An evening and morning on the water…

[danotaylor]

Tuesday I drove three hours north to visit my good friend Charlie for his 60th birthday, and to have a fish in the Maumee river at the tail end of the annual spawning run.

Folks were saying online that the walleye were done and the run was over. Getting skunked on Tuesday evening kind of confirmed that.

We went back out on the river Wednesday morning, and between the two of us, managed to catch six nice eating size fish. I tried not to out-fish him on his birthday, but some things one has no control over

Happy dayz

 

[wednesday13]

Well done … tough to find any fishable water in northern OH right now. Typical floods this time of year, it just wont end tho lol…

 

[jjohnwm]

Wading for walleye? Cool; never heard of that, certainly never tried it. Looks like fun. Don't worry about outfishing your buddy; it's a character-building exercise for him.

wednesday13 , sorry to hear about the lack of fishable water right now. I have the exact opposite problem up here. I have fishable water right in my backyard at the moment...but I'm not supposed to! I saw a number of what appear to be Umbra mudminnows chilling on my lawn just this morning.

 

[jjohnwm]

Wading for walleye? Cool; never heard of that, certainly never tried it. Looks like fun. Don't worry about outfishing your buddy; it's a character-building exercise for him.

wednesday13 , sorry to hear about the lack of fishable water right now. I have the exact opposite problem up here. I have fishable water right in my backyard at the moment...but I'm not supposed to! I saw a number of what appear to be Umbra mudminnows chilling on my lawn just this morning.

 

[danotaylor]

Wading for walleye? Cool; never heard of that, certainly never tried it. Looks like fun. Don't worry about outfishing your buddy; it's a character-building exercise for him.

Haha, very true jjohnwm Charlie handles it well…each subsequent year better than the last

Late winter the walleye in Lake Erie congregate at the river mouths in preparation for the spring spawning run. In the western basin of the lake it’s the Maumee River.

When the water temp hits 38-40F after the initial spring rains and usual ice off, they come up stream to spawn in the shallower gravel bed areas of faster moving water.

It’s an annual pilgrimage for many fishermen. At the peak of the run literally thousands of fishermen, often shoulder to shoulder, brave the cold currents in pursuit of the elusive walleye. Elusive to most bank fishermen that is!

There are strictly enforced rules, such as using a single hook <0.5” gape and fish must be hooked in the mouth. Many fish get snagged when they’re thick. The other thing that is thick is the DNR with high powered binoculars, boats, quad bikes etc, strictly policing the hot spots. It amazes me how many ppl risk a hefty fine and loss of their fish and license by keeping snagged fish.

The DNR somehow keep track of spawning sizes. Walleye take 3 years to reach minimum size of 15”. The bag limit used to be 4 per fishermen per day, but I guess there was a massive spawn in 2018, so since 2021 the limit was increased to 6.

It gets pretty crazy. Theres idiots fighting every year over “secret spots”, casting distance, tangled lines etc. For those reasons, when I lived up there, I fished only mid-week during the peak of the shenanigans.

Here’s a few google images to show you what “The Maumee Walleye Run” can look like when is crankin

 

[jjohnwm]

That's reminiscent of some fishing spots and times I'm familiar with from Ontario. I forget the name of the river that had a similar infestation of anglers during the walleye run, although that was all shore fishing and no wading. And of course during the salmon run, the Credit and virtually all the other rivers in and around Toronto were like that constantly.

Picture that; a bunch of guys lined elbow-to-elbow all along the river, fishing for salmon. Somebody hooks one and it takes off running, putting any walleye that ever lived to shame. The "lucky" angler chases it up and downstream, while it gets hopelessly tangled up in a dozen other lines belong to dummies who were too stupid and/or too inconsiderate to reel in their lines when they see an insane person splashing towards them at high speed screaming at the top of his lungs. Then the fights over whose fish it was, since it was almost impossible to tell which line went where. I've seen three guys practically come to blows over which of them owned a salmon that had three hooks in it...none of them in its mouth...

I had friends who loved it and were constantly trying to get me to go along. I'll be honest; I don't care how many fish I might catch, I don't enjoy a scene like that and won't participate in it.

 

[danotaylor]

That's reminiscent of some fishing spots and times I'm familiar with from Ontario. I forget the name of the river that had a similar infestation of anglers during the walleye run, although that was all shore fishing and no wading. And of course during the salmon run, the Credit and virtually all the other rivers in and around Toronto were like that constantly.

Picture that; a bunch of guys lined elbow-to-elbow all along the river, fishing for salmon. Somebody hooks one and it takes off running, putting any walleye that ever lived to shame. The "lucky" angler chases it up and downstream, while it gets hopelessly tangled up in a dozen other lines belong to dummies who were too stupid and/or too inconsiderate to reel in their lines when they see an insane person splashing towards them at high speed screaming at the top of his lungs. Then the fights over whose fish it was, since it was almost impossible to tell which line went where. I've seen three guys practically come to blows over which of them owned a salmon that had three hooks in it...none of them in its mouth...

I had friends who loved it and were constantly trying to get me to go along. I'll be honest; I don't care how many fish I might catch, I don't enjoy a scene like that and won't participate in it.

Agreed mate. Seriously ridiculous how some of those blokes behave.

Because folks were saying the run was over, we fished a 1/4 mile stretch with about 6 other blokes Tuesday evening, and the same stretch with maybe 10 guys Wednesday morning. It was very pleasant. No tangles. No fights. No obnoxious loud mouths. Just the sound of Canadian geese, running water, with the occasional “fish on” call throughout the morning. All with my good mate Charlie 6’ on side or the other of me, every ready with the net to secure my catch All in all a cracker morning on the river!

The white bass are moving in to the river now, and though not as busy as the walleye run, phase 2 of the spring spawn is poised to kick off! Here we go again

 

[jjohnwm]

White Bass! Another old favourite of mine! They were locally referred to as Silver Bass in southern Ontario, but it's the same fish. They lived a pelagic lifestyle in the Detroit River, following and feasting upon the gigantic clouds...can't call them mere schools...of Emerald Shiners. They could be caught in large numbers on ultralight tackle, tossing small spoons and spinners into the churning mass of Bass and Shiners when they tangled at the surface. They were only a pound or two but they were fantastic gamefish for their size, and woefully underappreciated by most anglers.

Good luck when you go! I'm jealous!