We recently fished Lake Erie for seven days and the conditions were brutal but the big fish were biting. Most days we were in 3‘- 5’ waves. Having the 11' 6” Medium Heavy - Moderate 2B FISHING Genesis trolling rod for my outside board was a huge advantage in those big waves. That extra rod length helped prevent tangles with middle boards. For my set-up I ran the 11' 6" for my outside board and for my inside and middle boards I used the 2B FISHING Genesis 8’ 6” Medium Heavy - Moderate model.

The Kalin's Pro Featherweight Landing Net performed flawlessly the whole trip. I was very surprised how easy it was to get hooks out of the net. Generally, with crankbaits they get tangled up bad in most nets, but it was very easy to free the hooks. Also, I loved how light the net was. It was effortless to net fish behind the boat even in those 3’ – 5’ foot waves. The telescoping handle was convenient when reaching for those fish behind the boat without getting too close to the edge.

As for our bait selection, we did best on the Reef Runner 800 Flash Deep Diver and the new Reef Runner Moonshine Glow Series. It seemed like the Flash did best when the sun was out, and the Moonshine Glow colors did best on the darker/cloudy days. Our top producing color in the Flash series was "Candy Man" and our best Moonshine Glow color was “JJ Mac Muffin”. The fish we were targeting were suspended anywhere from 10 - 25 feet down over 35 feet of water. On the darker days they seemed to be higher in the water column compared to the sunny days when they were deeper. We seemed to do best with anywhere from 50 - 80 feet of line out behind our boards which got our lures down 15 - 20 feet.

In all it was a productive trip and the elements did not limit our abilities to catch those giant Lake Erie walleye.