“There’s more to fishing than just fishing…” How many times have you heard this phrase repeated from your favorite fishing Facebook friends?! The phrase sums up my final 2021 trip to Lake Erie with fishing educator Lance Valentine and his two pals from Flint, MI, Larry Kammerer and Jim Mecum. Both Larry and Jim have been long time friends of Lance with Larry helping with building a custom wood desk for Lance and Jim helping Lance with his pontoon boat guide trips on Saginaw Bay. Lance brought his Anglers Quest tri-toon to Lake Erie and the four of us fished out of the toon Saturday and Sunday. We left the Huron River about 10:30am Saturday morning, ran about four miles north, then set out the baits and boards in an area Lance had found the walleyes a week earlier. I quickly learned Larry and Jim were “dialed in” to the way Lance presents rods, baits, planer boards, and even how the net is positioned with a fish to allow easier hook removal. I was thankful they provided instruction as we worked like ballerinas on the back deck of the pontoon! We were on the water a little over three hours putting a four man limit of nice, nice walleyes in the livewell! Lance was running both Bandits and Husky Jerks off the Denali Myriad 8’6″ telescoping rods. We had four rods at each side out 80, 70,70, and 60 feet respectively. We had a rod with snap weights off each back corner of the AQ. Our best depth was 70 back and best color that day was “Black Momba”. The air temps were in the low 40’s and the south winds were manageable. Lance expertly controlled the direction of our troll with his Lowrance guidance unit mounted to the Suzuki 200 four stroke. We actually quartered the waves easier with the toon than you would with a traditional deep v boat. Larry and I cleaned our fish while Jim and Lance did boat chores. We hooked up with friends, Mike and Randy Wagner, for dinner and enjoyed an evening of friendly banter and fish stories! The Wagners had put Mike’s big Lund boat in at Loraine and they found good fish but no giants. Sunday was a different day: after breakfast, we headed back out of Huron to the spot where we finished up Saturday. Guess what? The fish had moved! But to where? We caught five walleyes early on but the bite died for us. We pulled the rods and headed west to fish out of the amusement park in Sandusky. We just saw a couple guide boats but no fish on the screen. So, we picked up again and headed back to the Cranberry Creek area which, according to Lance, “there are always walleyes this time of year”. Guess what? NO fish! After getting rained on and putting up with more wind than the day before, Captain Lance made the call to head back in mid afternoon. Larry cleaned our catch while Jim and I helped prep the AQ for the three hour ride back to Flint. We had dinner together then my buddies headed home while I spent another night at the motel knowing I’d have an eight hour ride back to Cedar Rapids Monday. Let me finish up by saying we did not catch a walleye worthy of winning the Fall Brawl or Walleye Slam tournament events which end the Sunday after Thanksgiving…but we did experience two days of big walleye fishing you probably won’t find anywhere else in North America! And, for me, I got to fish with three men who took the time to “teach” me some new techniques with baits, fish release, and what its like to fish on a pontoon platform! Thank you for reading this report and looking over our photos. You might want to go to my personal Facebook page and watch the video Lance shot of us on Saturday, too. And, as always, thank you Mike for posting to the walleyewisdom.com world! Tight lines, Spike