Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

Derek and I decided to stay a little closer to home hitting Lobdell Lake on September 1st. What a mistake we made! Lobdell Lake has obviously been weed-bombed hard and has hardly any weeds except some real shallow pads, some real shallow curly scruffy weed I called water celery for no good reason and a few desperate patches of algae grass, mixed grass and very little milfoil.

We had mostly open water to fish, docks which we fished a little but not a lot (out of practice), and some of that curly strandy weed and grass in mostly shallow water areas. The water clarity was maybe 6 to 8 inches everywhere in Lobdell! Very turbid again and not at all like Lobdell of the past!

We started shallow in the morning hoping for a few active cruisers near the old Whites Landing. I was casting away from shore towards a shallow scruffy weed bed when a pretty nice keeper barely got my lucky green shad KVD 1.5 crankbait. It came off on the first jump and I could see it was barely hooked in the lower jaw - not much of a strike and a clue to how the day would go!

I started getting popped every 15 or 20 minutes on the crankbait but not hooking up! Frustrating, and had me wondering at times if I was imaging things!! I was mostly casting away from shore out into open water on the outside side of the boat because when I cast shallower I was not getting bit.

I started paying hard attention to my lure and whenever I felt something I would pause the lure for a split second. Bingo! That did the trick netting me my only keeper of the day on the same lure!

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/kvd-15-crankbait-bass-lobdell-lake-dan-kimmel20160901_101952_HDR.jpg)
Here's my one keeper I landed from Lobdell Lake. I was reeling the small green shad KVD 1.5 crankbait along when I felt turbulence. I paused the lure and this bass inhaled it on the pause. You can barely see part of the lure sticking out of its mouth because it was headfirst in its throat. A skinny 15-16 incher.

I later was switching between the KVD 2.5 and 1.5 when I caught a pike on a pause right next to the boat on the 2.5. Same thing exactly - I felt turbulence - something off in the vibration of the lure. I paused and the pike slammed into it. I flipped it in the boat just before it sliced my line apart!! Close call!

Derek caught a few dinks dragging various soft plastic lures in deep and shallow water mostly through that grassy algae 'weed' again because regular weeds were almost nonexistent! We tried lots of spots including flats, slow drops and some of the steeper drops with almost nothing to show for it.

We talked about finding some of the wood and fishing that but it was hit and miss really because we couldn't see a foot down in the water in most places except for real shallow sometimes we could see maybe a foot down.

We decided that we are going to try to avoid lakes that have been weed-bombed for awhile now because the fishing stinks on some of these lakes thanks to the over exuberant enriching of weed killers by lake associations. Not going to be easy on some lakes to avoid since the weed treatments are now so common and easy for lake associations to undertake... Better luck next time.

May as well stay away from Kent also. It is the same way there. Went on Labor day and it looks like chocolate milk and there are nothing but dead brown slimy weeds.

We will stay away then. There has to be some happy medium in this attack on all the weeds, OR a REAL recovery plan that would probably be cheaper in the long run.