Fishing Report: June 17th, 2010

With the water heating up, so is the Fishing on Lake Erie! There are Smallmouth Bass and Walleye are spread out just about every where from Buffalo to Silver Creek.

With the Walleyes scattered in small schools in 27-55', some are on rock piles and humps but most are just roaming open water chasing bait. This is where the open water trolling pays off well using boards, leadcore line, Jet & Dipsey Divers with spinner worm harnesses being the bread & butter bait but a few are some are falling for stick baits (Renoskis & Rapalas) and crankbaits (ReefRunners, Challengers & Bombers). The big migratory school of Walleye from Ohio is between Northeast, Pa & Barcelona, NY right now and moving East.

The Smallmouth Bass are starting to move to deeper offshore structure - rock piles, humps, drop-offs and current breaks (near the mouth of the Niagara River). But, there are still some shallow 18-25' around the Buffalo Smallboat Harbor, Smokes Creek, Wanaka and Myers Reef. Golden Shiners and Crabs have been the best baits but, Tubes and Drop Shot Baits will catch their share of fish as well.

The Yellow Perch have mostly moved deep (45-58') off Myers Reef, Sturdeon Point and the Cat (Cattaraugus Creek/Silver Creek) with a few stragglers caught shallower by bass fisherman. Small golden Shiners, Fatheads and Crabs are working for these tasty eaters. Just don't yank them up from the deep water so their air bladders blow up or keep all sizes until you have your limit. It's very unsportsmanlike to throw the smaller fish back with their air bladders blown out, floundering on the surface for the Gulls to eat, at least try to Fizz them so they have a chance to swim back down to the bottom and survive to be a eater in the future.