Shoreline fishermen should cast large jerkbaits or minnow-imitator plugs from the rocky shorelines along Lake Erie's many break walls. Early mornings and late evenings are among the best times in the spring and again in the fall.

There's a 15-inch minimum size limit throughout the season on walleye. A four-fish limit per day, up from last year's three, is in effect from March through April. During the rest of the season, creel limits are raised to six fish per day

YELLOW PERCH
Lake Erie's yellow perch continue to do well, and 2006 should be no exception. As with walleyes, the 2003 hatch for perch was phenomenal. Those fish had already reached good size by the end of 2005. Anglers were catching limits of nice-sized fish last fall before cold weather closed the season down.

March through May are the best months for spring perch and traditionally, some of the largest fish are caught during this time.

"The larger spawning perch move closer to shoreline areas in the spring," Turner said. "Anglers can usually find good numbers of them under these conditions."

Shore-bound fishermen take advantage of this near-shore time by fishing weighted perch rigs tipped with live shiners. Others have good success using night crawlers and red worms.

Many anglers have great success fishing from Lake Erie's harbor break walls and piers, especially those near river or stream mouths. Piers such as the ones in Lorain or Huron are good examples of this, and many Buckeye State anglers regularly take nice numbers of jumbo perch at both.

Perch may be caught at any time throughout most of Lake Erie's waters. Traditional hotspots in the western basin are Kelleys Island, the Bass islands, and the Marblehead-Cedar Point areas. The typically larger central-basin perch are caught mainly within a few miles of any of the river mouths or harbor break walls, from Huron all the way to Conneaut.

Jim Clark, a veteran Lake Erie fisherman and fanatic perch angler, said that early spring and fall are the best times to go after yellow perch.

"On a good half-day trip I expect to catch 100 or more perch, keeping only the largest. In fact, some friends and I once caught 400 perch in less than three hours. And of the 90 we kept, nearly 50 of them were 12 inches or better."

Clark also said that anglers often overlook perch by traveling too far into the deeper waters of Lake Erie.

"I usually stay within a couple of miles of the shoreline and the harbor river mouths," he says. "There seems to be bigger perch in these areas."