Years ago I was tutored on fishing trips that went way beyond any expectations that I had ever experienced before.

Generally, it would involve some fishing buddies, a day or two off from work in the middle of a workweek and plenty of fishing opportunities. My old pal Quincy DeMatteis called these days a Fisherman’s Holiday.

No schedule or time constraints, no rules on healthy eating, drinking or when to stop having fishing fun.

This past week was my most recent Fisherman’s Holiday and it involved some of my best goof-off crews with my brother Jim, nephew BJ and pal Ken Bryan out on the waters of Lake Erie.

For several years now we have set up a rendezvous on the bluffs overlooking Lake Erie for some walleye and perch fishing. We plan to put three fishing trips together in about 32 hours of water time. We start out at 4 a.m. on Thursday and finish it up at noon on Friday.

That’s piling up some serious fishing time in a day and a half.

We met up with our charter Captain Walt Ermansons of Trophy Charters in the predawn hours and headed out of the Ashtabula River into Lake Erie.

Captain Walt insists that an early start is the key to good day of fishing as the breaking of daylight over the waters of Lake Erie are the best time for fishing. We were greeted with a full moon and a glorious sunrise on the same morning trip. Generally full moons are not a good sign nor is a bright day but the fish were there and they were hungry and the moon or sun couldn’t keep them away from our lures.

We had quite an array of fishing rod and lure strategies going for us; dipsy divers, planing boards and cannon balls putting us down to the fish in the 50-55 feet depths where the fish were hanging out.

My nephew BJ was feeding out 350 feet of steel wire line when a huge walleye hit the stick bait. We were using a plug that strongly resembled a smelt in size and color, the walleye had been chasing these tasty 4-to-5-inch bait fish all night long.

The walleye would get under the schools of smelt and blast up through them and pick off any stragglers, only this time the straggler was a plug that had a few hooks attached.

The fight lasted for a while and his forearms began to burn with the fighting fish, but we were finally able to bring to net a dandy 32-inch walleye.

The day went on rather fabulously with one fish after another until our coolers were full of a legal limit of walleye well before noon.

This is when stage 2 of the fisherman’s holiday takes place. We took care of the fish and put them on ice and headed up the road to Port Conneaut. The P.C. Queen was our target; she’s a small fishing head boat for perch. I had called ahead when I saw that we had the window open in our schedule for both lunch at a BBQ joint, travel time and getting some bait and gear on the boat.

The captain of the P.C. Queen was a friend of mine and he reported that the fishing for perch was just starting to pick up on Erie.

With a great breeze in our face and the perch giving us enough attention, we were able to fill a small cooler with tasty perch.

Ken is an experienced perch jerker as we call them and he had the right touch in bringing in singles and doubles of perch who were after our live shiners. They ranged in the 11-to-12-inch size but were thick as perch go, it was a pleasant afternoon on the lake.

After an entertaining dinner at the Crow’s Nest we hit the pillows early to get up for the 3 a.m. wake up call. We had done a lot of fishing in the past 24 hours but we were not done yet. On our way out to the fishing grounds I noticed that the sky was overcast with no moon or stars showing. The forecast called for storms later in the day but the fishing would be great in these conditions.

Twelve walleye were in the box before dawn and we were off to a great day.

Then things changed … the wind picked up and we saw heat lightning off in the distance. Soon the distance closed and we felt some rain drops in our faces, then a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning.

Time to get headed off the lake and head back to port.

Just when we were hoping to bring in fish number 13 a Lake Erie squall hit us and literally threw us off the lake.

The fisherman’s holiday was now officially coming to a quick end, but we had one more fun item to complete before we got back to the routine of work and home.

We made a stop at the local diner on the bluffs and had one of their famous homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee.

Now with a cooler full of fish and an adventure finished with a great breakfast we could officially end our holiday!

Until we meet again keep an eye on the weather and make your own Sportsmen’s Holiday plans come true!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.