PORT CLINTON, Ohio — When Carole Vukmer's grandkids talk about their grandma, it might sound like one giant fish story.

But Vukmer insists it's true.

"There aren't many kids who can say that their grandma is a charter captain on the Great Lakes," said Vukmer, 67, who has fished on Lake Erie for most of her life. "But mine can."

Vukmer started fishing the big lake when she was just a child growing up in Pennsylvania. Her dad was a fishing fanatic, and she must have inherited that passion, she said.

Even then, though, she never imagined herself ever becoming a charter boat captain, guiding fishermen to Lake Erie's famed walleyes and smallmouth bass.

But that's what she has become. She got her charter license in 1987, and she has been guiding fishing excursions on Lake Erie's western side ever since.

Along the way, she has set line-class world records for both walleyes and smallmouth bass, she has watched customers catch walleyes as big as 32 inches, and she has seen the fishing at Erie ebb and flow.

But one thing remains the same: She still has a passion for fishing.

"Ever since I was a little girl, this is what I've loved to do," she said. "It's a tough business. You have to rely on the weather, and you have to stay on top of the fish. They're constantly moving out here.

"But I like that challenge. I look forward to every day I get to fish out here."

Maybe that's in her blood. Her dad, now 97, always has been an avid fisherman. In fact, he and his identical twin brother went fishing with Carole as recently as a few years ago.

"We've been told that they are the third-oldest identical twins in the United States," Vukmer said. "They still talk about the fishing trips we had, and they want me to take them again.

"But they're too feeble now. I think I'd have to tie them into the boat to take them out."

Today, Vukmer and her fiance, Bob Hughey, run a charter-boat business. She takes customers fishing on her boat the Myrmidon (which means "faithful follower" in Greek legend), and Bob takes fishermen out on his boat, The Fishin' Ful.

Together, they give the big walleyes and smallmouth bass fits.

That's what Vukmer was trying to do last weekend when she, her longtime friend, Deb Steele, and I went fishing.

She steered her boat into the whitecaps on Lake Erie and started a long ride to the Canadian side of the lake across from Port Clinton.

"You look at Lake Erie and you think it has to be deep," she said. "But it really isn't. The average depth from Kelly's Island west is 25 feet.

"We'll catch a lot of big walleyes in that water in the spring. But once the weather gets hot, the fish tend to move deeper.

"That's why we like to boat to the Canadian side. That's where there is deeper water."