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The full spot briefing is part of the subscription: entry, bottom, hazards, tide window.
Open in the appToday — right on the edge — wave, wind and visibility.
Sources & confidence
Compiled by the spearo sea-state engine · How it works →
The verdict comes from seven water factors and hard safety gates — not ten tabs. Go or stay.
Our own model
Our own forecast engine — not a third-party widget. It weighs these water factors into one go-or-stay verdict for this coast; the 0–10 dial is that verdict, read out as a number.
Safety gates
It all folds into a single 0–10 score and one verdict: go or stay.
A forecast, not a guarantee — the sea has the last word.
Where to get in, where to hunt
Leave your email — and the moment a window opens at Put-in-Bay, we'll send the go / no-go verdict. Email is all we need.
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Wind, wave and the swell windows — when to go and the best hours.
The day is picked above, in the hero. Here are that day's windows, the hour-by-hour map and the trends. Tap a window to break down the conditions.
Visibility and what drives it — post-storm clearing, river plume, temperature and the thermocline.
spearo.app folds wind, wave, swell period, visibility, tides, water temperature and risk into a single verdict — go to the spot or not. It computes 7 days ahead from open marine models (Open-Meteo, IPMA), with no sign-up and no accounts. Built for solo spearfishing off the rocks, where any mistake costs dearly.
Now live: 1391 spots across 205 stretches of coast — mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.
See all spotsRelief and bottom type, tides, and the depths of each spot.
The models set the window. Whether you go in is read only at the water: count the sets, watch the surge on the entry. If in doubt, you don't get in.
Scouted entries, coloured by today. The colour is the sea state at the spot, not a guarantee: the wash and a slippery entry you judge on site.
Open the seafloor mapThe full spot briefing is part of the subscription: entry, bottom, hazards, tide window.
Open in the appShallow limestone shelf off Buckeye Point on Middle Bass, 1-3 m. Snorkelling depth on a calm day, with weed edges on the rock. Very exposed - any north wind stirs the western basin to zero visibility within hours.
Cameras, map and reference — to hand as you come up.
Shallow limestone bar between Gibraltar Island and the South Bass shore, right in Put-in-Bay harbour. Under 2 m, hard bottom, easy swim from the public dock; smallmouth and drum work the rock. Boat traffic is heavy all summer.
Google MapsShoal off Scott Point on the Catawba side of South Passage, about 4 m over rock and gravel. Sits in the channel between the mainland and the islands, so there is real current and heavy ferry traffic overhead.
Google MapsThe full spot briefing is part of the subscription: entry, bottom, hazards, tide window.
Open in the appReef north of Sugar Island in the middle of the Bass Islands group, about 4 m over limestone. Short run from Put-in-Bay, moderate current between the islands, and one of the more consistently clear spots of the archipelago.
Google MapsLimestone reef west of North Bass Island in 2-3 m. Hard flat rock with rubble edges; the shallowest of the northern reefs and the first to be blown out by weather. Boat only, and the international line is close - stay south of it.
Google MapsSOLO is the biggest risk: underwater you can black out from lack of oxygen silently and fatally, with no one around. Solo is never truly «safe». Below are the best weather windows; carry a buoy, tell someone your plan and exit time, and any doubt — don't go.
US spearfishing law is state-by-state. License, spearable species, powerhead rules and distances vary; federal sanctuaries (Gray's Reef, the Keys, Flower Garden Banks) ban spearfishing. Always confirm with the state agency and local ordinances.
Put-in-Bay sits in the clearest water on Lake Erie, because the Bass Islands limestone and the mussel filtration together give visibility the rest of the lake does not have. Ohio's spearfishing answer is a class definition: forage fish — freshwater drum, common carp, the Asian carps, quillback, suckers, bowfin, gar, buffalo, gizzard shad, goldfish — may be taken by any method except a list that omits spears. Game fish are treated as closed pending the unread Ohio Administrative Code. The reefs between South Bass, Middle Bass and Kelleys are shallow, hard-bottomed and busy with boats.
Everything here is snorkel or single-tank depth over limestone, and the current between the islands is the variable that changes site to site. The legal column is the same on every row: forage fish by any method including a spear, game fish treated as closed. Two more reefs belong on the same list — Buckeye Reef off Middle Bass in 1-3 m, very exposed, and West Reef off North Bass in 2-3 m, where the international line is close, so stay south of it.
| Spot | Type | Depth | Level | Access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gibraltar Bar | Reef | 0.5-2 m | Snorkel to single tank · forage fish only, game fish closed | Shore entry | Shallow limestone bar between Gibraltar Island and the South Bass shore, right in Put-in-Bay harbour. Under 2 m, hard bottom, easy swim from the public dock; boat traffic is heavy all summer. |
| Starve Island Reef | Reef | 3-6 m | Snorkel to single tank · forage fish only, game fish closed | Boat | Limestone reef off Starve Island south of South Bass, 3-6 m over broken rock. One of the clearer spots of the western basin thanks to the mussel filtration; exposed to south-west wind. |
| Ballast Reef | Reef | 1.5-5.6 m | Boat, current · forage fish only, game fish closed | Boat | Rock reef between Ballast Island and Middle Bass, 2-6 m. Classic western-basin structure: flat limestone slabs with cracks, drum and carp over it, and current pushing through the island gaps. |
| Sugar Reef | Reef | 2-4.5 m | Boat, current · forage fish only, game fish closed | Boat | Reef north of Sugar Island in the middle of the Bass Islands group, about 4 m over limestone. Short run from Put-in-Bay, moderate current between the islands, and one of the more consistently clear spots. |
| Scott Point Shoal | Reef | 2-4.5 m | Boat, current · forage fish only, game fish closed | Boat | Shoal off Scott Point on the Catawba side of South Passage, about 4 m over rock and gravel. It sits in the channel between mainland and islands, so there is real current and heavy ferry traffic overhead. |
For forage fish, yes. Ohio never uses the word spearfishing in its Lake Erie regulations; instead the Division of Wildlife defines a class — forage fish means freshwater drum (sheepshead), common carp, grass carp in waters not stocked by the Division for vegetation control as posted, bighead carp, silver carp, black carp, quillback, suckers, bowfin, gar, buffalo, gizzard shad and goldfish — and states these species may be taken by any method except by means of explosives, poisons, firearms, electricity, chemicals, nets other than cast nets, seines, traps, or by snagging within 1,000 feet downstream of a posted dam. Spears, gigs and bows are absent from the exception list. Drum and carp work the limestone slabs on Ballast Reef and elsewhere in the group, so this is a real if narrow fishery.
Because Ohio never says otherwise in a text anyone could read. There is no statewide sentence confining game fish to angling; the nearest analogue is the Pymatuning entry, which allows only angling except carp and suckers by longbow or spear, and Pymatuning is a border lake, not Lake Erie. Ohio Administrative Code 1501:31-13 would settle the question and could not be opened — codes.ohio.gov refused every connection during this research — so the claim that game fish may not be speared in Ohio ships as unverified. The practical instruction stands: treat walleye, smallmouth bass, yellow perch and the salmonids as closed to the spear at Put-in-Bay, and confirm with ODNR. Until that is read, plan the islands as a dive destination with a forage-fish carve-out.
Two things. The Bass Islands sit on limestone, so the bottom is hard rock and slab rather than the soft mud of the western basin, and there is far less to stir up. And the zebra and quagga mussels filter the water column — the same invasion that changed the lake's ecology also made the island water regularly transparent, which is not true anywhere else on Erie. Starve Island Reef is specifically noted as one of the clearer spots for that reason, and Sugar Reef as one of the more consistently clear in the archipelago. The limit is wind: Buckeye Reef, at 1-3 m, is described as so exposed that any north wind stirs the basin to zero visibility within hours. Plan on a settled forecast, not on a good report from yesterday.
The Bass Islands sit in a passage system, and the water moves through the gaps. Ballast Reef has current pushing between Ballast Island and Middle Bass; Sugar Reef has moderate current between the islands; Scott Point Shoal sits in South Passage between the mainland and the islands, with real current and heavy ferry traffic directly overhead. Put-in-Bay harbour itself is busy with boats all summer, and Gibraltar Bar is right in it — an easy swim from the public dock, and a place where a diver-down flag is not decorative. One more boundary to know: at West Reef off North Bass Island the international line with Canada is close, so stay south of it.
Ice cover on Erie often reaches 90-100 % in February. The season runs May to October and the water warms early — up to 22-24 °C in August, which makes the Bass Islands the one place on the Great Lakes where a thin wetsuit is genuinely enough in late summer at these depths. Nothing on this list is deeper than about 6 m, so thermocline is not the issue here; wind and boat traffic are. There is no tide: the Great Lakes astronomical range is a few centimetres and NOAA publishes no predictions for these stations. The nearest CO-OPS gauge is Marblehead, 9063079, about 14 km away. Ohio licences from the 2025-26 digest, valid through 28 February 2026 and worth re-verifying: resident 1-year $25.00, non-resident 1-year $50.96, non-resident 3-day $25.00, 1-day $14.00. Identify any gar before shooting it — three species are state endangered.
For forage fish, yes — drum, carp, the Asian carps, quillback, suckers, bowfin, gar, buffalo, gizzard shad and goldfish, since spears are not on Ohio's list of prohibited means. Game fish are treated as closed.
No. Ohio publishes no rule allowing game fish by spear and the code section that would settle it could not be read. Treat them as closed and confirm with ODNR.
Limestone bottom instead of soft mud, plus zebra and quagga mussel filtration. Starve Island Reef and Sugar Reef are named as among the clearer spots.
Shallow: Gibraltar Bar under 2 m, Buckeye Reef 1-3 m, West Reef 2-3 m, Sugar Reef about 4 m, Scott Point Shoal about 4 m, Starve Island Reef 3-6 m, Ballast Reef 2-6 m.
Yes. Ballast, Sugar and especially Scott Point Shoal in South Passage all carry current, and ferry traffic runs directly overhead at Scott Point.
Up to 22-24 °C in August. Ice cover on the lake often reaches 90-100 % in February and the season runs May to October.
Gibraltar Bar, an easy swim from the public dock in under 2 m of water. Boat traffic in the harbour is heavy all summer, so fly a flag.
Close at West Reef off North Bass Island — stay south of the international line.
transparency ~2 m · satellite, yesterdaysatellite estimate · may differ right at the shore