Mention the words Lake Erie and there aren’t many fishermen that don’t immediately think of walleye fishing.  This is as much the capital of walleye fishing as any water in the world. 

Choosing Lake Erie to represent Ohio was easy, but finding a guide sure wasn’t.  Virtually every charter boat in a hundred miles of Cleveland is setup for 6 clients and a price tag to fit them.  Being there were only two of us what were we to do?  I probably spent more time trying to find a guide on Lake Erie that any other.   I then stumbled across Lenny Miller’s “Get Reel Guide Service” whose motto is “Walleye for Two”.  It was perfect.

We met up with Lenny and his wife the night before as he had decided to bring his RV Trailer up to the Turtle Creek Marina Campground in Oak Harbor, Ohio to make the most of a few days on the water.  Lenny fixed us a batch of deep fried walleye and hush puppies to die for.

Around 2AM a band of thunderstorms moved in and brought the rain.  We awoke at 5AM.  It was still raining but the forecast looked like it might break in a few hours.  Lenny picked us up at 6AM and we were headed for the big water within 30 minutes.  The winds had died down some but it was still a very rough ride 7 miles out.  Unfortunately, Taylor made a bad decision and decided to sit down in the back of the boat – the equivalent to sitting in the back seat of a car when driving on a mountainous road.  By the time we pulled the worms out he was looking a little green.  A few minutes later he managed a big tangle in his line.  He should have just cut it but decided to try to unwind it.  Not a good decision as he lost his equilibrium – was full blown sea sick – and would not recover before we put our feet on land a few hours later.  He did manage to keep his breakfast down.

I always look for the silver lining in everything – so in spite of Taylor struggling through a few hours of sea sickness without complaining we did manage a Lake Erie SLAM which consisted of catching 5 species of fish (Walleye, Catfish, Yellow Perch, White Perch, and Sheephead).

After we got 10 fish in the boat we decided not to push Taylor’s patience any further and headed for shore.  Although Taylor had taken some Bonine that morning and was wearing wrist bands that usually work well, it just wasn’t enough today.  Tomorrow we plan to be fishing big water again on Lake Ontario so we plan to stop and get some home sea sickness remedies consisting of ginger and lime.  Thankfully we won’t be drifting tomorrow which will help.

Fish Count to Date:

Dad (269 Fish); Taylor (206 Fish); Combined Total (473 Fish through 38 States)