Dad and I decided that we were going to head to Lake Erie and do a little smallmouth fishing on Saturday.  We launch out of Walnut Creek Marina and fished towards Presque Isle and towards the Ohio line.  The weather was beautiful.  It was mostly sunny and the high air temperature was around 82 degrees and the low temperature was about 55 degrees.  Once we got out of the creek the water temperature was right around 71 degrees.  Some spots varied by 1 degree, I am not sure why though?  As always the water was crystal clear and the waves varied but only range from 1 to 2 feet.  The wind varied slightly from a Southwest wind in the morning to a Northwest wind in the afternoon.

First we started fishing a hump that went from 29 feet at the deep point to 25 feet on top of the hump.  No luck there.  Then since there was a nice breeze we decided to drift down a rocky break line that was varied from 22-26 feet of water.  We found one spot along that stretch that we caught a couple beautiful smallmouth and a couple of freshwater drum.  From then on we though we had the right depth so we jump from spot to spot looking for hump or ledges that went from 22-26 feet of water.  We did managed to catch a couple of smallies in one other spot and a drum here and there, but it was not what I would call a solid pattern.  Just before we were going to leave to head home I decided to head back toward the first spot we stopped at and take a look around there.  On our first drift about 300 yards from the spot where we had caught our smallies right away we caught 2 smallies and a rock bass.  We set up camp there for about 1 hour getting multiple smallmouth and a freshwater drum.  What was the difference?  We found a small bowl of rocks that the top edge was 18 feet and inside the bowl was about 20-21 feet of water.

Keys to the day: First, if you weren’t hitting rocks with your lure or weight, then you weren’t getting hit.  Second, color does matter.  I must have played with about 8 different color tubes, and 10 different color worms until we found a couple that really worked.  Third, was how deep to fish.  I believe that the best depth was between 18-22 feet of water.  We did catch a few in deeper water, but there are always exceptions to everyday.