Trophy Bass Season Nearing.

With the weather warming up the ice on the lake is quickly receding. We have a lot of great fishing to look forward to over the next few months. The rest of this month and April, steelhead are the hot topic for gamefish. However, in April you can fish the open lake or Presque Isle Bay and catch humongous smallmouth bass. The largemouth's are in the bay also, but we generally do not see largemouth's as large as those caught in southern states. The smallmouth fishing is hard to beat in Lake Erie. It is not that uncommon to catch a smallmouth over 20 inches and that is the size that the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has earmarked as a true trophy bass.

The Fish Commission has set a trophy bass only season from April 18 through June 12, 2009. During this time period, only one fish can be kept and it must be over 20 inches. The rest of the year, you may keep 4 bass (combined) over 15 inches. These regulations are for Lake Erie and Presque Isle Bay.

When I tell people that bass have to be this size to keep them out of Lake Erie many are extremely surprised. I routinely walk up and down the South Pier which joins the Bay with Lake Erie and see much smaller bass in people's buckets. One day I spoke to a fisherman who could not speak English who had seven bass in his bucket all around 10 to 12 inches. I explained to his English speaking daughter that bass had to be 15 inches to keep and that he needed to toss them back into the water. He did so but this still has me thinking that there are a lot of bass being kept that are much smaller than 15 inches.

Anyway, the size limit, I believe, is set appropriately and it is common to catch fish in the 15 to 20 inch size range. In April and May, the smallmouths especially are very aggressive and can be caught with almost any lure that is run through their spawning redds. I generally do a lot better on largemouth bass in late July and August when the water temperatures are higher and I can use top waters.

I wanted to post a link for you to check out the lake's conditions before traveling here to fish. As many of you are probably aware, the lake conditions can change rapidly. The lake may be calm in the morning only to turn into a high wave nightmare later on in the day. The National Weather Service keeps constant tabs on the lake's conditions and you can check out the conditions for Lake Erie anytime after April 1, 2009 at Lake Erie Wave Forecasts. Make sure you look at the area from Conneaut Ohio to Ripley New York.

Smallmouth bass fishing is very good to excellent from where the Piers exit the bay all the way to Twenty Mile Creek on the east side. In the early season, the bass will be in less than fifteen feet of water and can be caught by wading off shore also. Many fisherman stick close to stream mouth's but I have had very good days when fishing quite a distance from stream mouth's so if you are not catching fish simply move to another spot.

I have a new spinner to test out and if you would like to help me test it out and compare it to other spinners, please email me and I will give you information. I will include your comments and test results in a later post along with my findings.
May your lines be tight and your hooks be happy!