Starting this year, the Federation lifts the off limits period at noon on the Friday before the tournament, giving us additional time to spend on the water before the tournament. Of coarse, I had to take advantage of this, and my wife and I were at Marion Manor Marina at exactly noon to put the boat in the water. Weathermen were forcasting building winds out of the west during the day, so I wanted to get out there before the lake turned ugly, afterall, Saturday I may not be able to get out there at all!!

Anyway, once out there we were greeted with a pretty stiff EAST wind!!! Not sure where that came from, but there it was. We started fishing some offshore shoals, me dragging a Carolina rigged tube, and Robyn dragged a traditional tube set-up. Almost immediately, she hooked into a nice 2 3/4 pound smallie with the tube. Cool!! For the next 1/2 hour or so, we caught a few more small keepers, and Robyn landed one small walleye. We picked up and moved on to other shoals on the lake.

Running around wasn't too bad, but there was a 2 foot plus chop, and things were slightly bumpy at times. The pattern we established at the first shoal seemed to produce at other shoals around the lake. I marked some of the better ones on the GPS for future use. I also established that I could burn a spinnerbait over the grassy shoals in the rough water with the sun out during the middle of the afternoon, and still catch fish. This was also a good thing. About 5:00, we decided to call it a day.

I fished the next day by myself, and got on the water about 5:30 am. I started at that first shoal again, just to make sure that pattern was holding out. An hour later, I had nothing to show for it. I started t get concerned that my pattern fell apart. The wind is now blowing stiff out of the south to southwest with 2-3 foot waves. I moved to other shoals I found on Friday, and at 7:00 am my pattern starting working very well again. I found a nice area where most of the water is 15-20 feet deep, with numerous scattered humps that came up to 5-8 feet, with thick grass on them. I would drag tubes with the wind until I got to the hump, then burn spinnerbaits while in the grass, and continue dragging tubes once out of the weeds again. Fish came both ways. I only landed 5 fish on Saturday (only fish 3 hours though), but all were in the 2 pound plus class, with one a little over 3 pounds. All fat dark mean smallies I knew what I was going to do on Sunday, so there was no sense beating myself up in the wind any more that day.

Tx morning, my partner (Rose LaValley of Lake Champlain B/M) and I were boat 101, the last boat for blast off. The winds were quite strong straight out of the west, but it didn't seem too bad at Marion Manor Marina waiting to take off. By the time we were able to go, several boats were heading BACK to the ramp, and one guy I knew (with a freshly busted up trolling motor from the waves) said "wait til you see it out there!". Hmmmm, I was hoping for good stiff winds, but this might be more than even I wanted.

Finally we take off, get around that first point, and all of a sudden we were on Lake Erie. According to my GPS, we had 10 more miles to go to get to my area. The waves weren't too bad, about 3-4 footers at times, but they were so close together that it made running with any speed impossible. So up went the trim so we didn't stuff any waves, and we began to make the slow tedious "run" down the lake. Finally, 40 minutes later we made it to my area, which is right smack out in the middle of the lake with no wind protection for miles. We needed our "sea legs" for the next 7 hours, that's for sure!!

Out went the drift sock and we began our drift. I dragged the tube for 30 seconds before we hit the weeds, then made 2 casts with the spinnerbait before we were out of the weeds, then dragged again for 15 seconds before hitting deeper water. Problem!! The hump is way too small for such a fast drift!! I decided to go to a much larger hump about 400 yards away that would give us more time to fish.

Once there, BAM!!! fish on. Rose landed to first two, both quality fish, on a spinnerbait. I got the next two in the boat with the tube. Not bad for one 100 yard drift. A few more drifts later we both had limits, rose got some real nice cull fish on the spinnerbait, and I proceeded to have problems keeping my better fish on. Between breaking off fish due to zebra mussel line damage with the tubes, and losing a 3 pound plus fish on a spinnerbait inches from the net, I was somewhat discouraged. But hey, that's fishing!!! I did manage to put every sheepshead I caught in the boat however, all 6 of them!! We made so many dirfts over that hump during the day, that my plotter on my GPS was absolutely black with plot lines. I estimate that we pulled in the drift sock, pulled up the trolling motor, strapped the rods, and put the life jackets on AT LEAST 40 times that day to repeat drifts. It got quite routine after awhile.

The wind stayed strong all day, and we needed to leave that area a good hour before our flight was due in. The ride in was better than the ride out, but I was day dreaming going around the last point before we hit calmer waters, and clipped one wave pretty good. That's OK, my deck needed a good washing anyway

I ended up weighing 10.93 pounds. Not sure what place that is yet, but think it is somewhere between 50th and 60th out of 202. Not too bad, but I knew I had the fish on to better that weight more than a pound. Such is fishing I guess. Rose did well with a bag in the low 12's, only a couple tenths away from the last pay spot. She was quite happy with that!!

On to Sackets Harbor next month!!!