Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

Might be heading to Cass Lake in the next month. Can dock fishing be a decent pattern on Cass Lake this time of year? And if not docks, has anyone experienced a good shallow water pattern this time of year? what's the dominant pattern on the lake, drop offs and deep ledges? Is it mostly a smallmouth lake? Or does it have a good population of largemouths? Thanks for the info.

Cass has both Smallmouth and Largemouth. The main lake is predominately Smallmouth and the back water areas (Gerundegut Bay and Dollar Lake) have pretty good Largemouth fishing.
For smallies this time of year I look for the sand grass patches on the shallow flats. My best baits are 4" Yum Dingers, Pop-R's, 1/4 oz. Rattle-Traps, tubes and baby craw bugs. You can usually catch fish also along the base of the drop using tubes. After the watertemps drop, silver buddies start coming into play. The lake has a lot of small (13" to "15ers).
The Largemouth in the back water are not as plentiful but I have caught 3lb+ fish there. Jig and pigs and "5 Dingers have been my best baits.
Hope this helps, Len B.

Docks can be good on Cass. Even shallow, clear, coverless ones. The weed clumps along the deep breaks seem to be a little higher percentage for me.

You can almost always catch some shallow bass on Cass, but as the water temp drops through September, the deeper stuff gets more bass on it. I don't like to fish deep very much either, but Cass is a good place to learn.

Start at the base of the weeds along the steep drops and work your way out, say 13 feet to 25 to 35 feet.

 Most of the fish taken last NBAA were taken off of deep weed beds next to deep water breaks. soft bait seem to work best! Most of them were smallies.