Port Clinton area charter skippers were heading to the Canadian border last week to put some nice walleye in their coolers.

BY MARK CAHLIK

Most of the walleye and yellow perch fishing last week was slow, as anglers tried to figure out how to handle the east and northeast winds that had their favorite fish in a bit of a funk. Those persistent fishermen who kept probing the reefs and rock piles around the Western Basin of Lake Erie were finally rewarded with good catches of yellow perch.

The perch bite in the spotlight were fish schooling in the waters southeast of Rattlesnake Island, where perch were feeding in 30 to 32 feet of water. The G Can area on the Lake Erie Firing Zone warmed up again, and perch were being caught in decent numbers a mile north of the Lakeside Pier.

While the walleye fishing is still a bit slow, cooling waters should lure the bigger schools to continue to migrate westward to where they’ll begin staging for the spring spawning season.

The trolling anglers who had been catching lots of walleye in the summer

have been going back to those those Canadian waters around Middle Island. They are again catching fair numbers of walleye there, and around the Weather Buoy northeast of Kelleys Island on the Canadian line.

The trolling fishermen have been teaming a Deadeye Baby Lure behind a Trip Trip 40 Diving Planer and catching nice fish. Casters have still been working Kelleys Island Shoal and Gull Island Shoal, and the waters closer to the Canadian line. The fishing weather looks stable next week and, hopefully, better fishing reports are coming.

The shoreline and boat fishing for channel catfish is starting to wrap up for the year, at least for the charter fishing end of things. One popular charter operation is already pulling his boat for the season. The shore bite for catfish is on the slow side right now.