A limited number of special Fall Brawl lures, all with the same unique High Tech custom paint color scheme, can win up to $500 in prizes in this year’s Fall Brawl. The Fall Brawl lures are from a variety of lure manufacturers, including two models of Dead Eye diving plugs in the photograph that are now available at Bay’s Edge Bait & Tackle in Port Clinton.

BY MARK CAHLIK

The dog days of summer are almost over around Western Lake Erie, and while many anglers are heading to the deeper Central Basin waters from Lorain to Cleveland and beyond, there are still plenty of yellow perch and channel catfish to catch around Ottawa County.

Many fishermen, however, are already gearing up for Lake Erie’s fall walleye season and the Blaster Products Walleye Fall Brawl, which is now taking entries ($35, lakeeriefallbrawl.com).

The Fall Brawl is Oct. 19-Dec. 8, and anglers can enter online, or at sign-up parties at sponsoring bait and tackle shops. The top prize is a fully-rigged 2024 Ranger FS Fisherman.

Jason Fischer, who directs both the Lake Erie Walleye Trail and the Blaster Fall Brawl, is a very busy guy this month. Fischer will bring the weigh-in for the LEWT Championship on Oct. 11-12 to Bay’s Edge Bait & Tackle, 5359 E. Bayshore Dr., Port Clinton.

The two-day LEWT title event will launch in Sandusky, but the anglers will weigh in at a special LEWT/Fall Brawl event on Saturday, Oct. 12. Ohio’s top LEWT walleye anglers will be weighing their walleye and talking to fishing fans amid fishing exhibits, refreshments and a Fall Brawl sign-up party from 2-5 p.m.

Yellow perch are biting: While the dog days of August have slowed the outstanding summer walleye fishing, the cooler temperature of fall are just around the corner, and the yellow perch and channel catfish are already biting.

The drop-offs around the Niagara Reef complex off Port Clinton and Camp Perry, especially D Can and E Can marking the Lake Erie Firing Zone, are producing surprisingly consistent numbers of perch. Traditional perch spreader and crappie rigs tipped with emerald shiner minnows have been tempting nice perch to bite, and some 30-fish limits have been reported. Perch are also being caught from the 30-foot depths west of West Reef, and east of the Marblehead Lighthouse.

Nice cats hooked by boat anglers: White perch and shad have moved into Sandusky Bay in recent days, and the channel catfish are following them to feed on the baitfish. The best bet has been to tour the Sandusky Bay flats in about six feet of water and look for the schools of baitfish swirling on the surface.

Catching a few lively white perch on shiner minnows for cut bait can make a difference. Focus on the slightly deeper holes on the flats. Uncooked shrimp and nightcrawlers are also catching catfish, although shoreline catches have slowed.

Go east for trophy walleye, limits: The walleye fishing off Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport Harbor and Conneaut is still quite good, but it takes a bit of a boat ride to get to the 60- and 70-foot depths to find good numbers of big walleye. Fishermen are also boating some steelhead trout.

The top tactic has been to troll Dipsy Diver and Jet Diver planers and spoons, and there has been good success using diving planners and trolling the new Eye Baby lures behind 40- and 50-foot Jet Divers.

A big surprise has been the return of schools of yellow perch to the back side of the traditional “hump” structure about three miles northwest of the mouth of the Grand River. The perch limit is 30 per day in that section of Lake Erie.