West harbor Lake Erie tournament advice

[Denlinger]

_​So I’m fishing a tournament taking off from the west harbor Public ramp next weekend. I’ve only been in the harbor once. Do you have to idle the whole way in and out to the main lake or is there any area you can run?

I’m also going to be driving over to the harbor from Kelley’s Island in the morning so it will be dark on the way in. Does that sound like a Terrible idea? If it’s possibly going to be too rough in the morning we might just take the ferry across to mainland Friday night, but that will be expensive.

[Flippin 416]

The entrance to the harbor is idle only. There are areas inside of the harbor that you can run but you have to be careful.

Running over from Kelley's in the morning sounds like a bad idea to me.....esp in the dark. You are at the mercy of the lake. What if it's too rough to run over in the morning?

[jc2bg]

Even on relatively calm days, there often is a ground swell on the main lake that makes for the roughest bass boat ride ever, so I agree that running over from Kelley’s in the dark is 50/50 at best in terms of being a good idea. Allow 20 minutes to get from the lake entrance to the boat ramp at idle speed, and if you’re coming in, you’ll meet a lot of walleye boats heading out. Don’t look for them to be cooperative at sharing the channel.