Favorite Lakes

With open water upon us I have begun making my fishing plans for the upcoming season. I fish probably 20 different lakes during the course of the season but I have several favorites and times of the year when I like to visit my honey holes. Here's a list of a few:

April

With good weather this can be an awesome month to fish although the bass season does not technically open until the last Saturday of the month. I use small lures and claim to be panfishing but catch lots of bass. Clarks lake is really good early season and with a warm spring I can catch big bedding smallmouth towards the end of the month. This lake has big flats and both largemouth and smallies can be caught throwing a jerkbait up on the structures. I also like Michigan Center in early April because the channels warm up very early and can be 15 degrees warmer than the main lake. And Center is great for crappies in these areas if the bass aren't biting. I also like Lime and Farwell lakes early on because I can catch lots of numbers, my personal best being 75 largemouth on Lime Lake one warm April day a few years back.

May

This is probably the best month to target bass in Michigan and any lake is pretty good if the weather is nice. My personal favorite is Lake St. Clair because you can catch size and numbers. Just drag a tube or throw a rattletrap or jerkbait on the Mile Roads area and 50-100 fish days are possible. Locally I like to fish Portage because of it's mixed bag of largemouth and smallmoth and it isn't too busy yet even though a state park is on the lake. Spinnerbaits and topwaters rule here and both species will be on beds at some point during the month. And don't forget about Hardy Dam during May. Luckily the club will visit Hardy this May and lots of smallies on beds should be present. This is also one of the coolest looking lakes we fish with the high forested banks and lack of houses.

June

Out of towners will love Burt and Mullett early this month because smallmouth are still bedding and they're legal to catch and keep. Most tournaments require at least 20 pound limits to win on these lakes and fish will spawn into the end of the month. I love St. Clair this time of year also but the topwater bite gets going locally usually sometime this month and I like to target Vinyard, Clarks, Center and Wamplers Lake. After June these lakes get pretty beat up so now is the time to hit them. Most will be in a post-spawn mode but I love to throw a popping style bait, especially on Vinyard because it doesn't get fished hard and big smallmouth are present. The senko bite gets going pretty good on Center as well for those that like a more laid back style of fishing.

July

I never do really well here but I have to say that Wixom is a great place to go in July. Most of the local lakes are getting pretty beat up this time of year but you can always catch a good double digit limit on this fishery. Wixom is a river system and current is usually present during the week and fishing can be outright awesome. Unfortunately the dams close most weekends and fishing gets tougher for tournaments, especially on Sundays. But if you have some time off to fish during the week than this should be a consideration. I've heard of legendary catches the week leading up to tournaments and I caught my personal best largemouth limit on Tuesday morning a few years back that went about 18 pounds. Most points and current breaks down by the dam are good places to look and fish slam topwaters and spinnerbaits when the water is flowing.

August

I can't say I like much about fishing this month but when I do, it's usually throwing frogs and Michigan Center has all the ingredients. Lots of pads and tons of vegetation is what Center is known for and you can throw the floating baits for days and never fish the same area. I caught my biggest fish of the year in 2009 one August day throwing a frog here and not a lot of guys like to get into the really thick stuff to do it right. You'll be suprised how bites you can get in the slop when the toad bite gets going here.

September

This is a tough transition period for me, some days can be pretty good but after the first good cold front of the year the bite can get tough. I usually try and stay local this time of year and I like Clark Lake and I can usually still get them to bite topwaters. Towards the end of the month I've heard Hardy Dam gets real good and Burt Lake is awesome if the water gets cold enough. Usually water temps in the high 50's seems to be best but for some reason I've had a tough time fishing in September so I try and conserve gas and fish the local lakes.

October

Lately I've done better in October than September and Columbia is my favorite this time of year. I know it's a private lake but I have a connection and this lake fishes like a reservoir (probably because it is) so the late season crankbait bite is real good. Fish move into the pockets and canals here and big fish follow the bait into these backwater areas. I've also had great success on Lake St. Clair this month if the water is clear but that is usually a problem. The best part of the lake in fall is the south shore but north winds muddy up that section a lot of the time. If you time it up right you can catch fish on spinnerbaits and tubes from the mouth of the Detroit River up to the mile roads but you never know what the water looks like until you get there.

I usually fish into November and Columbia served up crankbait fish until the second week last year but it got tough after Veterans Day. I never got up to LSC due to muddy water but I fished until Nov 11th which was a record for me. But just like every month, it all depends on the weather and hopefully this year will be a little better than last.

First fish of the Year

Man it's been a long time (four months to be exact) but I finally was able to find some open water and set the hook on my first bass of the season. After losing a few on a spinnerbait I was able to connect with a small crankbait and it felt awesome. My partner and I ended up catching roughly 30 fish and most were keeper size. We were on a river near Monroe that feeds into Lake Erie but were "technically" targeting walleye.

All of my fish were caught on a 3/8 oz white and chartreuse spinnerbait and a shallow diving strike king series 3 crankbait that was also chartreuse with a blue back. My biggest fish was just over three pounds but the highlight of my day was catching two 3 pounders on back to back casts. My partner Nick Neves was medallist with a fish that was pushing four pounds. All fish were largemouth with a few gar pike mixed in for good measure.

I'm not sure if I'll get out any time soon with colder weather moving in but hopefully by next weekend. Just about all of the ice is gone as of Friday morning on most Jackson lakes and a warming trend is in the forecast for later next week. Fishing season has arrived.

Meeting Review

Last weeks monthly club meeting was one of the best "regular" meetings I have been to in some time. We had an extremely good turnout, possibly due to the great weather and partly due to the fact open water season is upon us. Several things were discussed including an upcoming yard sale fundraiser, the Junior Club schedule (which I will post afterward) and the catch and release tournaments. Jim Rice also served as our guest speaker and he detailed Baw Beese which will be the site of the first tournament and gave us some insight as to how he will fish it.

As far as the pre-season tourneys go, Bill Maurer set the deadline for entry forms on April 15th for Baw Beese and May 1st for Hardy Dam. This will give us at least two weeks prior to each event but keep in mind that we will only have one meeting prior to May 1st so bring both to the April meeting or remember to mail the Hardy Dam info in before the deadline. Most of the folks at the meeting seemed to already be partnering up for the events so I think the turnouts will be significant. Last year we had 20 entries for Michigan Center and 22 for Hardy so we should surpass that.

As for the "guest speaker", Jim Jr. gave a little insight into Baw Beese and he believes it will be a pre-spawn event. "Most of the fish will be relating to the spawning areas and I will target these with spinnerbaits, rattle traps and possibly topwaters" declared Rice. He also said he would target any wind protected bays and said there are decent possibilities in the other lakes on the chain as well. As the event draws nearer I will give on the water reports as they come in. I expect there to be open water as early as this weekend but personally won't start practicing for Baw Beese until mid- April.

Here is the Junior Club schedule:

June 10 Michigan Center

June 22 Clark Lake

July 8 Little Wolf

July 22 Grass Lake

August 3 Wamplers

Classic to be held Saturday, August 21 at Devils Lake

Anyone interested in fishing with the kids please contact Scott Rice prior to event

March Meeting

Just a reminder to everyone that the clubs March meeting will be held this week,Thursday March 11th at Art Moehn Chevy at 7pm. With the weather starting to break everyone should be starting to get excited about the coming season and we hope to have a good turnout.

One thing that will probably be discussed is the first tournament of the season on Baw Beese down in Hillsdale. This will be a catch and release event so each boat will have two anglers for verification purposes. The club will again let us pair ourselves up so everyone should start thinking about who's riding with who. If there are fishermen who are unable to hook up with a partner, I believe the tournament director Bill Maurer will match everyone up. I think last year Tom Curry and I were the only two not paired up so it was an easy match but hopefully we'll have a bigger turnout this year. I believe the newer members are not boat owners so we'll need to get everyone a ride lined up before hand.

Thinking back to last year, I believe entry fees and registration forms were due in one week prior to the pre-season events but have not heard whether this will be the format or not. I guess we can discuss that this week.

I for one am almost ready, the reels have all been cleaned and the tackle bins are starting to look full. A few more visits to my favorite on-line sites and I will be good to go. One site I have been using is landbigfish.com, it has a great selection of name brand stuff and any order over $50 has free shipping. I usually make a few small orders in the spring to eliminate having to fork over hundreds of dollars at once, it makes it seem cheaper that way. Only 7 1/2 weeks until the first tourney, it will be here before we know it.