Big Fish

[Cy]

I am sure this has been discussed here before but I don't know when, so I thought I might bring it up again.

How do you guys locate and catch big fish??? 

So far this summer I have not been on a big fish bite at all.  By big I am thinking 2.5 to 5.0 pounders.  Truth be told the largest bass, LM and SM, that I have ever caught is a little over 4 pounds.  I have fished all over West Michigan this year and haven't caught one over 3.  I am really struggling to find and boat large fish.

So, I am curious to hear some of your opinions on this subject.  When you are out on the water and once you start catching them and they are small, just keepers or less, do you keep on them and hope the big ones will turn on or show up?  Essentially "weed" out the small fish to catch the bigger fish, do you try the same pattern somewhere else or do you change pattern all together?

I bring this up to you guys because my tournament partner and I were talking about it on Saturday after a less then stellar showing.  Neither of us had a good answer so I thought I would put it out there and see what you all think.

Thanks,

Cy

[Dan]

Once July rolls around it has been my experience that the docks are the place to be on the inland lakes if you want to catch big fish. Just had a tournament on Portage Lake last Sunday and it was a shallow water bite. I mean 2 feet of water or less and that holds pretty true for many of our inland lake tournaments.

[fiker]

which poartage lake do you mean? 
If you mean the one by Pinckney, do which docks are you talking about?

[Dan]

Nope I'm a west sider. Portage Lake in Onekama which is just a stones throw north of Manistee.

[Cy]

Dan,

This is off the topic but how is the fishing a Portage Lake?  Is it worth the trip up there?  I have thought about checking it out.

Cy

[Dan]

I am waiting for some more info on the Portage tournament we had this past Sunday. Portage can be a bust or boon lake. A lot of guys will run to Portage from as far south as Muskegon. I had two fish. One a 3lb. plus smallie second place big bass, and one other liner. There were several 5 fish limits. The word I got was it became a skinny water bite - two feet or less. I checked some of that water ahead of time but not enough I guess. I was in the right area, but wrong depth. Guys caught them in from me and out deeper 23-25 foot range. I did go deeper for a while, but I guess I should have run up shallower. There are articles on Portage on my teardropbass.com site from 04 a short one on 05 because I didn't fish it and then I'm in the process for the one we just fished. 13 lbs or so won it Sunday. June it would have taken almost 20 lbs. Big fish is usually always over 4 and often over 5. Ever up this way let me know and I got a place you can stay. Got a bunk house at my cabin sleeps 4. Spartan, nothing fancy and is about 40 minutes from Lake Cadillac, Hamlin Lake, Manistee and Portage. Hamlin Lake is our next tournament. Always one of our largest weigh ins. I got a stringer mount of walleye from Portage that will go 35 lbs. Got them through the ice.