Lake Erie Fall Muskies

[mostlymuskies]

The past few years Lake Erie's mean peak water temprature has increased and the fall weather has been very warm.This has slowed down the cooling of Lake Erie water to the point where Lake Erie stays warmer out deep then the shallows.This also keeps the gizzard shad school's and muskies out deep until the season ends in NY at the Buffalo Harbor on Nov 30th.So with the season still being open till Dec 15th in the Ontario portion of Lake Erie it was time to troll out deep to investigate.Mark S. and I started out by the Ice Boom Bouey's to the Ontario side of Waverly Shoal and did not mark much there,so we continued out deeper toward Point Abino.Knowing that the perch usualy school up in the 50 ft waters off Wind Mill Point,that is where we headed.Not much of anything on the depthsounder in 46 degree water from 32 ft to 47 ft of water.Then at 49 ft water the screen begin to show life and at 50ft it became gizzard shad top to bottom with big hooks mixed in.The water temp was 47.5 degrees,1.5 degrees warmer then the Buffalo Harbor,also the 50ft water is just behind a 32 ft hump so it is a current break from waters being pushed toward the head of the Niagara River.We hit those large gizzard shad school's in every direction with no luck.I decided to give the area another try on Tuesday and after 3 hours managed to hookup and catch a little fat football 39" muskie that had been eating very well.Today would have been a good day to go out there again,but my boat is down waiting on a new ECU.Going to snow starting tonight through friday,so maybe early next week when we get back to the 40's again I'll talk someone into going out again.