Wamplers Lake Michigan Bass Fishing Report Saturday 5/1/2010

[djkimmel]

I haven't been on Wamplers Lake since I was fishing club tournaments in my first bass club a looonnnngg time ago, but BryanP promised me we'd 'crush them!!' So how could I turn that down?

He was kind enough to let me sleep in a little since the bass often bite better later in the day this time of year and it is a fair piece of drivin' for me from the home base on Lansing down to Wamplers Lake. I was glad to miss out on the morning's hard rains too.

We started fishing shortly after 11 AM. Bryan likes a spinning rod. He's real good with one too. So we did a lot of jig and plastics fishing, mostly with his favorite Erie darter. He throws them a ton.

We fished a lot of flats. Not really looking for beds, but more for prespawn - by the end of the day, that looked to be mostly over - and bass hanging out near bedding areas. We fished on the side of the lake that was getting hit real hard by the wind, and on the opposite side were it was much more calm. We did about equally well either way this day.

We picked a few off of beds, but most were just up on the flats looking for a spring meal. Fishing was a little slow, but pretty steady with a few short flurries of hotter action. More than fine on a windy day in the middle of a bunch of screwy weather.

The most pleasant surprise was the smallmouth bass. We caught some very nice inland lakes smallies and Bryan even had a toad on, but the super fat fish jumped and got off of a swim bait. We caught way more largemouth bass overall with a mix of small ones and solid keepers, but the biggest bass of the day were all smallies.

Most were caught on the jig and darter in various greens, but we managed some on small swim baits, Red Eye Shads and Bomber Shallow A's. Mostly largemouth bass on these other lures.

Here's a few of the bass we caught out there. I was impressed with my return to Wamplers Lake after probably over twenty years of absence. I got to look at some nice Humminbird technology while out on the lake too. Very nice day. Thanks BryanP.


Bryan's first good bass of the day, a very nice hard fighting smallmouth bass of excellent quality.


I luckily got into the act a little later scatter casting the Erie darter on another flat.


We probably caught about 10 smallies, but maybe twice that many largemouth bass. Lots of solid bigmouth bass with this one Bryan caught later in the evening being an example of the better quality greenies.

Love that spring Michigan bass fishing!

[jcox7]

Dan
That is funny when talking about where to have this years TBF Championship I suggested Wamplers so it would be kind of different of course we are going to Muskegon but I believ that is because people do not know how good Wamplers can be.  Good to see you had fun

[LipRip]

Great report dan! Wamplers is my favorite lake and it really produces a lot of quality fish. Its always nice to fish in the spring because the heavy boat traffic of the summer isn't there. I really didnt think there were very many smallies in that lake, but i guess they're population must be growing. I fished 4 tourneys on wamplers last year and think I only saw one or two smallies weighed in. I plan on going out there this saturday, i'll let you know how I do!

[djkimmel]

I was pleasantly surprised by the number and quality of the smallies. The one Bryan lost was a TOAD!! Definitely a 5 pound class fish and we landed 3 of about 3 pounds or better. Lots of chunky nice largemouth bass too. It was a very nice return to the 'big' lake after so many years since the one time I fished it in the early club days.

Thanks again Bryan.

[dashaver63]

I fished there about 5 years ago and we went under the low bridge near the launch and up the channel to a smaller pond. Tons of pads. Had a great time. (If it's the same place I'm thinking of)

[djkimmel]

Same place. There's a couple smaller lakes attached to Wamplers though we stayed in Wamplers.