Some of the fellows at the lodge wanted to get a group fishing trip planned for walleye on Lake Erie during the reported banner year of the ‘eyes.

Yes, the walleye numbers were astonishing and if you hit the lake at the right time, you would be rewarded with some hot fishing action. We decided to try out Conneaut, Ohio which was a manageable two-hour drive for most of us and reserved the Head Boat the P.C. Queen.

For those of you who don’t know the concept of a head boat, it is a vessel that rents out individual spaces for a fishing trip. By doing this concept, the trip is fairly manageable for each individual. If you get enough individuals, you can fill up the boat with 12 of your friends and make it a private event.

As it turned out, we had enough people interested to choose two trips. One trip was on a Monday and the other was this past Thursday. We had enough fishermen to fill both days and our adventure was set to go.

The Monday morning was lovely on land, but the after effects of a weekend storm had whipped up the wave action on the lake. Lake Erie can be dangerous in rough weather, but the P.C. Queen and our group weighed out the weather, waves and 12 adventurous fishermen.

We decided to give it a try and then either go forward or turn back, depending on the waves. As fate would have it, we went forward and began our fishing journey.

Fishing on a bouncy lake with rolling waves can stir up a feeling of seasickness. I am not one to be seasick, but we knew a few folks might be if it was rough on the water.

The situation became more difficult as the fish really started to cooperate as we drift fished with the rolling waves. With each bounce of the waves, our fishing drift attracted hits from the walleyes. As the success with the anglers increased, the chance of turning the P.C. Queen around diminished.

Soon our issues weren’t just seasick anglers, but also rogue waves that swelled up from somewhere out in the deeps of the lake. These waves hit the boat without warning at times and really tossed around the passengers. It’s sort of like air turbulence on an air flight without warning.

A wave hit the boat and I went flying head first into the railing…ouch…goose egg on the forehead and some kind of rugburn thing as well. That did not go well, but we did not turn back…and then another wave came in and gave my buddy Frank a wash off his bench seat and a wave of water over him.

It was like some action movie, but we did not turn the boat around. We did prepare a better warning system from the guys on the other side of the boat, though. We all agreed that a comment like “this one is a pretty good one” didn’t cut it.

We requested a yell out from them like “Incoming!” would be more like it. The plan worked and we had no further wave incidents tossing us around. We also ended up boating a full limit of 72 walleye, which meant plenty of fish dinners for the next few weeks.

The second group went out Thursday and was greeted by threats of thunder and rain in the morning hours. There was a predicted window of opportunity to fish before the storm and we tried to beat it out…wrong, the storm beat us off the lake and a layover at the docks.

Not to be outdone by the weather, we went to a local diner for breakfast and waited it out until the sunshine came out and we started out once more.

It was a perfect morning and we had high hopes for another banner day of fishing. Somehow, it went all wrong and even though we were marking fish on our fish finders, they basically kept tight lipped and at the end of the day a few were boated, but not many.

For all of my efforts and expenses I landed one goby…yikes! My buddy Sim did land a nice 8-pounder to win biggest fish and was awarded our fishing pool…apparently gobies don’t count.

We agreed to try again sometime and that’s why they call it fishing and not catching! Until we ship out again, keep dry and your feet on the deck, mate!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle