Walleye, Wow What Fun

 In Hunting Stories

By Jim Leonard, Lansing Chapter Member

Fishing for Walleye on Lake Eriefishing for walleye

At our last Chapter Fundraiser, Mike bought a Lake Erie walleye fishing trip from Paul Bolling of Spinner-and-Spoon Sportfishing Charters. Luckily Mike asked me, Janet, and our other son Greg to accompany him. The date was finely set for June 19th. We really had to get up early to meet Paul at a marina in Monroe, MI at 6:00 AM but we made it.

From there the fun began. He has a big roomy boat with twin inboard engines. His mate was Eric. We motored out down a channel that led to Lake Erie. When looking out at all that water I wondered where would we go and how did Paul know were there were fish?

I was about to find out as he motored out into the lake a few miles, stopped, and started to rig the poles.

First they put out two planner boards, one attached to each side of the stern of the boat with a stout line. These towed about 30 feet off to the side. Next came out a pile of shower curtain hangers and rubber bands, With the hanger around the planner board line and the rubber band on the fish line, they put out an array of fish poles covering about a 60 foot wide swath behind the boat.

We were now officially fishing for walleye. 

In about two minutes, Eric handed Janet a pole and after a struggle she landed our first walleye. The magician Paul knew where the fish were!

This routine continued non-stop. We maybe caught five sheep head or white bass and one barely legal walleye that got tossed back in but everything else was a keeper walleye. The daily per person limit is six fish and we had our 24 in way less than two hours. Paul wanted a couple to take home for lunch so we kept fishing on his license. Within a few minutes and before we could get all the lines in we had five more beauties.

What a ball! However,  as we were motoring back in I got to thinking that when we got home we would spend the rest of the day cleaning fish. Fooled again. When we got back Eric laid them all out for photos, and then, bless his heart, he quickly converted them to four zip lock bags full of wonderful fillets.

I sure gained a lot of respect for Paul, after years of experience, he knows how to find the walleyes for his clients. We had a ball.

fishing for walleye

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