We started the day at about 8:30 and was greeted with no wind and sunny skies. I decided to start on a spot I had success on in the past. We got on them right away, Jeff's first cast yielded a nice chunk and on my second cast I got a five pounder. After I put a few more good ones in the boat Jeff asked me for some of those baits and he started whackin em. As the sun got higher the smallies moved in to the shallow rock line and was sunning themselves and grouping up to gorge on craws. For a few hours we were sight fishing those wolf packs but mostly making long casts along that rock line to get our bites. At about 1:30 the wind started to blow and the clouds rolled in and the smallies moved probably to the next break but we never got back on the schools. It was one here and there for the rest of the day and the following morning until we headed back home. We had about 25 on Wednesday most going 4-5 pounds biggest was 5-5 and Thursday we had 10 from 3-4 pounds. No bigguns for us but I think in the next couple weeks it will be crazy up there and the big girls will really be fired up. Water temp was 57 in the am and 59 in the evening, here are some pics of a few of the fish from Wednesday...
Jeffs 5-5
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/55.jpg)(http://)
A couple good ones
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/TwoforTim.jpg)(http://)
A couple more
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/2ndtwoforme.jpg)(http://)
Some professional camera work from Jeff
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/Timhaulingonein.jpg)(http://)
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/untitled-1.jpg)(http://)
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/Timsingle.jpg)(http://)
Live well with maybe 8 4 1/4-5 1/4 pounders, we had put the first 10 in there at one time because we were worried about releasing them and alerting the schools. We threw most of those back in but ended up with these in there to take pics of a few.
(http://)(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg308/tcook1238/livewell.jpg)(//)
Nice job guys!!!! Wish I could of had Brad up there then so he can experience some big smallie action!! Jeff those two you are holding in the one pic look like TANKS!!!! Can't wait to show Brad these pictures. Again, great job in figuring them out.
Nice job....
Good job guys, looks like fun. I'd love to get up there on a sunny calm day. Not likely to happen though, I've spent about 10 days up there in my life and only had 3-4 hours of sunny flat calm.
-Matt
This is the first year since sometime in the mid 90's that I haven't made it up there in the fall. If lucky, we'd get 1, maybe 2 days like that in a long week. In 2005 we got 3 in a row... that was AWWWSOOMMME!!! We also would usually have about 2 to 3 days of 30 to 45 mhp wind and even 7 inches of snow that one fall, I think 3 falls ago (or maybe 2). The campground had up to 6 inches of water in it after the snow started to melt. I still loved it up there anyway.
On those really bad days we just went into Cheboygan for a really good hot breakfast! Either went to a smaller lake later or if we could fish part of the lake without getting too wet and slammed, we'd go out for a while anyway.
I love it so much up there, I can actually smell it right now!
I was up there this past weekend with 4 guys and we found the fishing very good as well. The winds were whipping up some nice waves on Friday, but did manage to catch a nice 6.2lb smallie on the 4th cast of the day. The fish was up shallow on a point and just about tore my arm off when it blasted a spinnerbait in about 3 feet of water. We caught about 12 fish in our rig on the points, and nothing smaller that 3lb's. Probably could have done better but the waves were making the east shore impossible to fish. We fished Mullet Lake on Saturday and the weather was perfect. We had a 2 on 2 tourney and each boat had 20lb3oz sacks!!! Big fish was 5lb on the button and most fish were caught on spinnerbaits, crankbaits and tubes. It was a really nice weekend to be up there and I cannot wait until next June for our annual spring trip. Not sure how to post pictures but let me know and I can share a few.
Check out the General Support board down at the bottom of the forum for several posts on how to attach pictures or get pictures on the Internet that you can link to.
Quote from: ReggieMFD on October 10, 2010, 09:18:51 PM
Nice job guys!!!! Wish I could of had Brad up there then so he can experience some big smallie action!! Jeff those two you are holding in the one pic look like TANKS!!!! Can't wait to show Brad these pictures. Again, great job in figuring them out.
Thanks Mark, Wish you and Brad could have been there also. I just can't believe how lucky we were to have those conditions up to 1:15. The wind picked up more the next day. The nose of the boat ummm was a little too low and we took water over the bow. Tim said we just skuffed the wave instead of spearing it. I told him that was bad enough for me !!! Still not sure how I got so wet sitting behind a console lolol
Quote from: djkimmel on October 11, 2010, 01:13:49 PM
This is the first year since sometime in the mid 90's that I haven't made it up there in the fall. If lucky, we'd get 1, maybe 2 days like that in a long week. In 2005 we got 3 in a row... that was AWWWSOOMMME!!! We also would usually have about 2 to 3 days of 30 to 45 mhp wind and even 7 inches of snow that one fall, I think 3 falls ago (or maybe 2). The campground had up to 6 inches of water in it after the snow started to melt. I still loved it up there anyway.
On those really bad days we just went into Cheboygan for a really good hot breakfast! Either went to a smaller lake later or if we could fish part of the lake without getting too wet and slammed, we'd go out for a while anyway.
I love it so much up there, I can actually smell it right now!
I'm not much of a camper. Especially in adverse weather. So we stayed at the Star Gate Motel. Really nice older couple. They sure were proud of the pic they had displayed of them and Mark Zona. lolol Plus it worked out great, there was a separate bedroom so Tim didn't have to listen to me snore, errrr well so he says. Zzzzzzz
Quote from: Musky on October 11, 2010, 08:33:59 PM
I was up there this past weekend with 4 guys and we found the fishing very good as well. The winds were whipping up some nice waves on Friday, but did manage to catch a nice 6.2lb smallie on the 4th cast of the day. The fish was up shallow on a point and just about tore my arm off when it blasted a spinnerbait in about 3 feet of water. We caught about 12 fish in our rig on the points, and nothing smaller that 3lb's. Probably could have done better but the waves were making the east shore impossible to fish. We fished Mullet Lake on Saturday and the weather was perfect. We had a 2 on 2 tourney and each boat had 20lb3oz sacks!!! Big fish was 5lb on the button and most fish were caught on spinnerbaits, crankbaits and tubes. It was a really nice weekend to be up there and I cannot wait until next June for our annual spring trip. Not sure how to post pictures but let me know and I can share a few.
Every once in a while we would run other baits, like spinners and cranks, but it's hard to stick with them when you know for sure they'll hit the tubes. I probably should have tried a little more after the wind kicked up. I think we had our best 5 go 24 1/2 pounds.
Sure hope you figure out how to post pics. Looking forward to seeing them.
Hey Tim, thanks for posting the pics and story. You might have a future in journalism if the new job doesn't work out !!!! lololol
I am not smart enough to get the pictures up...cannot get the option to pop up on the "Additional Options" to get them up. Sorry!
Quote from: Musky on October 12, 2010, 08:11:41 PM
I am not smart enough to get the pictures up...cannot get the option to pop up on the "Additional Options" to get them up. Sorry!
Try www.tinypic.com Can only upload one pic at a time, but works good. it will ask what size you want. Pick message board size. Jeff
Quote from: Musky on October 12, 2010, 08:11:41 PM
I am not smart enough to get the pictures up...cannot get the option to pop up on the "Additional Options" to get them up. Sorry!
When you click on Additional Options... you should see the Attach: box. When you click in that box, a File Upload box should open, or press the Browse button. It might not popup if you have popup blockers running or don't allow popups from GreatLakesBass.com.
Due to the cost of space and preserving speed, I do limit the size of graphics so if you take big pictures and upload them straight from the camera, they will probably be too big to load. the tinypic option does work good for some users.
I'm thinking about installing a picture gallery, but haven't got to it yet. It's on my todo list.
I was up at Burt the fist week of October and we had a real tuff time getting anything going. The fish we caught were all over 4 lbs, biggest was 6.5 but we didn't get many. Seemed like most of the lake was shallow 1-6' and rocky near shore then dropped into white sand everywhere else. Found the big rock point on the east side of the lake over near the radio tower and we never caught a fish off of that. Beautiful part of the country but just a little disappointing after smallmouth fishing on St Clair for the the last 6 years. Jeff
How much time did you spend on Burt??? A 6.5 would make any trip for me !!!!!! Oh and what dates were you there???
Yeah. Not too much sympathy from me neither :D
(http://i56.tinypic.com/2h2ftci.jpg)
6.2 lber
(http://i54.tinypic.com/xb9usw.jpg)
5 lber
(http://i54.tinypic.com/2u89s7n.jpg)
Mullet Lake Smallies
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6.2 lber again
Figured out how to upload a few pictures.
Musky
Nice fish!!!!! Maybe next year for me.
Yeah !!!! Musky figured out how to post pics. Man those are great looking fish !!!! I love the smile on your face !!!
I was there Sept 19-24. No doubt the fish caught were nice. We fished 4 days there and 1 morning at Little Traverse Bay.We never went to Mullet. I don't know if the 31 degree morning temps were the first of the year or not but that may have been part of the reason we were having a slow bite or maybe we just suck:) The lake was just not what I was expecting - very little grass and couldn't find much structure in deeper water. We just had a hard time putting a pattern together, seemed like everything we caught was just different situations. When you see the BFL tourney results every June it sure makes you want to go there in the spring. Jeff
It was hard to keep that smile inside with my first smallie of 6 lbs!!! I cannot wait to get up there next spring. I really think that the fishing has been tougher the last couple of springs with the pounding they get from the BFL. I know that they are not fishing them next spring so I hope that the bite is a little better.
Musky
Musky congrats on your first 6 pounder. Welcome to the club. When do you usually fish up there compared to the BFL ?? Before or after. I may try and get up there for a day or so from Ludington if possible.
I went up there the weekend before the BFL this year and pounded the big bass with a friend (probably because I didn't have the psychology of tournament pressure to bother with). There are plenty of bass. They are very weather dependent as to easy bite verses tough scattered bite. They ALWAYS have been as long as I've gone up there (since 1994 one to three trips a year spring and fall).
Those lakes can seem very tough in bad conditions and the very next day seem like nirvana! I've watched it happen many, many times on multiple day trips. They roam out in the open water a lot when they aren't crashing the areas most of us fish most often.
The only real change I've seen is the bass fishing keeps getting generally better and the bass, on average, are way bigger than they were in 1994. Way bigger. That is from fishing many of the same exact beds in the spring that I've fished every year since 1994.
I don't fish Burt a lot because Burt, in my opinion, is more squirrelly than Mullett. I've also had the worst luck a few times in Burt and I don't like to remember them ;D
Mullett and me are more alike (that sounds wrong somehow..?). I will admit that the bass seem to get bigger overall in Burt though. There may be more 5-pounders in Mullett, but almost all the real big bass I've seen (7+ up to 8-2) have come from Burt. You can't forget there are two more lakes in the chain that are also pretty darn good fishing. Especially when the wind is howling - a common problem in the fall.
I went out the day after the BFL one year - one of my typical events where for whatever reason, I had a hard time hooking bass all day, settling for something much less than spectacular. I went back to the same spot I made the TBF state team from the day after another dismal BFL performance and caught all the bass except 1 that I failed to catch the day before.
I also found small wolf packs of smallies that would slam small topwater baits. I had a blast and eventually forgot (mostly) about my poor performance of the day before.
To think the lake could be hammered that hard one day and fish so good the very next? Why? Well, it probably didn't hurt that it was sunny and almost calm on a spring day. The water temp went up several degrees and the bass were on the feed.
I even went over to a point that gets flat out pounded and pulled one over 5 pounds off a bed that had to have seen 25 or 30 baits the day before. I know for a fact that one of the bigger bass I caught off my favorite spot got pounded most of the day during the BFL. I think 3 people had it on. I couldn't get it to bite during the BFL, probably because of the number of baits it saw and bit on and because of whatever my Northern Michigan BFL jinx was about. But also maybe because of the weather conditions too.
That next day, my first cast and I instantly had the big bass on. And lost it! I was so surprised it bit so easy and fast that I blew it. I thought, well, I did have my shot, but threw back in anyway. And the darn fish bit again! This time I got it. It made me feel a little better knowing how many people tried to catch that bass the day before!
So, I do believe more than just fishing pressure is involved with those bass.
I do agree that the weather and other influences are more of a factor to those fish, however, we have been going up there on the first weekend of June since 2005 and have noticed the past 2 years have been tougher. We still catch a lot of fish and some good ones, but have noticed that the easier to spot beds in the shallow water have been far less than the years prior. I am not sure why but we have thought that the BFL may have some sort of influence. I may be way off here but I am not sure. The beds that are not visible in deeper water without the aid of SideImaging or a Flogger are still there and normally have huge fish on them when you can find a log with a bed on it. We normally spend most of our time on Burt, Mullet will get a good workout next spring for a day.
Musky
I don't spend a lot of time on shallow beds. Those also seem spottier to me over the years. Remember that studies show maybe 1/3 of the adult bass may spawn per year. I wonder sometimes if the lower numbers of shallow beds is because less bass are trying to spawn that year at that time?
I remember one year on a Southern Michigan lake we had everything hit perfect and more bass were crowded on more beds in the shallows than I've ever seen before or since. I don't think there were necessarily more bass that year, but that more bass spawned.
Another thing that complicates trying to figure out what might be going on is that bass have banner years classes maybe 3 out of every ten. So some years there are more bass in the lake than others.
Very interesting information Dan and Musky, thanks !!! Just might have to make a trip up next spring errrrr early summer. Will you be on call Dan??? Kimmel hotline. lololol
I hope to be up there too!!! ;D
I am up there the first weekend of June with 7 other guys and we usually fish Friday on Burt; Saturday morning in a little 4 boat team tournament on Burt and usually hit Douglas or Mullet later in the day until dark. We will fish Burt until about noon on Sunday and head back home. We may spend more time this spring on Mullet. I cannot wait to get back up there next year and explore more of White Goose Bay...we had a boat with Side Imaging this fall and marked about 25 very intriguing spots in 15-19 feet of water!!!
Musky