Smallmouth on Lake Erie
09/08/15 20:23 Filed in:Stuff and stories
Greg invited me to fish Lake Erie on his brand new 20' Starcraft to try our luck for some smallies. Being with Loomis/Shimano I feel that I need to know more about the conventional side, so I've picked up some spinning gear. I've yet to get a fish on the new 7' 6" Compre and Stradic CI4 2500 so I figured this was a very good opportunity. I needed some bass slime on the handle to get the shine off of it.
Greg showed me how to rig a tube jig (being a fly guy I had no clue) and we worked over any good looking structure we saw on the screen.
In the end, Greg hooked four and lost 'em all while I lost my sole hookup. OK, I've never been skunked on Lake Erie and I didn't want the streak ended, so somewhat reluctantly I got out the Shorestalker 8 wt. with an Airflo Streamer Max, a long fluoro leader and this goby-ish fly that weighs enough to be cast on an ultralite. Greg was already working a fly for no joy, but I was hanging tough with the spinning gear until time started to run short and I had to give up and resort to the fly rod.
No skunk as I ended up with three landed on the fly rod, including two this size:
Greg showed me how to rig a tube jig (being a fly guy I had no clue) and we worked over any good looking structure we saw on the screen.
In the end, Greg hooked four and lost 'em all while I lost my sole hookup. OK, I've never been skunked on Lake Erie and I didn't want the streak ended, so somewhat reluctantly I got out the Shorestalker 8 wt. with an Airflo Streamer Max, a long fluoro leader and this goby-ish fly that weighs enough to be cast on an ultralite. Greg was already working a fly for no joy, but I was hanging tough with the spinning gear until time started to run short and I had to give up and resort to the fly rod.
No skunk as I ended up with three landed on the fly rod, including two this size: