With excellent numbers of walleye roaming Lake Erie right now, expect to see some trophy fishing being caught like this dandy hooked by Robert Law.

By Mark Cahlik

In spite of the fact that the weather has been far from “perfect,” which has been quite an understatement in recent days, the walleye fishing has been a bit surprising. Anglers have been returning to the launch ramps and marinas with many of their coolers full of nice walleye.

Towards the end of the week the weather should start to straighten out a bit and permit fisherman to enjoy nicer weather while out fishing.

The fisherman who have been casting have chosen to still use the jigs. All the structure-oriented areas have been pretty good hot spots for them. The western reefs in front of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant has been a favorite of fishermen this week. Early morning fishing has been great, but depends on the boat pressure or weather on any given day. You may have to change your depths a little to get the fish that are feeding, but they are there.

Walleye are slowly moving east now. West Harbor and Lakeside are starting to produce some more fish. Using hair jigs with or without a minnow attached and blade baits are still the best choices for success.

Trollers have started to change their locations a little over to west of Catawba and north of D Can, and up to Green Island. If you want to go a little further, then head up to the Canadian line where there is still a strong bite. The fishing in all these places is really starting to light up. Diving plugs such as the Bandits and Reef Runners have been really working well. Putting those back to around 40 to 100 feet seems to have worked best but, of course, if you want to try different variances of the footage then you can do that too.

The reason that you will want to vary your depths depends on the conditions of the day and if the fish are higher in the water column. You will want to keep your speeds between 1.5 and 1.8 miles per hour.

The workers here at Bays Edge Fish Cleaning have been seeing some incredible catches, with a lot of 80- to 100-pound boxes coming in. The size of the fish has been awesome and should only continue to get better with the weather forecast looking more like prime walleye fishing conditions in the coming weeks.

Until next week, stay safe out there and enjoy your time out on the lake. Be mindful of other boaters and “keep a tight line.”