Walleye Dunkirk 6/18/19

[Kramer93]

Hello, 

I frequent the Lake Ontario United page quite often when I fish there, and decided to go fish Erie for the first time out of my boat today, so I figured I'd join here as well. I live a couple hours southeast of Buffalo, so most of my fishing trips have been to the finger lakes or Lake Ontario. I went on a charter trip on Erie out of Walnut Creek  to celebrate my father's retirement last year, and did pretty well. Yesterday we finally decided to take a trip back to Erie, this time out of Dunkirk, to try it out instead of the typical Ontario salmon trip that we usually go on this time of the year. Most of the walleye fishing I've done has been in Chaumont Bay. After today, I feel like I'll be taking a few more trips to Erie soon.

Today we launched at Dunkirk around 5:45, went North East out of the marina and started trolling NW of the first set of bluffs you can see heading east in about 30 feet of water. We picked up what ended up being the biggest fish of the day while still setting everything up. We had 2 lines in the water at the time. Trolled around there for a while, ended up turning around and trolling across in front of the marina, then went back to where we started. This was my first trip to Dunkirk, second trip ever to Erie, so this is brand new water to me and we felt like doing some exploring. We fished from around 6am to 12:30 or so, and landed 12 out of 14 walleye, 3 sheepshead, and a white bass. 3 of the eyes were over 28 inches, only one was under 20. We tried flicker minnows, flicker shad, bayrats, worm harnesses, spoons, just about everything we had in the boat, and the go to setup was a berkley flicker shad 7 perch color about 60 feet back, add a 1 oz clip on weight, then send it back another 40 or 50 feet. A bayrat wonderbread deep diver took a couple big fish too. As you'll see in the pictures, I picked up a Zebco Dock Demon rod at Walmart just to try something different. This caught 2 of the 3 biggest fish and was an absolute blast. Flat lined it out the back with a snap on weight and it caught more fish than any other rod. There was a lot of cottonwood fuzz on the water, and with it being dead calm in the morning it was difficult to manage at times. Fleas aren't terrible yet. I added a few photo's of some of the bigger fish. 

Based on the reports here, it sounds like not many people are fishing. The parking lot was pretty empty when we launched this morning. If I lived closer I'd be out there more often for sure. Sorry about the long story, this is my first post here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I don't know a lot about Erie, but I'll share what worked for us today.

[mike m.]

Very impressive fish!! 

[Kramer93]

23 minutes ago, mike m. said:

Very impressive fish!! 

Thank you! I definitely wasn't expecting 3 of that caliber on my first trip there lol

[Pequod1]

Nice job. I’ve only been out once this year in buffalo and had our two man limit there. We are trying the Cat today in a few hours. Hopefully, have something good to report.

[dukhnter8]

Nice report and nice fish. Seems like the weather is keeping many off the water including me. I'll be out this weekend though. 

It's a good problem to have deciding where to fish whether Erie, Ontario or any of the other many lakes in the area.

[jimmac]

Nice report. Fri or Sat for me next.

Sent from my SM-S727VL using Lake Erie United Mobile App

[glfisherman]

WENT OUT OF BARCELONA ALL OF LAST WEEK, BEST DAY WAS 36 WALLEYE. WE RELEASED ALL BUT 2. EVERYDAY WAS DIFFERENT AS TO HOW WE FISHED, WHAT WORKED ONE DAY DIDN'T WORK THE NEXT!

[glfisherman]

Also the water came up into the parking lot and the launch ramp were you stand was partially under water at times. I took my BOAT out of my dock as the bumpers were of no use with the high water level. I think we are supposed to get up 2 to 3 inches of rain tomorrow, so I would call the Harbor Master and ask about conditions before going on Friday!

[bud]

Nice catch


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[Labsrus]

Nice report and a few nice fish there.

[wallychaser]

Great job !!! It's a 4 hour ride for us, we try to get out there a couple times a year, great fishery !!!

[Pequod1]

Different day, different results.  1 fish in four hours.  Tried 45-60’ about 3 miles east of Dunkirk.  We did not see any nets moving in any of the boats near us.  Some good marks on the screen but they were not interested. Ran spoons and plugs on bottom bouncers, riggers, lead core, wire and mono dipseys. 

[Kramer93]

Thanks everyone! 28-35 feet of water seemed to work best for us. 35-45 produced some fish, but right around 30 seemed to be the most productive. There's a steep drop off from around 25 to 35 about 0.4 miles straight north of battery point that was loaded with walleye and baitfish. There was a lot of gobies in the fish we cleaned. Might try jigging next time.