Monday was a beautiful day on Lake Erie. The sun was out, but it wasn’t too hot. The wind was blowing, but it was more like a gentle breeze. The lake was not flat, but the waves were just about the right height for Erie’s famous “walleye chop.” It was almost a perfect day for fishing on the big lake.
Oh, did I mention the wrong kind of fish were biting?
For the most part, they weren’t walleyes.
If you have fished Lake Erie, you know what species of fish hits hard and fights fiercely all the way to the boat.
Sheephead. Or as my Division of Wildlife friends properly call them: freshwater drum.
Yeah, we caught a ton of sheepies. Big ones, small ones. A bah bah here, a bah bah there, here a bah, there a bah, everywhere a bah bah.
There were six of us — seven including the captain — fishing on Papa John, a charter boat out of West Harbor Marina. Captain Randy Sells was part of a group of Lake Erie Charter Boat Association captains taking part in Fish Ohio Day, an annual get-together of news media, wildlife, government and local business.
Even Gov. John Kasich fished that day. Guess what he caught? Two sheepies.
Out of the seven of us on our boat (the Gov and entourage had their own boat) three caught walleyes. Their catch totaled a whopping six, or one person’s limit. There was one round goby caught. The rest of the fish were sheephead.
I think Roger Knight, head of the Division of Wildlife fisheries unit, caught the largest sheephead — er, drum — but he also caught a couple of the walleyes.
Larry Mitchell of the League of Ohio Sportsmen was the sheep king. He caught about 10 of the critters. I was second in the wool race, bringing up six.
People wonder why in the heck there are so many sheephead in Lake Erie. The biologists will probably tell you it’s because they are prolific. But I think the reason the population seems to be always rising is because everyone who catches a sheepie throws it right back in the lake. Few people in these parts eat freshwater drum, so when one is caught, it’s usually released so it can go out and rob somebody else’s bait.
Knight said we should keep our bait away from the bottom, because that’s where the drum hang out. We were drifting and casting, so he and the captain were giving us counts to use. We started with a cast and a 15 count before reeling. Then they went to a 10 count.
I guess I can’t count or the sheephead figured out our count because I would cast, the bait would splash and I would have a sheepie on the line before I could start counting.
At least I could say one thing, every one of those sheephead I caught fought harder and bent the pole more than any walleye I ever caught.
That’s what Lake Erie fishermen say when they aren’t catching walleyes.
Lake outlook
“There have been good days and bad days of walleye fishing this year, but the main problem has been the weather,” said Randy Sells, captain of Papa John Charters. “We lost quite a few days this spring because of the weather, but I was able to reschedule most of them.
“I have caught more fish this year by trolling rather than drifting. When we were able to fish early in the year, we were catching big fish. Now we are catching two- and three-pounders.”
“We are finally seeing the weather straighten up and the water has cleared,” said Knight. “I look for fishing to be good as long as the weather holds. Our main issues are with habitat. A healthy habitat is the key. The big issue we must address is nutrients going into the lake. That’s something we’re working on.”
For more about Lake Erie, visit wildohio.com. For more about Papa John Charters, visit papajohncharters.com.
Outdoors columnist Jim Morris can be reached through his website at www.examiner.com/outdoor-recreation-in-dayton/jim-morris or by email at sports @DaytonDailyNews.com.
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