Been traveling a lot for work/graduations/etc. Managed to get out fishing quite a bit though, and things have quieted down and thought I would post a report. One thing of interest, the water warmed up close to 20 degrees in the week prior to Memorial Day weekend with all the hot weather we had.
Got out opening morning on a large (for up here) resevoir, put over thirty smallmouths in the boat, nothing real huge, but a steady fun morning. A couple of years back, the dam upstream from this one failed, and it seems the big bass took a pretty good hit. Maybe unrelated, who knows... Also caught six walleyes, only one legal. Only one pike bite off. All participants were released unharmed.
Went out Memorial Day to a small largemouth/crappie lake. The bass weren't doing much, but the crappie and bluegills were up shallow and active. Had fun catching them, and kept 3 crappie and 3 bluegills for dinner - per the bosses order...
The day after Memorial Day, went to a smallmouth lake. It also has crappie, walleye, pike and bluegill. A very good all-around lake, but the landing leaves a lot to be desired. The morning was hot and calm and started out slow. Finally started to pick up some nice smallies here and there. Then about 9am the wind kicked up out of the north, and thunderstorms started building to the south. The fish really turned on, and I caught a bunch of nice smallies. Ended up with 26 in the boat, and had 15 that went from 17-19", fat little footballs they were, spewing crayfish parts everywhere. All are back in the lake for next time... I sure appreciate where I live, as I was the only boat on the lake.
This past Sunday, I went to a deep, rocky and extremely clear lake that has lots of both large and smallmouths, and a lot of big fish also. You can read a beer can in 15' of water. Caught some decent smallies early, once the sun got up, I started seeing many big bass of both varieties just cruising in pairs and small groups in 5-10' of water - pretty frigging amazing. Could get them to look at and sniff my offerings, but no takers. The bluegills were real active on the surface eating some sort of bug hatch, so started fishing/catching them. (I am starting to scare myself here - "Hi my name is UPBert, and I am a bluegill fisherman...") I haven't resorted to live bait yet, so I think there is still hope! There were a few smallmouths on beds, lots of rock bass on beds, and a few gills on beds. I finally had to catch one of the smallies off a bed, to do a sized compaison. The fish I caught was 16", and he paled in size considerably to the bass I saw cruising. Many of the bass I saw cruising were 20+ inches. Ended up catching many small-to-medium sized bass, a bunch of bluegills, and a ton of annoying little rockbass. It is hard at times to bass fish this lake, cause the rockbass are everywhere... Kept a few 8-9" bluegills for dinner - got to keep the war department happy.
All in all, fishing has been pretty good. Best of luck to you all and be safe - UPBert
I'd love to get back up to the UP to do some fishing. I haven't been up there fishing since visiting my uncle Lyle in Iron Mountain in the late 70's, early 80's. Super nice lakes, clean and clear from what I remember...could also go and catch a rainbow dinner in the creeks near his house...now that was cool.
Thanks for the UP Report - good to know you can still go out fishing without cheap entertainment at boat ramps and 'Ben Trodders' running all over the place making you twitchy.