Trying New Places

Sometimes the thought of fishing a new place is exciting and other times it is scary. The thought of making a two hour drive to fish a new place and getting skunked can really make you second guess your desire to make that tip. This was going through my head all week as I was trying to convince myself to take a trip. I wanted to fish in Sandusky Bay. I had been in there years ago while fishing on Lake Erie but was dealing with more motor issues than actually fishing. I have always enjoyed fishing the Harbors on Lake Erie and catching the big largemouth that live there and always wanted to put some time in on the bay.

I didn’t make the decision to take the trip until Friday afternoon so I didn’t give myself a ton of time to prepare to leave early Saturday morning. I already knew what I wanted to fish and knew what I was going to throw but had no idea if I would catch anything. I spent a few minutes looking over the old map I have of the bay, there really isn’t much detail other than its got water and a bottom. We got on the water around 7 am and headed to the first break wall. I fished the entire length of the wall rotating though my rods trying to find something that would work. Finally at the very end of the wall I have a big largemouth smash my jerkbait. First of all I was happy that I caught one and it wasn’t a wasted trip and secondly it gave me a pretty good clue for the rest of the morning.

It was a perfect set up. The fish was on the end of one break wall and the next break wall was just 30 yards away. With the light wind pushing water through the opening in the wall it was exactly where the fish should be. I spent some time there fishing the jerkbait but could get another one to take it. After fishing the jerkbait down the other side of the wall with no luck I moved over to a different wall, this one running out into the bay. I will the whole length of that wall without a bite. As I rounded the end of the wall I noticed my depth change from 13 to 8 feet. This caught my attention so I let the wind push me back off of the spot and picked up my shakey head. I tossed it up to the 8 foot depth range and hopped it down the hill and boom!

I caught seven fish 15″ or bigger off that spot in my next 10 casts. It was definitely exciting to be catching fish of that quality in such a short time frame. Eventually the wind stopped blowing and I couldn’t get another bite on the spot so I had to move on with my day. I continued to run that pattern the rest of the morning and was able to pull quality fish off of most ends of the marina break walls. I went back to this spot before the left for the day and was able to catch one more but by then the wind and waves were too strong I couldn’t keep the boat near the spot.

I’m not sure every unplanned fishing trip will go this well but the next time I get the urge to load the boat and go somewhere I’m not going to hesitate to go. Most of those times are going to occur next spring when our lakes are iced over and people are catching big ones down south. – Michael