Grand & Long Lake 9/7-9/9

[t-bone]

Fished Long Lake first on our trip on 9/7 since our club tournament was both weekend days on Grand.
Took us a while to find fish but they were setup on boulders, which Long is full of. Find a rock and pitch to it and the bite was very light. I missed a big fish on a crankbait - looked to be 4 to 5#. My partner caught almost all the fish on dropshots.

Saturday tournament was tough fishing - windy with 4 or 5 fronts blowing through with rain in the morning. Only a few limits caught as the afternoon wind really started to the blow. The winning bag was a 4 fish 18# sack. Impressive fish for sure. I had 3 fish for 11#s and took big fish with a nice 5.8# smallie. Caught the big smallie on a rocky point that had a lot of wind blowing on it. The other fish tended to be relating to weedy areas. Missed enough for a limit but doubt I would have had 18#s. The winds were so bad by the end of the day we almost had a sunk boat at the launch. While waiting to pull boats, one guy was taking waves over the back of the boat and filled it up. Had to beach it and get 6 guys to bail in order to put it on the trailer. That was a little scary.

Sunday was windy but sunny. Caught a couple keepers with a Senko in weeds but couldn't find fish in the any of the same areas from the day before, so I just started running. Figured out a little late that shallow rocky areas were holding some. Must have been up sunning themselves. Came in with three again but only 7#s. Missed a pig right at the end that chased my crankbait but missed it. Winning wait was 14.3# beating out 2nd by an ounce.

These weren't the typical bags Grand usually produces this time of year. The water temp was upper 60s to low 70s but seemed pretty dirty.

[Bass Ninja]

thanks for sharing I have wanted to fish those two lakes now for years.  I think I will next year sometime.  how many fish did you catch on long?

Thanks,
Bass Ninja

[t-bone]

We were only on Long for 4 hours or so in the afternoon. Probably caught a total of 10 in our boat. Another guy said he caught a bunch and he was catching them really shallow. Said he caught at least 4 that that were over 4#s and he wasn't on the lake very long either.

[motocross269]

Both of those lakes can get nasty when the wind blows. On grand I usually tuck in donwind behind the islands

[t-bone]

Especially a NNW wind that we had. We launched the first day on the south end and the waves buildup going down the lake. It was as rough as being on St. Clair with a 30 mph wind. There were some 4fts rollers coming down the lake. I caught my big fish on the south end riding some pretty big waves - I felt like Clapper on Erie. I could make some hella long casts with the wind into the point though!
We got a little smarter and put in at the marina on the north end on Sunday. They charge 2 bucks in and 2 out. No one was around but we collected cash and left an envelope under the door. We tried to use the public launch next door but it was too shallow and we couldn't get the boats off the trailer. So we launched at the marina and then parked at the public ramp.

[motocross269]

How was that ramp at the marina? Last time I launched there it was pretty steep..Usually that north end gets pretty rough when the wind blows.
That puplic ramp is pretty much useless..

Grand and Long are both great lakes and have the potential to produce sacks over 20lbs....