I love fall. Football, fat walleyes, and falling temperature to fire up deer hunting season are a few of the reasons. Fishing this time of year is so much fun, because lets face it, most of us are burnt out of long boat rides, speed trolling 70+ feet of Lake Erie water, and what seems more like the summer harvest than it does sport fishing. Fall walleye fishing is everything but that and we’re all eager to get as many cracks at open water before the winter ice.

I often get asked if I fish any of the inland lakes in Northern Ohio for walleyes. Unfortunately, the answer had always been no. This is mostly because it is so hard to go elsewhere in the area when you live 15 minutes from the greatest walleye fishery on the planet (almighty mother Erie). The thing is, I love fishing the inland lake style: casting from the bow, shallow water, searching with structurescan, etc…. Usually to do this, its a major tournament that is pulling me to a far way place, not the local inland gems we have here in NE Ohio. Lets face it, when a major tournament comes to our area, its GOING to be on Erie.

So back in October, my buddy Scott and I decided to hop in a local Walleye Madness club tournament at Berlin Lake. It was time to put the trolling rods away and get after some inland local walleyes. I got one day of prefishing solo in the boat. I am so accustomed to fishing with other people in the boat, and I do love my fishing companions, but the peace of an 8 hour day on the water was something I thoroughly enjoyed. Just me, my boat, and the lake. You hear and think things you might not otherwise.

The reservoir lake was very low, so I really studied the topography of the shoreline and used that to find fishy spots. Simply imagine whats on the shoreline extending do into the water and then scan it with my Lowrance StructureScan to see if whats under is an extension of the shoreline. And honestly, this technique works whether the water is high or low, and especially on reservoirs. Low water makes it even more obvious.

So I heard the bite was tough, and it was. I was pretty sure the fish would be shallow this time of year, which is a ton of fun, but it also makes it harder for me to find them on my electronics. But using the topographic searching that I described above, I started working. I concentrated on mostly throwing power fishing casting techniques, like blade baits, glide baits (Johny Darter, Puppet Minnows, Shiver Minnows), and jigging spoons. I did a little finesse pitching of jig and plastics, but the power fishing of the faster working baits above would help me cover more water in the limited time I had. And I just have so so much confidence in these techniques. So in practice, I found a nice rock pile on a sharp shoreline break near some deep water. A nice 22”er cracked a Johnson Thinfisher Blade up in 3’ of water. So much fun on a 6’3” extra fast action Fenwick Aetos spooled up with 8/3 Fireline. Gosh I love that set up. Anyways, that was my only fish of practice, and for having only a one fish day, I had a blast, and a clue for the tournament. Scott knows the lake well and lots of spots, I figured we would start on the spot I found, and work similar spots to this up in shallow and use these various power fishing casting techniques.

Tournament day came, and bang, 3rd cast I had a 16”er to put in the box on a 1/2oz Northland Buckshot spoon that I threw up into shallow water. Cast, Sink, Bottom, Pop, Pop, Pop, BANG! There he was. That was the only fish of spot, and after about 30 minutes, we decided to start running and gunning to different spots on the lake. As we got further up the lake and away from the dam and closer to the river source, the water got dirtier as it had rained quite a bit the last few days. The river was dumping mud. Snapping spoons and glide baits doesn’t work as well in dirty water, so we went up one of the creek arms of the lake and found some cleaner water. We were able to stick a few more little ones before we decided to run back to the deeper cleaner end of the lake near the dam. Then it happened, we got on a shallow flat in 3-6’ of water and the eyes gave us about a 45 minute feeding window. We popped 2 nice ones and a couple more 16-17”ers to fill out our limit. After sticking those nice ones, a 22” and 23”er, in that shallow water, I was pumped. I don’t know if its just the way I’m wired or the competitor in me, but whether I am fishing an national tour event with a $300,000 dollar purse or a local club event for a couple hundred bucks, I get just as pumped to boat a nice kicker fish. We ended up getting 2nd place in the tournament and winning the big fish pot with that 23”er. That 1/2oz Northland Buckshot did most of the damage, a couple fish were also caught on a 1/2 ounce sliver Cotton Cordell spoon. What a blast, Berlin and the rest of the Ohio inland lakes, I’ll be back.

So after that tournament, it was time for me to take care of a different kind of EYES, that would be ‘my eyes’, as in my eyeballs. Yes thats right. I have always had terrible vision and been wanting to get laser vision correction for years. I’m fortunate to work for such an awesome company, Delta Air Lines, that approved me the adequate time off todo the procedure. Before doing the procedure, I was a little nervous, as my vision is kind of important, actually really important, to my career as an airline pilot and professional fisherman. So I got several consults from various Laser Vision correction facilities in the area. One of them told me I was a candidate for Lasiks, and that they would do the procedure on me. Another, Clear Choice Custom Lasiks, told me that Lasiks wasn’t a safe option for me given the structure and prescription of my eye. They told me my option was another procedure called PRK. After doing some research on my own, I decided to go with Clear Choice and the PRK procedure. The downside of PRK is that it is a longer recovery than Lasiks, up to 3-6 weeks as oppose to Lasiks which is just a few days. Delta OK’d me, and I went with it. Now you guys also know that I am a fishing electronics and tech junky, so Clear Choice became the easy choice when I learned they had the absolute top of the line laser technology and best surgeons around. The recovery was slow, but expected. I could do most things, but flying a commercial jet with 200+ people on board wasn’t one of them during the first few weeks. I went back at 3 weeks, and the passed all the vision test required to fly. Now, at 4 weeks post-op, I am on my first trip back and used my ‘new’ eyes to watch the Northern Lights over the North Atlantic and the sun rise up over Europe in the morning as I flew across the big pond. I look forward to fishing long days and staying up long night without have to wear stupid glasses or itchy irritating contacts. I remember so many days fishing in high winds, with big waves, and lots of boat spray where my eyes were just absolutely shot after the day from my contacts. That’s no more; the only glasses I’ll be wearing are my Costa’s. 🙂

Ok, back to fishing. I couldn’t lay off Erie that long. The night bite is rocking now. Summer fishing was great and all, but I did get a little sick of having to go through a billion 14-17” fish just to get 1 or 2 good ones. It seemed impossible to target big fish July through September. The future of Erie is bright, but damn, give me some of them big girls now! That’s exactly what we’ve got the last few night trips. My first one was with Kara and Jack, winners of my donation charter at the raffle for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. We caught 12 fish that night, and all were between 20-26”, no ‘rats’ as I like to call them. That’s when I knew fall was really here. My next trip was a day trip off Cleveland. We had huge South winds and were plucking away at the walleyes when the kid on my trip started getting sea sick. That’s when I decide to go in along the calm shoreline and tap into the killer steelhead bite along Bratnah. Dipsies 12 back with spoons and the chromers put on an airshow that rivaled the Thunderbirds back on labor day. Again, fall is awesome.

And now we have the derby going on, or officially the ‘Fall Brawl’. This had been going on for years, as its about a month long fishing derby in which you pay a small entrance fee, $30 bucks, fish as much as you want, and weigh-in the biggest walleye you can catch. The top five fish pay out. Well, the derby has exploded in the last few years, thanks to Frank Murphy and some great sponsors stepping up to throw down on the huge sport fishing industry that Lake Erie is. They got 3,700 entrants this year, and are giving away a $72,000 boat for first place, and $26,000, $20,000, $15,000, and $6,000 respectively for the places down to 5th place. Wow, that’s awesome. Knowing how the fish fatten up as it nears the end in early December, lets just say I’ll be fishing my tush off the week after Thanksgiving. The next time I blog, let’s hope its about the behemoth EYE that won us the Derby.