Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

Please place your vote on this poll.? I'm interested on average how many tournaments the typical Michigan bass angler fishes in one season.

Thanks for the participation.

i voted,  if the wife asks you never heard of me...

Not as many as I'd like to!

I really wish I could fish the various weekday tournaments.  That could really help get the numbers up, but there are none around  except for 45mins beyond my work and I already drive an hour to work, so that is just too much to fish a tournament till 9 and after weigh-in, loading the boat and the drive home - I am usually backing the boat in around midnight to get up at 5 again.  Man I wish I was 20 again when sleep was not a necessity.  Anyways, does anyone know of weekday tournaments in northern Genesee/Lapeer counties - like Holloway lake or Mott lake etc?  Or would anyone like to start one?

So, with only weekends available(and a wife to compromise with) - I definitely don't fish enough tournaments.

there are a couple NBAA circuits out of Fenton on Thursday nights??  don't know how close that is to your work?  Sanford Bass Club hold weeknight (Tuesdays I think) tournaments for anybody to get into, they alternate weekly between Sanford & Wixom, times are something like 6-9. 

The tournaments in southern Genesee, Northern livingston & Oakland counties are the ones I usually fish about one or two a year.  But they are the ones that are about 2 hours from home.  Wixom and Sanford are even farther and I could never make it there by 6,  so that doesn't work.  Oh well, I'll settle for stopping at Holloway for some fun fishing, which is right on the way home! 

I've never seen anything that looks even remotely fun about fishing at Holloway!! ;D  I avoid it most of the time...of course if i spent enough time on it to learn it, then maybe it wouldn't be too bad.  Have you looked at the new NBAA division on Saginaw Bay??  I guess the tournaments are going to be Saturdays throughout the summer..not sure where they will be launching from yet...i wouldn't mind fishing some of these.

I think the Saginaw Bay tournaments are going to be my sacraficial tournaments that I bring the wife to and donate money.  She loves fishing and fishing tournaments, but she has nowhere near the capability  to fish at higher levels.  I just hate leaving her behind all the time cause its like leaving your retreiver at home when your heading for a treestand.  You know you can't be successful if they come, but the sad eyes when leaving them behind leaves a pit in the stomach

Good for you, my wife isn't into the tournament scene...its a great time to spend with your spouse and before long she might be spanking you and everybody else out there.  they say women have an advantage because of their patience...

Just got on the NBAA site...they are launching the Saginaw Bay tournaments out of Great Lakes Marina...thats a good launch...that road gets pretty dusty when it hasn't rained in a while, white boat whether you like it or not!!

Great lakes marina? - Where is that launch and is there plenty of water?

Glad to see someone else taking their wives to tournaments!  If dragged mine along late last fall, we froze our tails, but she got the bug bigtime.  The whole trip back, she was like "we should have went to those green pumpkin tubes sooner!"

Man, talk about great.  Makes it easier to get away fishing more often when she understands why you have to pre-fish.

its up north of Pinconning a few miles...M-13 North to Worth Rd, go east to Arenac State Hwy, head North to Sagatoo Rd.  head East to the launch.  Some people go all the way into Standish and pick up Sagatoo Rd. We had a club tournament out of there last year, they have the channel marked out but it is pretty shallow, but safe enough..just don't go off course until you get to the end buoy...its less than a foot of water in places!  This puts you basically on the Saganing Bar, but more accurately bewteen the Saganing and Rifle Bar.  I think the launch fee was about $5.

That's really as good a launch as you will find along the West shore.  If you end up there, don't overlook the marina, I caught a couple nicer ones there in practice last year flipping a senko along the breakwalls.  Not there for the tournament though. . . .

Gotta love the bay - I went in at the pinconning river mouth last spring and started catching huge smallies on a VERY SHALLOW bar (never fished that area before).  As the skies got dark and the wind picked up, we tried to head in and got beached about 1.5 miles off shore. :o
Making the best of it, we boated about a dozen more smallies before the lightning begain striking all around us and the hale started.  Talk about a nervous time with hale pounding us mixed with rain, wind gusts to 50mph and thunder and lightning all coming at one shot.  I was glad when that past us and we drained the bilges and livewells and jumped in the lake to get the boat to float again and we walked about a mile dragging the boat across the bar. 
But man, those were some huge smallies!!!!!

I'll be fishing the NBAA saginaw bay division this year.  Hopefully they draw some good numbers.  At the show we brought it up to NBAA that they had scheduled over top bass on 5/27, hoping they will move to sunday.  I hope they move, I'd like to see good numbers and if it comes down to it I'm going to have to fish top bass, on saturday my partner is fishing the motor city inland. 
-Matt 

Got the GPS coordinates of that bar? ::)

So I can avoid it, of course! ;)

I agree - we should have it to warn all the members so they don't get stuck too :D

Myself and Mbell are fishing that Saginaw bay division.  I can't wait we each got really good fish for the entire summer on different ends of the bay so I am pumped for this division.  I sure hope they change the opener tournament to the 28th to avoid top bass.  If we can get it to Sunday alot of the guys fishing the Top Bass tournament on the 27 will stay to fish on the 28th this will get our numbers up for that first tournament to get a good payback.  Lets all hope.  I brought that up to the NBAA guys at the fishing show and they marked it down and said they were going to be meeting with that director on Tuesday night so we will have to see if they make that change or not.

Savage, since I'll probobly be fishing against you here are some coordinantes. ;D 
43 52 300
83 37 262
Just wait it out, they'll show up sooner or later.
-Matt

Belleville Tuesday Night Tournaments for 16 weeks.? NBAA in Division 43 for 12 weeks.? Also my bass club tournaments and any other assorted tournaments that may fall into my schedule as it permits........and oh yeah the most prestigious tournament in Michigan and that would be the:


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Matt-

I'm such a sucker I'll probably try those :D

I can't believe Matt gave away two of our best way points.  Those spots produce 15+lb bags everyday.   What a nice guy.  Just to let you guys that are fishing the NBAA Saginaw Bay challenge division know ,  the first tournament was moved to Sunday the 28th.  It is not the 27th anymore.  I am glad to see the guys from NBAA listened to mee at the expo about switching the dates so to not conflict with the Top Bass tourney on the 27th. 

That was really nice of Jim and his guys (even Jack...)

And thanks UAWBigDog for the plug.

Yeah I think that was nice of them to move it.  I only mentioned it to them in order to help them and I am glad to see they took the advice.  There is no sense in a new district to try and start up against another tournament on the same day that anually draws 60+ boats to that tournament.  This should get quite a few of the Top Bass boats to fish the First NBAA tourney on Sunday since they are going to be in the area anyways fishing on Saturday.

Wow, lots of SERIOUS anglers out there.  I was surprised to see how many guys are fishing 15+ tournaments, well over 60%!  Now I have some ammo when I tell my wife I'm going fishin.  I've been in tournaments for 5 years and have never done that many until last year.

Just to let anyonw know who is planning on fishing the NBAA Saginaw Bay challenge division.  I just checked the NBAA website and all of the saginaw bay tourneys have been moved to Sundays now instead of Satrudays.  The second tournament was even moved a week sooner than planned.  So keep an eye on the schedules they keep changing.

Another good reason not to put too much on the calendar especially this early in the permit/scheduling season. I'm glad to see more circuits trying to accomodate each other. Too short a season to not have conflicts to some degree, but we can do the best we can. Thanks for the update dhuff.

Just updated my calandar, thats going to be a long drive from the St. Clair opener to Saginaw Bay.  The team tournaments scene seems to be settling down some with the scheduling conflicts.  This year I will be able to fish three different divisons, all on separate weekends except for one.   
-Matt

Wow! Pretty good coordination... and an ambitious plan. Hope you smoke 'em.

Well that ruins my plans to fish the NBAA Saginaw Bay series.  Too many conflicts!!!   >:(

yeah the switch aligns them with some of our club tournaments. Saturdays would have worked best for me, but who am I??  ::)  I'm still going to try and make 1 or 2 this year.