Lake Erie is also known as the Great Lake. It nourishes the best smallmouth bass fishes in the United States.
Many anglers who do regular smallmouth bass fishing at Lake Erie have already made a minimum catch of fifty smallmouth bass fishes averaging over four pounds each on a weekend! These are great numbers that would surely attract the attention of any bass fishing enthusiast.
What can be the reason why smallmouth bass fishing at Lake Erie yields so much of the good catches? Well Lake Erie aside from its being so large a lake offers an excellent habitat and forage. The massiveness of the lake has given the smallmouth bass the ease of pressure usually given by small lakes thus making this great lake a Mecca of small mouth bass fishes.
But when you’re up for a bass fishing at Lake Erie, you must be very vigilant with the weather. Although it is a lake, the waters often resemble that of the ocean. A clear bright day may suddenly turn into a bad one accompanied by forceful winds just like what happened to some ten bass boats fishing the lake sometime in September of 1992.
Certainly Lake Erie is one of the most diverse fishing grounds in the country. In this lake you will not only find the most famous smallmouth bass fishes but also large quantity of yellow perch, the largemouth bass, the northern pike, white bass, the walleye and many other bass fish species.
While bass fishing at Lake Erie you must remember some standard regulations which are imposed in some states such as in Pennsylvania, if you are to catch the walleye, it must already be at least 18 inches, smaller than this is not allowed.
In Ohio, which covers about 262 miles of shoreline, smallmouth bass fishing at Lake Erie during summer have limits as to number the of bags. You are allowed to have three bags only instead of four and during any other time, you can catch up to a maximum of six bags.
During spawning period that is from March to April you are not allowed to catch using the treble hooks. These are new regulations you have to remember.
So if you are bass fishing at Lake Erie and want to share with the typical smallmouth catch of 80,000 smallmouths during a six week period starting end of June, just after the spawning period, you can come to Long point Bay. The smallmouth swims through this bay as they travel back to the main lake after the spawning period. The Presque Island area is also a good ground for fishing smallmouth. You may do deep water jigging and catch so much fish.
Offshore smallmouth bass fishing at Lake Erie is highly variable. Walleye anglers often have to travel more than a dozen miles to find fish, but this is normal in most of Lake Erie.
While off-shore fishing may not come very attractive particularly to beginners or amateur fishers, there is also a big chance to a good shore-fishing, especially for white bass, from the short pier. Channel catfish can be caught here, but to maximize catch in the shore fishing, you must fish in the night or when the water is discolored.
In recent years, it was noted that there is a phenomenon of increasing clear water in the lake which can be attributed to the so called “zebra water infestation” which has been driving the smallmouth species to the deep waters even during spawning thus trolling is still the number one way of catching the smallies.
When you are along the 42 mile shoreline Lake Erie in the State of Pennsylvania you may launch at the harbor of Presque Isle Bay at the city of Erie. Here you will have an easy way to catch the abundant yellow perch, walleye, steelhead and the smallmouth bass. Perch and walleye fishing is generally excellent at north point of Presque Isle while smallmouth bass fishing is best in east of Erie.
Presque Isle Bay provides relatively calm water that is suitable for smaller boats. It also offers good fishing for largemouth bass, northern pike, crappies and bluegills along with smallmouth bass and yellow perch.
Well if you think this summer is the season for you to go smallmouth bass fishing at Lake Erie, and your jumping point is Pennsylvania, worry not where to stay because there are numerous campsites and hotels there just along the shorelines of Lake Erie.
