Tough day on the Grand River 7-12-2016

[djkimmel]

We hadn't been there yet this year so Tuesday, July 12th I said why don't we visit the Grand River (Upper Grand in Lansing to Dimondale stretch). We got out a little later in the morning due to rush hour traffic and someone deciding to flip a trailer full of 'stuff' along the highway.

We ran down to Dimondale to the canals and big outside bend there only to not catch much. I believe we got a couple dinks in one of the canals out of the weeds - 1 on a worm and one on a spinnerbait.

One thing to share right now is how the Grand River in Lansing from Moores Park to Dimondale has changed! It is not full of a mix of grass, some milfoil shallow, lily pads and a ton of algae on top! It has really taken lots of old habits out of the equation because the patterns are now at best a frog pattern (which we did not test very much either...??).

Another thing is we caught almost no smallmouth bass, even all the little ones we usually catch all over. Don't know what they are doing right now but we caught almost all largemouth bass and a few pike (of course).


Derek caught the first keeper by a well known spot a little down the back from shore on an ole black and blue jig and pig he was casting and hopping down the bottom from shore to deeper water. The nice largemouth bass hit a little ways out from the bank on a steep drop.

We were fishing one outside bend that wasn't as weedy as others when I caught my one keeper largemouth bass on a crankbait tight to the bank behind an overhanging tree in the heavy shade. It hit almost right away close to shore in a foot or less than 2 feet of water.


This bass hit a Bomber crawfish deep-diving crankbait tight to the bank behind an overhanging tree!

On one outside bend we fished the shallow side along thick milfoil covered with slop algae when I started catching the only smallmouth bass we caught. I caught several in a row on the Texas-rigged Nemesis Baits Bullet Craw just pitching it the weed edge and working it out away towards deeper water. I was getting whacked in only 2-3 foot of water in early afternoon. Not sure what the smallies where doing there but none of them were keepers so no pictures.

We fished a lot of the old spots without much more than small largemouth bass and a few pike to show for it. We even went in the spawning bay though now it is a weedy mess a narrow open strip of water up the middle really limiting fishing opportunities. I noted to Derek that the river has really changed in the past few seasons with the advent of a lot more big houses with big fancy lawns on them and I have to wonder if fertilizer runoff is involved? We're talking a really drastic change after decades of almost no weeds in the river.

Anyway, we were working our way around one big bend in the river when we noticed a deer standing in the river in the middle of the sloppy lily pads! It was definitely munching on things out there but we weren't sure what exactly it was eating because of the distance.


Whitetail Deer over Derek's shoulder standing in the wetlands, lily pads munching away on something. I've never seen one do this before while eating so I wondered if it was eating the lily pad flowers?

It was just far enough away that I could not tell for sure what it was eating, just that it was really eating a lot. It could have been the algae for all I knew at this point.

A short time later we passed a tree line a few hundred yards downriver and I tapped Derek on the shoulder. Look I says. A lot closer this time is ANOTHER deer again standing in the river and eating. Only the 2nd time I've ever seen this behavior!


Now it is obvious what this deer is eating are the lily pads themselves! Wild! I have never seen this before, and this deer's belly looks full! We watched it for several minutes as we fished by eating lily pads like it was bacon! I really enjoy all the interesting things that happen in our Wild Michigan Outdoors!

We pulled up later on one wall that has been a known hot spot for decades and right on the upstream point of it Derek pitched in a lure and hooked a really nice largemouth bass. Unfortunately I did not get a picture because he said 2 keeper bass where with it and I tried to double up. I made a bad cast and got over his line.

Then the bass powered it's way under the boat where he had his jig and pig hanging over the side tangling into that line too so now it had 3 lines tangled on it! By the time we got this mess (I guess I'm out of practice...?) untangled we could not find the other 2 bass or any other for that matter. I got 2 bites along the wall but failed to hook either one of whatever bit.

We ran out of time on that wall and ran in to call it a day.

Three keepers isn't really bad for the Upper Grand River but I expected having it mostly to ourselves that we would do a little better but it is a lot different now than it used to be so I'm thinking we may need to start fishing it different than we used to to increase our river productivity in the future. We'll see later when and if we decide to give it another go.