Seamus Bradnan of Austin, Tex. caught a trophy largemouth bass recently while fishing the Bay’s Edge Pond at Bay’s Edge Bait & Tackle in Port Clinton. The Bay’s Edge townhouses offer catch-and-release fishing to guests staying at the luxury townhouses.

Summer will officially arrive on Friday along the Ohio coastline of Lake Erie, greeted with southerly winds and temperatures in the 80s. A nor’easter and chilly mornings last weekend chased away anglers and cancelled last Saturday’s Lake Erie Walleye Trail Pro-Am Tournament in Fairport Harbor.

The southerly winds in the forecast for the next few days will calm the near-shore waters.

The good news is that the walleye fishing had been fair to good this week, and the sunscreen weather coming up should give the fishing a boost. With the walleye spawning season long over, and a lot of smaller walleye in the large schools of fish, trolling anglers should check lures frequently that are in the water — especially the lures trailing behind Dipsy Diver diving planers — to ensure that a difficult to detect small fish is not on the line.

Walleye are still being caught east of Kelleys Island and all of the way northeast to the Ohio-Ontario border. The border waters northwest of North Bass Island have been productive at times, as well as the Hen and Chicks area west of Pelee Island.

Good reports have been coming in from the dumping area off Cedar Point, and from Huron to Vermilion. The best depths have been from 26 to 40 feet of water. The Lorain Sandbar area has been giving up walleye, as well.

Trolling anglers are still relying on small spoons, including the Michigan Stinger Scorpion spoon and the smaller Yeck spoons. Look for larger spoons to come into play, and crank baits like the Dead Eye Baby and the Flicker Shad and Flicker Minnow. A few walleye are being caught on tandem spinner rigs and nightcrawlers.

Smallmouth bass fishermen have been doing well all around the Bass Islands, the north side of Kelleys Island and around Pelee Island. Swim baits and drop shot rigs have been hooking smallmouth bass with regularity, as well as jigs and minnows and live crayfish.

Ohio anglers are restricted by a Lake Erie spring limit of one smallmouth bass per day from May 1 through June 27. The daily smallmouth bass bag limit goes back to five fish on June 28.