Tom Tatum Outdoors: The Heartbeat of Lake Erie – Taking The Pulse of a Walleye Wonderland

The dawn breaks bright and sunny at the docks, but Captain Bob Ferraro remains deeply doubtful about our chances of catching any walleyes this day. Nonetheless, he’s headstrong determined to give it his best shot. After all, even though Pennsylvania’s walleye season opened back on May 3, here on Lake Erie, the peak season for catching boatloads of these fish (also called walleye pike) runs from mid-June through the end of September, so with our charter leaving the dock here on May 16 we are testing our luck on these delicious,firm-fleshed fish almost a month too early.

But the date corresponds with the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association (POWA) held in Erie this weekend, so we have no choice. Our party of four anglers consists of outdoor writers Doyle Dietz, Rick Hynick and his son Ricky, along with yours truly. Assisting Captain Ferraro with first matechores is fellow captain and regular fishing buddy John Scypinski. Both captains are lifelong Erie residents who know the lake only too well.

Early that morning a raging pre-dawn storm crashes through the region with nonstop wind, thunder, and lightning, but by 9 a.m. when we climb aboard Ferraro’s boat, Heartbeat, the storm has passed, leaving sunny skies and a slight chop on the lake’s dimpled surface behind. The name Heartbeat was inspired by Ferraro’s 40-year career as a cardiologist. That’s why this USCG charter captain is better known at the docks and around town as Doctor Bob.

Doctor Bob’s vessel is a beautiful 42-foot 2023 Henriques custom built to his specifications and pushed by twin 850 HP Caterpillar diesels. In fact, this is Ferraro’s second Heartbeat, replacing the original which was struck by lightning while sitting at the dock and damaged beyond repair a few years earlier.

“After the lightning strike my wife suggested I change the name of that boat from Heartbeat to Flatline,” Ferraro jokes.

We could only hope there would be no more cardiac arrests this morning as Heartbeat shoves off from the Bay Harbor Marina and churns through Presque Bay and the Erie Channel. What follows is a seven-mile jaunt across Lake Erie until we reach the fishing grounds in an area known as the Central Basin. There, Ferraro and Scypinski get busy setting out two planer boards, each fitted with five lines and joined by a few downriggers. If you’ve ever chartered a striper trip on the Chesapeake, you’re familiar with this strategy.

Ferraro laments that an extremely cold winter has negatively impacted the early walleye fishing and adds that for the first time in seven or eight years, the lake had completely frozen over, so the water still remains a chilly 55 degrees, hardly ideal for walleye action. We would be trolling at around two miles per hour in search of warmer waters while trailing a variety of baits and lures from as many as 13 lines at depths from 18 to 25 feet.

“Fishing Lake Erie is all about depth,” Ferraro explains, “with the ideal water temperature ranging anywhere from 62 to 70 degrees, far warmer than it is today.”

Despite the long odds against us, we get our initial hook-up around 10 a.m. with young Hynick working the rod. He makes short work of reeling in our first walleye of the day, a beautiful fish that stretches to 20 inches. We take plenty of photos before Captain Bob slips the toothy walleye into the box. Pennsylvania’s walleye regulations dictate a 15-inch minimum size with a six fish daily limit. Five minutes later, we get another strike but the fish gets off after a minute or two. Ten minutes after that Dietz hooks up with our next fish. Ferraro identifies it as a small steelhead that appears to be foul-hooked but throws the hook before Dietz can get it to the boat.

“By the end of the season we will have caught over a thousand Walleye,” Scypinski declares, “some years two thousand. We get our limit on almost every trip. With a minimum of five anglers on board, that’s thirty fish on each trip.”

He adds that, thanks to some prolific spawning seasons, there have never been more walleye in Lake Erie than there are right now.

After that the action shuts down for almost three hours with Scypinski piloting the boat as Ferraro feverishly tends to the rods, re-rigging and readjusting depths and distances while switching out a smorgasbord of baits from bangos to spoons to diving lures and shallow baits. While the mainstay of Doctor Bob’s charter business is walleye, he also targets lake trout. Other species that call Lake Erie home include steelhead, brown trout, smallmouth bass, muskie, pike, and a few coho salmon. Among the invasive species here are zebra mussels,lampreys, gobies, and smelt.

Lake Erie walleye can weigh as much as 10 pounds or more, with females running larger. Scypinski’s best fish to date tipped the scales at around 13 pounds. Ferraro’s claim to fame, besides running Heartbeat Sport Fishing, one of the most successful charters on Lake Erie, is that he currently holds the state record for brown trout, a fish caught from Heartbeat during a tournament on Aug. 8, 2020. That state record fish weighed in at 20 pounds and nine ounces. It was 33.75 inches long and had a girth of 21.125 inches. Doctor Bob is alsorecognized for the generous charity work he does in Erie and providing free charter trips that benefit worthy causes.

But the chilly water temps aren’t the only thing working against us today.

“The water is too clear,” notes Ferraro, “especially with such finicky fish.”

He adds that the bright sunny day is also a problem.

“Cloudy skies would be better,” he says, “and nighttime fishing with a full moon can also be productive.”

But despite the cold temps, clear water, and sunny skies, Doctor Bob’s diligent hard work eventually pays off when we finally get our next hook-up at around 1:20 p.m. It’s my turn up, and I make the most of it, hauling in our second walleye of the day and my first ever. Ferraro, manning the net, pulls in the 23-inch trophy as handshakes and another photo session ensue.

I couldn’t be happier, but we’re not done yet. The afternoon bite turns on and the flurry of fishing action that follows has young Hynick boating (and releasing) a hefty smallmouth, Dietz reeling in a fat 26-inch walleye, and the elder Hynick boating our last walleye of the day, another 26-incher. By the time we head back to port each one of us has a nice walleye to his credit and we can’t thank the generous Doctor Bob enough. We assure him that, given the negative factors we had faced, this expedition has far exceeded our expectations.

“Not mine,” he smiles with a shake of his head, the mark of a captain conditioned to boating his limit of walleyes on almost each and every one of his charters.

Back at the docks, the good Doctor deftly wields his electric knife and expertly fillets our four fish (dare I say with surgical precision?) and we all depart the marina with a renewed appreciation for Lake Erie’s excellent walleye fishery.

By the way, this was my first time ever visiting Erie or its namesake lake. After all, for those of us who live here in the state’s southeast corner, Erie is a little out of the way. The distance from my front door in West Chester to our hotel in Erie was exactly 400 miles and consisted of an easy six-hour drive on fast moving interstates. But fishing with Captains Ferraro and Scypinski made the trip totally worthwhile. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

For more about Heartbeat and USCG Captain Bob Ferraro, you can email him at frjf35@aol.com or give him a call at 814-881-1790.

Tom Tatum is the outdoors columnist for MediaNews Group. You can reach him at tatumt2@yahoo.com.