River clean-up, fishing tourney overlap days

Planners say events good for shoreline

Lorain’s annual spring cleaning of the Black River and a walleye fishing tournament can co-exist on the city’s waterfront, said planners for the events.

On May 4 and 5, the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit tournament will visit Lorain — and overlap with the time of the Black River Clean-Up, scheduled for May 5 and 6.

The spring clean-up has grown to draw hundreds of participants who sign up at the Lorain Port Authority’s Black River Wharf, the 14th Street boat ramp.

From there, they fan out across the city’s waterfront to hunt down and bag tons of litter.

In 2016 and last year, Black River Wharf served as the launch ramp for participants in two Cabela’s walleye tournaments based in Lorain.

It will be the launch site this spring as well, said Tom Brown, Port executive director.

Rumors spread about a possible schedule conflict, but Brown and Stephanee Moore Koscho of the Lorain County Kayak & Paddlesports Group, said they expect both events to happen smoothly.

They said tournament anglers will see local residents who care about the shoreline of the Black River and Lake Erie, and clean-up participants will get to see how Lorain has developed as a fishing destination.

“It all works together and makes for a happy ending,” Moore Koscho said. “We have to change some things, but it will be nice to see all this stuff happening on the lake and the river at the same time.”

The planning committee of the kayak group, known as LoCo ‘Yaks, is working out details of this year’s Black River Clean-Up.

Moore Koscho reviewed plans so far.

On May 5, registration for the event will move to Lakeside Landing , near the Jackalope Lakeside restaurant and Mile-Long Pier in Lorain.

A bus will take people to Black River Wharf if they want to search for debris to clean in the wooded areas there.

A secondary check-in point will be near Missouri and Colorado avenues, near Lorain’s Cromwell Park, which sits south of Colorado Avenue between the roadway and the Black River.

In the last few years, that area has become a popular hunting ground for cleanup participants on land.

Weather permitting, paddlers also will head out in canoes and kayaks to clean on the water.

The French Creek kayak launch is the river entry point for paddlecraft in the clean-up.

The kayak launch sits off Old Colorado Avenue in Sheffield Village. It is just south of the intersection of Colorado Avenue and Lake Breeze Road.

A Black River Clean-Up online signup form will become available in coming weeks.

As for fishing, this is the third year in a row Lorain has hosted Cabela’s events.

The city hosted the Masters Walleye Circuit tournament in 2016 and the National Team Championship last year.

“It means we’ve got great fishing, it means we’ve got a great facility, it means they like being here,” Brown said.

With an estimated 75 to 80 teams, the Masters Walleye Circuit events are smaller than the National Team Championship, which had 251 teams in Lorain last year.

However, the smaller contest allows more local anglers to participate because they can sign up for it, Brown said.

Participants in the National Team Championship must win their way into the tournament.