Grand River (Stearns) 06/24/2010

[32eml24]

Fished the Grand near Grand Haven yesterday and it was pretty slow.  A couple nice ones early in the morning from Stearns, and one nice smallie in Pottawattamie Bayou.  Numerous shorts; seems like there are a lot of those here.  I just started fishing it but thought I would post a report.  I don't know if they do weed kills there or not but the key seemed to be finding isolated patches of GREEN weeds.  A lot of the other weeds were brown.  All fish came deep on football head jigs and senkos.  I hate catching them with senkos because that's what everybody and their grandpa uses, but it's what was working.  Is it legal to drop shot there?  The fish I caught were so scattered out and I'm thinking the best way to fish it is just to cover a lot of water in the bayous after a storm like we just had.  The bayous were flowing out into the river so I picked up a few near the bridges also.  I'd like to find a good area on the main river because I would assume that those bayou bass get HAMMERED by every angler out there.  Well there's a report for you guys.  I don't know how many of you fish it and if it was even helpful as I just started fishing there but thought I ought to contribute since I just joined.  Looking forward to gaining some more knowledge here.
Ethan

[djkimmel]

Thanks for signing up and posting a report. Check this post out where I asked a spokesperson for MDNRE Law Division about these types of questions: http://www.greatlakesbass.com/forum/index.php?topic=47.0

The local CO a few years ago felt the bayous could be considered separate, particularly Spring Lake, but I always go with the official word from Lansing when it comes to legal issues.

For tournaments, you could probably get dq'd, but for just fun fishing it would be up to a CO who stopped you. I would imagine if you weren't snapping your rod real hard like snagging, you'd be okay, but of course I have to say I always recommend you follow all laws and regulations to the letter to be safe and enjoy your fishing.