White Lake (Oakland County) 9-22-2016

[djkimmel]

Derek and I returned to White Lake near Pontiac on September 22, 2016 to take another crack at this multi-species, interesting lake. We got off to a slow start as we decided to try deep first from 16 to 22 feet looking for fish on the graph and weed clumps. Nothing was happening for us in the deep water for a couple hours.

So we started to fish our way from 16 feet into 11 feet or less thinking the bass have already started moving shallower for the fall feed...?

Finally as we hit the thicker weed edge and clumps in that 9-11 feet of water I caught my first keeper. I can't remember what I caught it on though? I was fishing a combination of a Lucky Craft Pointer jerkbait, a Stevie Rig (drop shot Case Plastics finesse worm) and a 2K Jigs Dock Monkey most of the day.


First keeper bass of the day is a small largemouth bass that I caught I think on a jerkbait cast though the middle of a weed clump.

We got a few more small bass bites and lost a couple bass working along the same weed row down the lake. Once we got out of that weed row we quit getting bites. We fished around the islands from deep to as shallow as lily pads without getting anymore keeper bites.

We headed to the back of the lake where the pike started biting including biting us right off! Me anyways. I had one on that felt like a big gator but he bit off my black and blue Kustom Kicker Jigs Dock Monkey after a short fight. That was an expensive fish!!! Q$%@#$! oh well.

I tied on a green pumpkin Dock Monkey with a gp Case Plastics Cash Craw trailer and started pitching that.


Derek got the next keeper though and it was a little later when we got to the end of the back bay by the ski run. I think he caught this nice largemouth bass on a Bullet Craw cast around the weed clumps.


I got excited that we might be on to something finally and sure enough a nice bass flat out ate my green pumpkin Dock Monkey!! Nothing showing by the claws of the green pumpkin pepper green flake Cash Craw trailer!!


Here's the bass I caught on the Dock Monkey jig - not huge but a solid, respectable largemouth bass for inland lake fishing. I know I was happy to catch it!

Thought we were on to something but couldn't get another bite in the area. We finally decided to head out to fish the humps in the middle of the lake.


I was fishing the Stevie Rig with the plain green pumpkin pepper Case Plastics finesse drop shot worm and throwing it out into deeper water off the side of the main hump when this bass thumped it good!!

But again we didn't get on them good - just a bite or two here or there. Finally I asked Derek if we could return to the weed beds we originally caught our first keeper and some small bass off and he agreed we should try that again.


That's were we finished the day out. I got this bass to hit the LC Pointer jerkbait fished hard right out in front of the boat ramp in about 9 feet of water. We caught a few more on the jerkbait (Ghost), Bullet Craw and the Stevie Rig from the various weed clumps before calling it a day.

We didn't light them on fire but it was a fun day nonetheless! White Lake obviously has a lot of 1 1/2 to 2 pounds bass. It also has some bigger bass but we didn't figure out the puzzle to those bass on this day though we heard 2 teams had weighed in over 19 pounds at a recent bass tournament just days before! Guess we'll have to go back and try again!