Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

So I got up to the cabin on Friday night the 9th. Went over to torch lake Sat with my son and his friend and found no fish. seen a few fish on the drops but they were not hitting anything we threw. jerks, cranks, tubes, spinnerbaits no luck. sunday spent the day working around the place and getting everything ready for a week of fishing. monday morning 6:30 am launched the boat on the north end of Elk lake, scratched my head because I had no idea where to start. Ran straight acros the lake to the west side side and found some real nice rocks out in 12 to 14 fow. Figured allright should be some beds in this area. Got looking around and there was not a bed to be found. Started throwing a crank bait and got a dink smallie. Changed to a jerk bait and got nothing. Changed again to a spinnerbait and started to pick up a few small ones. Worked my way around the shore into the Elk river area and hooked up with a real nice smallie off a sand point. Went to lip him and of course he jumped and broke me off. Thats why they make nets!!!!! Worked around the shore for another couple of hours and worked my way back to where the rocks were to see if maybe anything had started to move up. Wow I see a nice smallie next to a big rock on a bed, flip a tube and just like they are suppose to do he jumped all over it, nice 3.5. Kept moving back and forth thru the rock and ended up picking up a couple more off beds and then it was time for lunch. Leter that afternoon I met up with the fishing pollock (Matt) and we ran around to a bunch of spots that were suppose to be on fire but were not. Matt picked up 1 smallie on a spinnerbait and that was the whole of the first day on elk lake. stay tuned for day 2

What was the water temp ?

high 50's low 60's depending on which way the wind was blowing.

Just got back from traverse bay east. Spent 5 days . 4 boats average 40 to 60  SM a day . They were in the  grass  and on beds from 2ft  to 13ft .

I sent 5 days in Traverse City area over the 4Th. We fish 4 lakes near Kalkaska, Cub, BigBlue, Indian and Big Twin. We caught fish in all 4 lakes. Cub and Indian are small lakes, water temp 74-75°. The fish were  near structure, weed beds, wood and  rock piles, in 8'to14' of water and close to shore near Kat's and shore grass. BigBlue and BigTwin are larger lakes, water temp 70-72°. The fish were on and suspended close to deep docks, 8' to 14' of water. Soft baits worked best. We marked several schools of lake trout in BigTwin.