Captain Tom Straus
01-30-2009, 03:23 PM
My buddies all kept bugging me to get out on the Lake Erie Ice with them, Its almost a sin not to be out there, so I went. We set the alarm for 4:40 am headed to Rickards Bait store Rt 53 Port Clinton and bought shiner minnows and Little Cleo's Blue/Silver, Green/Siver crinkle, and perch colors. We headed over to Catawba State Park and unloaded all equipment 6 degrees it said on our mirror winds blowing 20 mph from the South west, windsheild -8 degrees. I had so many clothes on I am glad we didn,t break ice. We headed out 2 miles North west to shanty town and started up the auger to drill some holes, it was still dark. We put up our portable shanny, lit the lantern and startes fishing. It didn't take long and we landed our 1rst walleye @ 5lbs. we mostly worked right poff the bottom in 24 feet. Jigging the spoons sometimes hard others hit on a light lift. We had shiner minnows on all 3 hooks, we proceded to catch 10 walleyes all between 5 and 7 lbs. I have to declare that I am not an avid ice fisherman by no means but I really enjoyed the day we came in around 3:30 pm. Wespoke with many other Lake Erie Ice fisherman when we got in and they weren't as blessed as we were, so it was all good. Other friends are catching walleye's off the A can area most fish there are only 15-17 inches and are getting there limits using Little Cleo's and Jigging Rapalas. The ice is @ 13-14 inches off Catawba, but be careful all the lake does not have as much..