Gill-T

If the water is stained...probably an algae bloom. Blooms can deplete the water of oxygen and make the fish sluggish. Just a guess. Probably need a good south or north wind to roil the lake to get the fish snapping again.

Fleas are never bad in Erie. Too much flow in and out. Stagnant water=fleas.

You will love it. Great fish/family platform at a resonable price. Fit and finish.....stinks, but who cares. The amount of cuddy space to fishing space is why I like the layouts of the Trophys. My 23' model can sleep four comfortably and has plenty of fishing space. Not sure of the power on the outboard model, but you can fish year'round with the setup.

Some fish like Tarpon have a primitive lung/swim bladder thingy and will gulp air on occasion to regulate themselves. Maybe Muskies and Pike do it aswell????? Maybe distress from swallowing a perch or blugill the wrong way and the barbs are sticking???

I never can find Mag stickers. I just use two standard ladders per spoon, with the second cut to length as needed.

Anytime you take up a firearm, bow or fishing rod to hunt or fish you except as a predator that you will potentially kill something. Unlike other predators we have morals and often choose to find a creature alive is worth more than one dead. However, nothing lives forever so do your best on CR for muskies and don't beat yourself up over it.......it was the fish's time.

Get Trout Unlimited involved.

That fish does look 30 lbs!! You might have been screwed by a bad scale?

I have been given advise to use Weather.com. I like the real time weather buoy info found on Olcottfishing.com under the Olcott buoy icon at the top.

I thought the policy was to carry over entrance fees to the following year if you cannot make the tournament?

Was down at Lake Erie yesterday and today. NOAA's wave and wind forecast has let me down before......but holy cow! Less than 10 mph NE wind? It was BLOWING 15-25mph steady SW and W both days off the Catt. with 3-6' waves. Good news is there should be a fresh batch of Walleyes that blew over from Ohio, and Penn No fishing for me just beach time with the fam.

Chiropractor.......maybe a quick fix.

Great......now when are you bringing your rig to DeErie?

I have two daughters, and they need to see fish every 15 minutes or they get bored. For numbers, look at the graph and find bait. The bait balls will give you clues what the temp is as they are usually in water in the 50's. Put a bait at the bottom of the bait ball, in the middle, and top. Put a flasher/fly 10-20' below the bait for bigger fish.

Get the shift cable looked at. Could be electronic shift assist switch or idle set to high also.

Nice job on hitting for the cycle with your wife......(insert joke). It seems someone gets the cycle out of that area every year. Could be the claim to fame for that stretch of water.

Multiple divers per side off a Lund transom can make netting tricky for two guys. K.I.S.S......two riggers cheated, two divers, two coppers or two leadcore or two torpedo divers off the boards or any combination of the before- mentioned junk.

The Chamberlain release might be what you are looking for. It has two settings...one for the tension of the down line and one for the tension of release to the lure. The idea is you can crank down a rod tight, but you can set the tension on the release to go off if a perch hits. Scotty releases with a tether show small fish better as well.

Mark, fish off the Catt. come mostly off the bottom. We take most of our fish on a downrigger line (worm harness W/CHEATER hook)....tap bottom with ball and bring it up quick 5' or so......12-20' leads. You have to really watch the rod to see a tell of a perch or small walleye. The second deep line is a three-way with 4 oz of weight and a worm harness. Keep checking the lines for perch, white perch, sheephead, rock bass etc. etc. When the lake is rolling, higher lines with mini-disks out 180-200' of braid with harnesses or leadcore work........I thought we covered all this Mark

Hit water off the Catt. this morning looking for fish to fry. Set up outside perch fishermen 53-55'. Worm harnesses with pink blades took three 20" walleyes (lost a good one at the boat), numerous sheep****, and a boss perch. Walleyes turned off by 9 am, so into the shore for smallmouth trolling with hot'n tots. Lots'o bass. Nice day on water....typical July fishing on Erie. Big-fish schools of Walleye have not come in yet.

Keep trolling, but throttle down. My advise would be to spend some time on others boats and see how it is done.

My hardtop is off......as is my carb so I will live vicariously thru your reports. Can I text you with what to put down and how deep?

Rod, you are going to have to rethink those new Burka-style tournament garments you had made up this year. The Big Weenie logo does not really show up too well against a black background anyway.

You can get Optitackle products from Lakemichiganangler.com. Yes, they were sold.

Break strength of Flouro 15lb is like 10lb mono. Lose the fluoro all together IMO. At 56' down you don't need it.