Opening Day

[Jay Nannen]

Fished the opener with my new buddy Greg.  We fished from 8:30-3:00 and sadly had no contact with muskies.  We did see a beauty come aboard Gabe's boat.  Water color was fine and moss was not bad at all

[John Jarosz]

Fished the opener with Ryan Shea of Brookdog fishing & fished UN 6,7,8 & 9. Spotted four muskies in UN 9 & one looked like a tiger. Stripping the flies past their snouts triggered absolutely nothing. Not interested. The biggest looked about 40". I saw another pointed downstream, made a loud splashing plop beyond it with my fly & the musky moved towards it, but no take.

Later in the a.m. Ryan said: Hey, you want to try some carp fishing on a fly? Heck yeah, I'm game for that. He stands on the little triangular podium where the electric is mounted & calls out feeding carp with hand signals (by clock position). I thought I was fishing the flats in Belize. I still haven't figured out how he can balance on that little patch of boat. Maybe he has some Walenda blood in him. If they're not actively feeding, you're wasting your time. "Feeder at 10 o'clock." I gotta plant the fly about 2" from its face & slooooowly strip in, then do a trout lift when Ryan gives the word. Hooked it in the nose & thankfully it got loose. It prob went 20 lbs.

Back to musky fishing in UN 5 & by that time the amateur boaters were out in force. Water was churned, boat traffic left & right & decided that musky fishing on a weekend in the East River is good 'til 10:00

Another fantastic successful opener. Ryan brought me a breakfast burrito the size of my head with scrambled eggs, cheese, sausage, bacon, ham(?), onion & Frank's Hot chicken wing sauce plus a thermos full of strong black coffee. He brings that for all his fishing partners. But next year it'll be during opening week, not opening day. Can't wait! It doesn't get better than that!!

Also made sure I downed two qts of warm water. It was EZ to get dehydrated today

[John Pensyl]

I'll add a 3rd fish less report to the mix. Nothing in thr harbor 12am until daybreak. Lots of action in the river for all I talked to but they just wouldnt stick for us. 0-4 bites jigging. All felt like little guys. So much for my "keep the tip low and never lose fish" motto I've been preaching. Some days they just don't stick, especially the lil guys.

Did have quite the scare running to the harbor at midnight. As I hit the rapids below the peace bridge my boat took a small hop like always and all of my lights went black, dash lights, running lights, complete stealth mode. Not the place to be without lights. As I frantically flipped switches on and off and pounded the panel I looked up to see a boat running right at us. I veered hard and luckily they saw me as it turned out to be the erie county sheriff watching the whole thing play out with night vision. Then they lit up thier lights and wanted me to follow them. Problem with that is those blue lights leave u with zero night vision and thier 600hp is a wake u don't want to be around below the peace bridge. Had to run blind outside thier wake out into the lake where they could tie up and check us out. Luckily my boat partner was a federal agent so that didn't take long because being tied to a boat in those rapids, in the dark is sketchy. As we followed whatever knocked loose fixed itself and lights were fully operational again so off we went. Looks like bombing through clair in 4 footers last week may have took its toll on my wiring. Gonna have to pull apart the panel this week. Spotlight in the boat from now on.

[Josh Ketry]

A big thanks to Peter for taking me out today.   We fished the harbor.  I gave him the full tour - shallow trolling, deep trolling and casting.   We got a 38" casting and two other follows.

Big excitement was a bass boat that almost ran us over.  Amateur hour is not fun.  I like fishing weekdays better, but had a great day nonetheless. 

[Tony Scime]

I also fished the harbor on the opener. Mostly trolled deep from midnight to about 8. No fish. Checked out the river for a short time. Thought the moss was getting thick in the west, but none in the east.

[John Jarosz]

For sure, Josh, everyday going out fishing is a great day.

[Peter McConnell]

Fished the harbor with Josh Ketry. I have wanted to learn the harbor and I could not have had a better partner. Josh knows musky fishing!!!! Caught a small one casting in the first hour along with a couple follows. Action like that right away can get one pretty excited but things got quiet despite trying everything.
Every day on the water is an awesome day!!! Had a blast out there...thanks Josh!!!!!

[Jim Kinner]

Fished the opener with a couple fellow divers. Managed to get a healthy 39 to go on a Mepps buck tail. Strawberry Island area. Did my first dives of the year this morning. Saw a sturgeon and a couple muskies, along with a few nice smallmouth and walleye. Not much bait in the river, but the Moss was super heavy today. I would have to say it was unfishable today by most means. 

[Frank Stachowiak]

Fished the opener with Len K.  North gap out beyond the lighthouse then hung a left to the middle gap.  Then the south gap merry go round to include the windmills. Only 5 hours but no bad releases. I forgot to mention, no fish.

[carl schenk]

i'll add another opening day report to the bunch. Started washing lures just past midnight with Scott Kitchen in the north gap. Nothing happening for a few hours when I notice my outside rod sorta bouncing backward. I'm reeling in full speed to clean the lure figuring I've snagged into some junk when I notice splashing going on. Scott calls walleye just as the eyes glow back at us. 21" and no ice... Trolled down the inside of the wall to the south gap and wanted to get away from there fast as the smell of bird turds was nasty! One more pass through the north gap with no action and with daylight it's time for the river. We spend a few minutes at Seaworld and drift to the IB with no action. Move down in front of Strawberry for a drift, but after Scott snagging and losing a lure right away I let him know I'm too tired to deal with more. Not too comfortable fishing without my passport anyway. Home for the day and some sleep and then meet up with Tom R. to finish out the opener. Passport is aboard this trip and we call in and begin trolling. Darkness comes and we're both cleaning lures steadily when my lure gets hammered. Strong fight for the first 20 yards and then the fish goes into a glide straight to the boat. A little boat side thrashing and Tom slides the net under a big headed thick fish. Water measured 41ish. This trip I forgot the tagging gun so Tom slid the net out from under her. Gone... Tom caught a decent sized bass and that was it for the evening. I  guess I better make a list since if there's more than 3 things to remember something gets left at home. Don't know if it's age or residual brain loss from all the partying of my younger years but I'll try to do better next time...                                 

[John Jarosz]

Nice report, Carl. It sounds like ice should definitely be on-board the next trip.

[Josh Ketry]

You shouldn't need your passport anymore once Bill S-233 is given the Royal Assent by Canada

[Capt. Larry D. Jones]

Chris Kempf & I fished the South Gap opening day.Did not mark much inside the walls,a gew walleyes. We did mark a few big hooks outside the wall in 35 ft of water.We managed to catch a nicely marked 40" muskie,but that was it for the day,we started at 5:30 am and quit at 1:30 pm.Water temp in South Gap was 69 degrees.