The popular Fall Brawl walleye fishing derbies on Lake Erie began last Saturday and will run through Nov. 30 as anglers chase big walleye and a wealth of prizes. Bay’s Edge Bait and Tackle in Port Clinton will award the derby winner $1,000 and a $500 gift certificate if the angler caught the winning walleye on, left to right, a Dead Eye, Dead Eye Junior or Eye Baby fishing lure.

The late season walleye fishing excitement has begun, as anglers from around Ohio and almost every state in the country can enjoy the most productive months of the year. Buoying those numbers are the many thousands competing to win prizes for catching a trophy walleye in the Fall Brawl or Walleye Slam fishing derbies that began last weekend and will run through Sunday, Nov. 30.

Fishermen who have entered the Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam have a long list of rewards to chase, including a pair of Ranger fishing boats in the Fall Brawl and a Warrior boat in the Walleye Slam, all $100,000-plus fishing machines.

Bay’s Edge Bait & Tackle, one of eight weigh-in stations for the Fall Brawl, is also rewarding the angler catching the winning walleye in the Fall Brawl if the fish was hooked and landed on its Dead Eye, Dead Eye Junior or Eye Baby lures, including 10 new colors created by legendary Wisconsin fishing lure designer Tommy Harris.

“The new Dead Eye lure colors were created for the Lake Erie fishing environment,” said Harris, “especially a silver metal flake lure with a transparent candy blue coating and an orange belly, and a gold metal flake lure with a black top and an orange belly. The new colors will give a walleye fisherman an edge, whether he’s trolling Dead Eye and Eye Baby lures, or casting the Dead Eye Junior from piers or break walls after dark.”

Where are the walleye?

This past week, despite the brisk winds, I’ve been taking may customers to the deeper waters of Lake Erie on the Ohio-Ontario border north of Vermilion, and a mile or two to the east. Many of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail competitors recently were fishing there, targeting the plentiful big walleye.

Trolling with Tru-Trip Divers and Dipsy Divers with small crank baits like the Eye Baby were catching fish, as well as trolling spoons of all sizes. The Dead Eye, a deep diving crank bait, caught some of our biggest walleye.

Schools of walleye have been migrating from eastern Lake Erie to Huron and Vermilion for the winter, feeding on shad to get ready for the spring spawning season on the Lake Erie reefs and in the Sandusky and Maumee rivers. There have been good catches of walleye and smallmouth bass in 15 to 25 feet of water from Huron to Vermilion while trolling small crank baits, drifting and casting jigs and nightcrawlers, as well as weight-forward spinners or spinner rigs and nightcrawlers.

The Dead Eye Junior jerk bait, a shallow-diver, has traditionally excelled for shoreline casters casting from piers and break walls in Sandusky and Huron, and at Catawba Island State Park and the Lakeside Pier on the Marblehead Peninsula.

The yellow perch bite is finally warming up again, with good catches, including some jumbos, south of Kelleys Island in 27 to 28 feet of water, and west of the Bass Islands near Rattlesnake and Green islands.

LEWT a Lake Erie shootout

Bryan Miller, of Windham, and Mike Miller, of Medina, had a rough morning in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship on Lake Erie on Saturday, Oct. 11, battling big waves as the schools of walleye were on the move. As the wind settled a bit, the Millers found the trophy walleye they needed, placing a tournament limit of five walleye on the scales that settled in at 33.70 pounds, to win $17,380. Nick and Ed Olesky just missed the win with 33.26 pounds, followed by Rodger Riggs and Khaden Berry with 32.02 pounds.

Capturing the LEWT Team of the Year honors after a dominant season on the Lake Erie trail were Dead Eye lure pros Gary and Nicholas Zart, a father-son combo from North Ridgeville and Vermilion. Both are Lake Erie fishing guides and have been consistent LEWT winners over the years. A prelude to the LEWT Championship, on Friday, Oct. 10, they weighed 39.19 pounds to win the rescheduled Fairport Harbor LEWT event from last June that was thwarted by bad weather. The Zarts took home $14,250. Second and third were Steve Hendricks and Brian Ulmer (34.51 pounds) and Tyler Berthold and Joe Gibson (32.97 pounds).