3 for the price of 1

[Firefighter Jeff]

     Thought I'd do three days and two lakes of fishing in one report. A few from this site were nice enough to help me out a little since I have no experience fishing this time of year on St. Clair.  Thanks!!!  Had a buddy from North Carolina passing through for a wedding in Muskegon. Looked like if we wanted to target largemouth we could have a good time but we were after smallies. Frank said they had smallies in some of the mountain lakes but didn't fish them much at all.

      So based on this information I decided to fish St. Clair both days we had lined up. I intercepted Frank at a hotel in Ann Arbor. He was quite impressed with Michigan when he went out to his car at the back of the hotel and saw a deer feeding. We headed to Roseville and actually were able to check in to our hotel room. From there it was to Harley Ensign. We didn't launch until almost 10:00 (Had to buy drinks and stop at Sportsman's Direct) From the information that I had gathered we needed to fish the St. Clair river outlet areas. We would only be able to fish American waters.

Unfortunately Canadien waters are better this time of year. From what I hear a lot of smallies move up into the river arms. Not sure if it's water temps or forage base that causes them to do this or both. Didn't really want to fish the current hence we fished the mouths. Fishing was tough. Water temps werre 78 - 80 Hot humid day with little wind. We never tied into a school of fish. Mainly it was just one or two.

We caught the majority of our fish on deeper divng crankbaits in 15-16 feet of water. We also caught a few on Drop shotting a small plastic minnow bait that resembled a perch. I caught my first spybait fish ever. Boy is that a excruciating way to fish !!! Cast out, let it sink to desired depth and SSSLLOOOOOWWLLY reel it in. It became mostly overcast in the afternoon and the fishing improved and so did our comfort level. I think we fished until about 8:00. Maybe 12 - 15 smallies. Here are a few pics.
Here is my friend Frank with a decent smallie.


Frank again


9 pound pike


      Hit the same launch the next day. Since we were getting out early we decided fiosh fish shallow water near Strawberry Island. We probably should have made it out just a little earlier, say 30 minutes or so. Here is a pic as we headed from the launch.


It didn't take too long when Frank and I had a double. He was fishing a double bladed buzzbait and and me a Pop-R. They were average sized fish but we were tickled to have a double.  A little while later Frank hooks a good fish on the same bait. Looks to be 4 pounds plus. Unfortunaterly it pulls loose bulldogging near the boat. I think the very next cast he hooks another one. It's not quite as big but looks 3 anyway. He makes the comment.... "I'm not losing this one" Well I don't know what he did different but he had the same result. LOLOLOL I said you haven't fished much for smallies have you? Haha We fished here longer but didn't get any more.

Not sure if it was the light chop that kicked up or not. We headed back to a wreck we fished with out much success the day before. We caught a few fish here. Perch, a couple small smallies and this walleye for Frank, his first ever.


We then went to our best area from the day before. The wind let up to almost nothing. Man was it hot and steamy !!! Fat guys like me and heat don't mix well. Boat rides were wonderful for cooling off !!! Well, our best spot the day before was slow. It was quite a grind. We caught a few on DS, Spybait and cranks again. Headed out closer to the shipping channel and deeper water but did nothing. We ended up struggling along and decided to call it a day at 1:30 because we were heading to Ludington.

Frank must have put his spybait right on top of this fish's head. Had it on as soon as he reeled.


     We arrived at our park on Hamlin lake in enough time to throw the boat in and do a little topwater before dark. We headed over to the state park area where the sand dunes start and head north. We were both using Pop-R's in really shallow water where the mostly sand bottom changes to some weeds and drops a little. Had about an hour or so to fish and it was fun. We caught mostly smallies, only one or two over 14 inches, a couple largemouth and an acrobatic pike. It was about 17-18 inches long.

I wasn't really watching my plug when I heard a splash. When I looked I could see a fish frantically shaking about a foot and a half out of the water. Luckily it had my bait. I figured it was a smallie. When I got it in all I could see was a couple feathers from the trailer sticking out of it's mouth !!! LOLOL I got such a kick out of it firing up out of the water with my bait. It was a fun evening.

We got up early the next morning and fished the mouth of the north bayou and picked up a couple fish on Pop-R again. Headed up to the narrows and fished tubes in the deeper water and caught one 17 inch smallie. We moved back down the lake to fish walls and docks with a senco and found a few decent fish near the south end. Lastly we hit about 20 feet of water on the east side just north of the North Bayou and picked up a couple largemouth on tubes. Here are a couple more fish pics.




All in all it was a pretty good trip. I hadn't seen Frank in probably nine years. He did seem to catch just a little better quality fish than I did which was great. I was hoping he'd do well !!! Did crack me up that he took a pic of nearly every fish he caught. I offered to take pics of his bigger fish. Didn't think anything of it when they were smaller, and I see him in the back of the boat holding the fish out to take a pic. LOLOL I told him I'd take a pic if he wanted.  


   

[21XDC]

Nice write up... I enjoyed the read.

[FrickerDude]

Sounds like you guys had a fun time!

[djkimmel]

Sounds like it worked out pretty good. Maybe not awesome, but pretty good. I bet your friend enjoyed catching the smallies (and it sounds like pretty much all the bass!)!!

[Firefighter Jeff]

Sounds like it worked out pretty good. Maybe not awesome, but pretty good. I bet your friend enjoyed catching the smallies (and it sounds like pretty much all the bass!)!!

  Hahaha  Not quite  I'm just more humble.  Besides, the trip was about him !!!!

[djkimmel]

Well... I didn't mean it that way anyways. I just meant he enjoyed catching the bass whether they were smallmouth or largemouth.

[stratosjoe]

good post really enjoyed the read. "The old adage if you caught 100 big smallmouth every trip you would get bored" thats horsepoo....lol