Mary C II Fishing Charters is the walleye and perch boat this website once tied to Captain Ray Clark at Geneva State Park Marina, and no 2026 source confirms it is still running. His name is absent from the Ohio Division of Wildlife list of licensed Lake Erie fishing guides updated September 4, 2026.
Nobody connected with the charter runs this site. The checked facts are the 2026-27 Ohio rules for any Ashtabula or Geneva trip: six walleye of 15 inches or more, 20 yellow perch in the East Zone, and a license for every angler aged 16 and older.
No public record from 2026 shows Mary C II taking bookings. The ODNR list of licensed Lake Erie fishing guides, updated September 4, 2026, has no entry for Ray Clark or for a boat of that name. The same list does name Billie N. Hill of Compensator Fishing Charters, the second boat shown on this site's old rates page. ODNR adds that only guides who opted in appear there, so a missing name does not settle whether a license exists.
A directory entry on Slipstream Boating, last modified on September 16, 2026, carries the title "Mary C II Lake Erie Fishing Charters" and a Geneva, Ohio address. It is labeled "Unverified Listing". No captain, phone number, price or review appears on it.
Earlier versions of this website promised trophy walleye and a "No Fish No Pay" guarantee. Nothing current backs those claims. Anyone offering a trip under the Mary C II name should be able to show two documents: an Ohio fishing guide license and a Coast Guard credential.
Six walleye per angler per day is the Ohio Lake Erie limit from May 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027, and each fish must measure at least 15 inches. The ODNR walleye and yellow perch daily limits sheet keeps that six-fish limit through the spring window of March 1 to April 30, 2027. Yellow perch have no minimum length, and their limit changes with the zone you fish in:
| Species and zone | Rule from May 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027 | Daily limit |
|---|---|---|
| Walleye, all Ohio waters | 15-inch minimum length, with the same limit in the March and April 2027 window | 6 |
| Yellow perch, West Zone | Ohio waters west of the 82 degree 30 minute line of longitude, no minimum length | 30 |
| Yellow perch, Central Zone | between the 82 degree 30 minute and 81 degree 20 minute lines of longitude | 10 |
| Yellow perch, East Zone | Ohio waters east of the 81 degree 20 minute line, which takes in Geneva and Ashtabula | 20 |
A second cap sits above the zones. The ODNR sheet bars any angler from keeping more than 30 yellow perch or six walleye in a day, whatever mix of zones the boat fishes. Trout and salmon, the group that includes Lake Erie steelhead, follow the 2026-27 Ohio fishing regulations instead. That booklet allows two a day until May 15, five from May 16 to August 31 with a 12-inch minimum, and two again from September 1.
Smallmouth bass carry the tightest early-season rule. From May 1 to June 26, 2026 the booklet allowed one bass of 18 inches, and five at 14 inches from June 27. The same booklet prints 19 inches in its Lake Erie length list, so ask the Division of Wildlife at 1-800-WILDLIFE before keeping a big spring bass. Those numbers apply per angler, and the zone boundaries matter most for perch.
The East Zone covers both ports, so the perch limit there is 20 a day. ODNR draws the zone lines along longitude only, with no landmarks. Ashtabula Harbor sits near 80 degrees 48 minutes west, judging by the departure coordinates on a Captain Experiences listing, which puts it about 32 minutes of longitude east of the 81 degree 20 minute line. In miles that is roughly 27. Geneva-on-the-Lake, the village beside Geneva State Park, is listed on Wikipedia at 80 degrees 57 minutes west, so it lies about 23 minutes, or close to 20 miles, inside the East Zone.
The edge case is a boat that runs west. Once it crosses 81 degrees 20 minutes, it is in the Central Zone and every angler on board drops to 10 perch. ODNR publishes the boundaries as GPS waypoint files for Lowrance, Garmin, Humminbird and generic GPX units, and it leaves each angler responsible for knowing which side of the line they are on.
Summer and fall are the peak walleye seasons for Geneva and Ashtabula, according to the Central Basin hotspot tables on the ODNR Fishing Lake Erie page. For summer the table names Fairport, Geneva, Ashtabula and Conneaut with the note "inshore early, offshore late". The fall entry lists the same ports and adds "eastern locations early". In spring the table points to nearshore water from Vermilion to Conneaut. Winter walleye fishing in the Central Basin centers on breakwalls further west, from Huron to Fairport Harbor.
Perch follow a similar calendar. ODNR lists Geneva and Ashtabula for summer and fall perch, moving from nearshore to offshore in summer and back toward shore in fall. Steelhead are a summer trolling target between Geneva and Ashtabula and move to piers, breakwalls and streams such as the Grand River and Conneaut Creek from fall onward.
Wind decides more trips than the calendar. A day that fits every ODNR hotspot table still ends at the dock when the marine forecast calls for high waves. The Lake Erie marine weather page on this site groups the NOAA marine forecast, water temperatures by zone and current charts for the Geneva and Ashtabula shore. ODNR also runs a weekly recorded fishing report on 1-888-HOOKFISH.
$450 to $1,000 per trip was the price range of nine Ashtabula walleye listings on FishingBooker on November 5, 2026. Listed trip lengths in that set ran from five to eight hours, and the cheapest full-day trip, from Team Herman Sport Fishing, came in at $450. Mary C II had no listing there, so no price for it can be quoted.
Captain Experiences prices by head count instead. Its "Walleye Capital! Ashtabula Ohio" trip, a six-hour outing on a 28-foot boat, starts at $350 for one angler and reaches $1,100 for six. That works out to about $183 each in a full group of six against $350 alone. Groups of seven to twelve move to two boats. The listing asks for a $200 deposit, suggests a 20% cash tip, and states that the fishing license is not included and fish cleaning costs extra.
Those listings set the market range, and each boat quotes its own price. On the $1,100 six-person trip, a 20% tip adds $220 and six nonresident one-day licenses add another $162.24, which brings the day to $1,482.24 before fish cleaning.
Yes, every angler aged 16 or older needs an Ohio fishing license on a charter boat. The 2026-27 regulations booklet exempts only people under 16, and the Geneva State Park page repeats the same rule for its marina. The booklet lists no separate charter or boat license that would cover a captain's customers. Fees for the season that runs from March 1, 2026 to February 28, 2027 are:
| License | When it makes sense | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Resident one-day | A single trip, and the fee counts as credit toward a later annual license | $14.00 |
| Resident one-year | Ohio residents fishing more than once, or upgrading a one-day for $12.00 | $25.00 |
| Nonresident one-day | One charter day for a visitor from Pennsylvania, New York or further away | $27.04 |
| Nonresident three-day | A two-day trip, because two one-day licenses would cost $54.08 | $52.00 |
| Nonresident one-year | Three or more days, since three one-day licenses add up to $81.12 | $76.96 |
Ohio residents who qualify for the senior annual license pay $10.00, less than any fee in the table above. A license makes you a legal angler on the boat, but the captain needs a state license of their own before charging anyone for the trip.
Two licenses let a captain take paying anglers on Ohio's Lake Erie waters. The first comes from the state. Ohio Revised Code 1533.51 says "No person shall be or serve as a fishing guide in the Lake Erie fishing district" without a license from the Division of Wildlife. That license costs $50 per person and expires every year on April 15, so a card shown in August 2026 should run to April 15, 2027. The captain must carry it and show it on demand to a wildlife officer.
The second comes from the US Coast Guard. Section 1533.51 lets the Division of Wildlife require a federal power boat operator's license, and the usual one for small charter boats is the Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels credential, the "six-pack". It covers six or fewer paying passengers, which fits the Captain Experiences listing above moving parties of seven or more onto a second boat. The credential itself is a passport-style Merchant Mariner Credential book.
Three checks take a few minutes and are worth doing before you pay any deposit to a Lake Erie charter:
ODNR publishes only captains who opt in. An absent name therefore calls for the first two checks. Mary C II is absent from the ODNR list as of November 2026, while the Ohio Sea Grant list remains unchecked here.
Fish cleaning comes first, because Ohio law ties it to paperwork. Ohio's 2026-27 regulations make it unlawful to hold fish "in any form or condition other than whole" on a boat or while unloading it. The exception is a receipt from a fish cleaning house, charter captain or licensed guide that states the date, number and type of fish. Get that receipt before you drive home with fillets.
For background on the lake itself, from its depth to its history, see the Lake Erie page on this site.