Great day on St. Clair (8-18)

[Revtro]

I had a great time today.  Luke was fun to fish with and overall, though the action was kind of slow, we got some really nice ones.  It was slow, but steady.  We estimate our best 5 at around 18lbs.  Luke and I both got a few really nice 4lb class smallies.  I also managed a 5+ lb Walleye on a jigging spoon.  That thing fought like a smallie!  For a bit, I was thinking this was the smallmouth of a lifetime. 

I really enjoyed this outing.  I feel fortunate to be in a club with such genuinely nice guys.  I can't wait until our next event.  This is by far, the most enjoyable club I've ever been in (fishing and non-fishing clubs included). 

[fiker]

I enjoyed the day as well.  There's something about good company and a smallie at the end of my line that just makes everything great.

Mark was a great host and tried his best to teach me how to drop shot.  Despite his efforts to keep me from hurting my back, I still managed to pop a rib.  (sometimes I'm such a twit). 
We tried our best to catch that elusive 5#'er but they were hiding real good yesterday.

Tom, I'll email you what few pictures I took.  I don't know how to post them here.  And, by the way, this is the last time I'm bringing  my camera.  It always jinxes me.  I think that cameras and bananas are in the same taxonomic kingdom.  Or at the very least the same branch of the evolutionary tree.

[MIBassKid]

Really was a great day. We didn't catch alot of fish, but the ones we did catch we good fish. Caught every one of my fish on a tube. Even caught a few in 50 FOW haha I didn't know they existed way down there! Had fun and it was worth the 3 hour drive!
-Kid

[yukonjack2]

ditto guys - what an awesome day!
We caught some fish - a couple of fours and certainly some 3's, but nothing to brag about. I got schooled from the back of the boat - figures. 

I know we talked about an overnight trip someplace the last weekend in sept - seems that is gonna be the weekend of the DK open.  Just a thought to combine events, or at least a one dayer and convoy over to the west side whereever it may be.  I am sure it would be a blast, and we can all share costs to keep it as low as possible.  What do y'all think?

Jack

[Revtro]

What might be cool is going there a day ahead of time and using our event as a practice day for the DK, then spending the night and fishing the DK the next day. 

[fiker]

I'm not going to be able to do an overnighter.

[Langer]

I too had a fun day out there. I'll admit that it took some time to get used to fishing down so deep (30-40ft) I dont think I have ever fished any deeper then 20 before! Also handling the boat in that swift current took some time to get used to.

I knew we were going to be fishing deep so I re-spooled a spinning rod with some fireline crystal and then put the drop shot onto a flouro leader, I was able to distinguish between the bites and the ticking of the weights on the bottom, I dont know if I could of done that with mono. I didnt catch many fish, but the few I caught were average Im assuming for the river. Below are a couple pics from the day.

We did have some boat issues towards the end of the day, some screws worked themselves loose over the day, and my windshield started to come apart, we mangaged to get it put back together in the parking lot enough to get it home to work on it. Well I got up early Sunday to finish replacing the screws and tighten up any others that may have loosened over the day, because I was going to be out on St. Clair all day again for a club tournamnet.  As I was replacing the 2nd to last screw, something shift and the whole windshield shattered! Great, now I have a million little pieces of glass all over my boat, its 4:30am my dad is going to be here to leave for the tournament in 10mins.  There was just too much to clean up and deal with to make it to the ramp in time, so I unfortunately I missed out on my tournament. I spent the afternoon on Sunday removing the rest of the windshield frame, vacuuming up glass from everywhere! and removing the driver side windshield. The boat looks different but I think I like it better with out the windshields.

So other then the windshield issue it was fun, and am looking at my calendar to figure out when I can get back up there again...

[motocross269]

I was up on the river fishing a team bass tourney and saw you guys go buzzing by....I saw rev's boat and figured it was the Eastside group.  Sounds like you had about the same weekend we did on the river.  We didn't kill them, but would get one or two every drift...
Our weights were definetly alot lighter than I thought they would be, but it was still a fun weekend.  Sunday was a little tough with the constant rain and i couldn't seem to hook much. 

[Dropshot]

It started off slow but turned out to ba an awesome day. The highlight of the day was when Jack put us up shallow and a 4 1/2+ smallie nailed a jerk bait. Then in the afternoon we hit a dock in the North channel with the fish going crazy. There must have been 20 smallmouth chasing bait fish by one dock. Riding in Jack's Ranger mad me jealous. I need a bigger boat !

[fiker]

I know this is small compensation for the windshield Brian, but... I'll bet your boat is easier to handle in the wind now.  It won't act like a sail so much.

[GeeDavid]

Just want to echo what you fellows are saying.  A very fine day and good fishing with good company.  I got my second personal best smallmouth on my second trip with you Eastsiders so to say that I am a fan of the club would be an under statement. 

I'm starting to get the hang of the light weight spinning rig.  I started out with a Jig (you can take the boy out of Oklahoma but...) but picked up the drop shot after Seth caught his second and didn't put it down except for eight or nine casts with a vibe.  Big smallmouth on light tackle equals mucho fun.

I am very much looking forward to our next outing though if it were an overnighter I would just have to meet up with you guys in the morning.

David

[dashaver63]

Man, seeing these reports makes me even more anxious for the week-end to get here. I just hope my boater wants to go North instead of out to Erie. I was fishing Middle Channel a couple years ago and it's still the only place I've been to where I could catch a 5lb. largemouth (off a shipwreck), move across the channel and get a 5.5lb smallmouth, gotta love it!

[Revtro]

Just a heads up.  Not to discourage anyone, but the channels were OFF tonight.  We drifted every area we fished on Saturday and only got one keeper for 3 hours work.  It was an awful night.  Hopefully it'll turn back on again because Saturday was AWESOME!

[SethV]

Tom-  I checked the N Channel last night.  It is back on!!   

I spent the morning down on the S end of the Det River and Erie....yuk.  What a terrible time.  Really poor fishing.

I then trailered up to Harley and ran over to the channels.  Each waypoint that we found on Saturday had fish.  No giants, but plenty of solid keepers.

Seth

[Revtro]

That's good news.  It's really up and down lately in the channels/river.  I may be up there Thursday.  BTW - Will you be around here any time soon?  I'm still having truck issues.  I'd love to get a look at things if you ever have a few minutes.