This article appeared on the Blade 1st: Dark comes early this time of year, and the cold rushes across the open lake like a million razor-tipped teeth, searching for any exposed flesh to flash freeze. A pier jutting out into Lake Erie is hardly a hospitable place to be when the docks have long since been stored away on dry land and the snow plows are poised for their first winter call to duty.
But on many late fall and winter evenings, you will find fishermen lined up at the state park and at dozens of other access locations along the big lake’s shoreline, fighting the cold and furiously casting into the dark, churning waters. Big walleyes can make sane individuals do some seemingly foolhardy things, and the “night bite” on Lake Erie is a magnet for those folks.
The night bite is a cold weather phenomenon that brings huge fish closer to shore than at any other point in the year. Walleyes in general, and the big ones specifically, range the vast open waters of the lake for most of the calendar, well beyond the reach of shore anglers. Boat fishermen make long summer runs across the lake, searching for clusters of feeding walleyes.
But for some of the low-light hours from roughly late October until ice-up, the needle gets much larger and the size of the haystack shrinks dramatically.
The science behind the night bite is best explained by a biologist. Jeff Tyson, the Lake Erie Program administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife in Sandusky, said the night bite occurs each year to varying degrees, triggered by water temperatures, forage fish distribution, and walleye distribution. Emerald shiners and shad are on the walleyes’ menu. Continue reading this article at the Blade here – http://www.bcsn.tv/news_article/show/596824?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OdnrDivisionOfWildlife+%28ODNR+Division+of+Wildlife%29