for the Spring fishery.

Thanks! If I wasn’t booked solid I’d take you up on that haha.

Just realized I never made a report. Anyway, we fished off North East Saturday and went 5/7 on decent Lakers in the 25-30” range. Nothing huge but I’ll take it for our first day this season! We fished 62-110 FOW and hit every fish in 78-110 FOW, all right along the bottom. Anything shallower than 70 FOW was in the mudline and the reduced visibility killed the bite. Had lines in at 7:50 and fished until 3:30, but the bite totally died after 12:30 for us. Downriggers took every fish. We threw the kitichen sink at them (spoons, Dodgers, flashers, everything) but caught every fish on a green/chartreuse gambler rig (thanks for the quality product, Brian!). Speed at the boat was 1.2-1.8mph. Surface temps ranged from 38.1-40.8° where we were picking up fish. A bit cold for this time of year but hopefully that means the spring fishery will last for awhile! Maybe I’m the minority, but these guys all fought very well and there’s no fish I’d rather be pursuing! Hoping to get out again this Saturday, weather permitting.

Lake is muddy for awhile out but we’re heading deep in an hour or so to try anyway. Haven’t been out yet this season and the future wind forecast isn’t looking great, so I have to burn gas at some point this spring haha. Anyway else going to be out today? Either way, I’ll post a report tonight.

What do you guys think, will the lake finally cooperate this weekend or are us 2-day warriors getting the middle finger again? Fingers crossed for two feet or less on Saturday.

I believe it’s mostly mud after 40-50’. We drag balls on the bottom out deep and never snag (knock on wood). At the very least, it’s consistently flat.

Can’t tell whether to be excited or if this is a joke lol. But in all seriousness man, you get them jigging in Erie? I’ve been trying to jig one for theee years and still haven’t had any success. I didn’t think it was even possible to get much/any deeper than 150 in PA waters either, maybe out by the CA border?

There’s some great info here for those curious about Erie Lakers (and other CW species): http://www.glfc.org/pubs/lake_committees/erie/CWTG_docs/annual_reports/CWTG_report_2017.pdf I read the yearly reports religiously and they’ve provided me with a great understanding of the Erie Char population. (Still waiting on the month-late 2018 report...) And as a final piece of data, this image was taken from the 2016 report and shows the disparity in Summer population size between PA and NY waters.

Fishing NY Erie waters out of Dunkirk or Barcelona, there’s usually a pretty solid summer fishery for them. Just have to find the cold water and work 100-140 FOW in my experience. For some reason in PA waters during the summer, which are the same depth off North East and usually the same bottom temp, no one ever fishes for and rarely reports Lake Trout. It’s all spring fishing in PA. Which again is odd because it’s the same depth, temp, and there’s just as many forage fish as NY waters to my knowledge. Maybe it has something to do with NY stocking more fish? But spring fishing is about equally productive in PA and NY so... I’m stumped. Going to have to try Summer Lakers off North East a few times this year just to see if there’s still a few around. The last LEC CWTG coldwater report that came out in 2017 showed that NY definitely had a more abundant Laker population in the summer than PA, for whatever reason. As far as actual depth, they’ll come in to 40-80 FOW during the spring and 20-60 FOW in late Fall, but I find them in 90-140 FOW in both spring and summer, regardless of surface temps. Lots of guys work 50-70’ heavily during April and May but we’ll head out to triple digit water during the same period of time and catch just as many. They’re always in deep water, a few just move shallower while they can when the water is colder. Again going back to the LEC report, very few Lakers are found deeper than 140-150 FOW in Erie regardless of the time of year. 150 seems to be the cut-off line for fishable numbers.

Never got out this weekend. Lake was glass all of Saturday and early Sunday, but the water was dirty beyond belief (couple feet of vis max) from Thursday’s storm and not even the charters went out. Water was still cold too (38-39°). Next weekend until the end of a May, as long as winds are under 15mph and the mudline isn’t 8 miles out, we’ll be out there every day we can.

I’ll let you guys know if we do any good. Wind looks decent enough, water and air temp is all I’m concerned about. Winter needs to go away for a few months haha.

Anyone else fishing off North East this weekend? Water temp is still a bit cold (38°) so I’m curious how the bite will be. Hopefully my boat isn’t frozen by the time we want to head out Saturday!

I’ll be using inline boards so there shouldn’t be any releases to play with in the system. I will, however, be using snap weights to get down. This is my first year using them so would I be better off clipping them on the fluoro rather than the braid in order to avoid sliding?

Thanks for the quick responses, everyone! I think I’m going to try those 38lb swivels I have on hand to start with and, if for some unfortunate reason I have one break, I’ll switch over to a double uni knot.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Spro, I’ll have to order them next time I do some online shopping. For the time being, I’d imagine these would work just as well, right? Same size overall, just 38lb instead of 50lb, which should still make it stronger than the leader. I mainly use these to connect leader and tippet when Fly Fishing but I don’t see why they would work for this application.

I’ll be rigging up my setups for the season tomorrow and one question I have for you guys is: what sort of knot or splice do you use to connect softer lines that will hold up to the strength of those trophy fish? Specifically, I’d like to add 30’ or so of 20lb fluoro to the end of 50lb braid on my in-line board/snap weight setups. I was thinking of going for a double-uni, but since it’ll be going through the guides under pressure, I worry about the knot getting caught and snapping while a fish is on. My other thought was to just use a large swivel to terminate the braid and only go with as much fluoro on the end as I can clip to my rod, so 7-8’ or so. Thanks in advance. -Sean