This was a 7 day trip. This was my 4th year of vacationing at Lake Erie and I was still learning how to catch Walleye. I was mostly drifting spinner rigs at 3 depths, one close to bottom, one half way up and one toward the surface, down about 10′ using crawler rigs.
Usually it’s breezy on Lake Erie in the mornings, so I would go out in the rough water and drift, using the trolling motor to increase my speed some. When the wind died down I would troll crankbaits. I was using Erie Deries and then started making my own spinner rigs and used clip on sinkers. These sinkers were expensive so I came up with my own and they worked great.
I found fish by the second day and stayed on them all week trolling cranks. The water clarity was poor and the fish were near the clarity break. Sometimes I would take a break and go Smallmouth Bass fishing.
On the last day I was tired. I found some bigger fish, but hooked a big drum and lost my hot crankbait. I ran back to Massies cottages and he had some. Back out fishing and the wind picked up and my back couldn’t take it anymore, so after 10 days of fishing, I needed a break. I headed back to the cabin, took an aspirin and laid down, I had a big drive the next morning.
A few hours later I could hear the guys in the next cabin over, they had a bunch of big Walleye 3-6#. They were all dunked up and gladly told me where they caught them, which was where I was fishing that morning.
So I jumped in the boat and headed back out. I was drifting with spinner rigs in 30-50′ while using clip-on sinkers. A ship was headed my way and I was in the channel, so I had to change course to get out of the way, and all the sudden the depth went from 50 to 18 feet!
Both rods bent over, they were snagged. I stopped, turned around and started trying to retrieve them. I grabbed one and it had a 9 pound Walleye on it! After I got that in I grabbed the other rod and it too had a Walleye on and it was over 11 pounds! It was 33.5″ long! What fun ride back to the cabin with the ship in the distance with a bright orange sunrise. That would be a day to remember and I would be back the next year.
I kept that Walleye and tried to mount it myself. After I got the fish put away the sun was setting a brilliant orange with a ship in the back ground. It was a joyous ride back and the looks on the faces of those guys faces was priceless.
