Club News

Well we have a break until the next club event which will be held July 18th on St. Clair so hopefully most club members will be spending their free time with families and enjoying the holiday. I will but you can bet I'll be on St. Clair a few times between now and then. As for the club, there are a few things I'd like to touch on but first a few items to wrap up the Cadillac tourney.

There were only 11 entries into the day one tournament with four limits coming to the scales. Day two had 15 participants with six limits being weighed in which is odd because of the increased pressure from our club and one other club. The 11 person showing was the lowest turnout I can remember in a long time for a club event and hope we can get those entries back up to where they should be.

The club was last in Cadillac two years ago and Scott Rice won day one up there as well weighing in 13.6 pounds and finished third on day two. It took 13+ pounds to win both days in 2008 and most of those winning fish came from Lake Mitchell much like in 2010. I can remember going up to Cadillac to fish club events on and off as long as I have been a club member (10 years) and I think it has been late June every time. Seems like they bite decent then because 12 limits were weighed in over the two days in 08'.

As far as the standing go, Matt Morgan relinquished his AOY lead but still remains in striking distance behind the Rice brothers, Bill Maurer and Randy Peck. Just as exciting to me though is some new faces showing up in the top ten. Leo Knox and Scott Hartman are both club rookies and are 9th and 10th respectively. This marks the half way mark for the year and St. Clair is coming up so the leaderboard will definitely shuffle.

As far as rumors go I want to address one I heard this weekend. The Muskegon Lake tournament had a few issues come up but I talked to Kathy Maurer Monday and everything is back on track. Seems the park hosting the event wanted to adjust our start time to accommodate another event but Kathy played hardball and our tourney will still run from 7-3pm, nice work.

I will be on Lake St. Clair this coming weekend and will start to post fishing reports as they become available. The bite is a little slow right now probably due to the mayflies, the post-spawn and all the fronts that have come through lately. Things should start settling down and I expect a shoot-out as usual. I have also heard we may have a guest speaker at the next meeting who is an expert at LSC. I have not confirmed this but hope to soon. The meeting is scheduled for next Thursday, July 8th so hope everyone can make it out.

Scott Rice Dominates

After the Michigan Center tournament, Scott Rice only weighed in one fish and was way down in the AOY standings and commented to me how he was struggling to figure anything out this season. I hope he stopped his complaining because he was dominant at the two Cadillac events, winning both and propelling himself into the lead for the Angler of the Year. I was not present at either tourney but talked to Scott and got a little insight into what went down up north.

The club has been going to Cadillac off and on for years and a lot of anglers had their go to spots. Scott had done quite well here two years ago but for some reason could not re-connect with those fish. He arrived Wednesday and after a few days figured it was time to try and find something else. What he found ended up surrendering back to back 14+ pound limits and by the end of the tournament he had his pattern and spot so dialed in that he was almost calling his shots.

"Jim and I talked and we concluded that the fish were post-spawn and were right on the inside edges of the breaks" commented Scott referring to his brother Jim Rice. Scott found the fish would briefly roam away from the weeds early and they were pretty catchable but would get back into the vegetation, just sticking their noses out looking for easy meals. "You would have to get the bait right at the base of the weeds and if you weren't pulling your lure off the weeds to the edge then you wouldn't get bit".

The bait Scott used was his customary soft stickbait rigged wacky style in the 5 1/2" version. The color is unknown but I guess it was his usual cinnamon/purple flake edition. The twist was that he used a weighted hook and then customized it by shaving some of the weight off to give a slightly slower fall and making the bait not bury in the weeds so much. He would then pull that bait off the top of the stalks and let it set at the base of the weeds. He was fishing a small point but the way the weeds were was the key more so than the structure.

By Sunday Scott had this pattern dialed in and would catch a limit early while the fish were out cruising. But as the sun got higher, the fish buried farther into the weeds and that's when he went to work. He noticed a small section of his weed edge that was a little sparser than the rest and only stretched out for a few feet before it became heavy again. Rice figured the fish were using this small break in the weeds as the "path" to move from shallow to deep water and started to focus on this section.

Scott wanted to prove his "path" theory to his partner Randy Peck (who also weighed in 13 pounds) and predicted he would catch a fish on the outside of the weed break. He then proceeded to cast his senko into the area which lay in about 12 feet of water and just let it set for close to two minutes. Finally his line moved off and Rice set the hook on a 3+ pound fish, proving his theory and setting off an assault on the Lake Mitchell fish which resulted in several fish over 3 pounds and a first and second place finish for the two.

A lot of anglers reported catching fish early and then struggling to get bites later in the day which makes Scotts efforts that much more impressive. There was another tournament also using Cadillac and Mitchell lakes which made the post-spawn fish even finickier but as usual, someone always figures them out. Mark Dereadt also bumped up his yearly totals with two strong top 5 finishes and big fish for the tournament went to Scott Hartman at 3.7 pounds.

Cadillac Day #2

1 Scott Rice 14.08

2 Randy Peck 13.56

3 Mark Dereadt 12.95

4 Terry Johnson 11.90

5 Jim Rice 11.39

6 Leo Knox 9.12

7 Bill Maurer 6.41

8 Wendy Johnson 6.17

9 Kathy Maurer 5.82

10 Patricia Rice 5.37

11 Roy Albert 3.76

12 Scott Hartman 3.70

13 Tom Curry 2.93

14 Matt Morgan 1.97

15 Matt Zielenka 1.64

Big Bass: #1) Scott Hartman 3.7

#2) Randy Peck 3.37

Cadillac Results

Sorry I didn't get this information out sooner but I was out of town and had car problems and computer issues but I'm back now. Thanks to Kathy Maurer for getting all the numbers to me as quickly as she does. She is a great asset to the club and I want point that out to everyone as much as possible. I'll have more info on the Cadillac winning patterns as I obtain it but it may take a few days.

Cadillac Day 1

1 Scott Rice 14.92

2 Bill Maurer 10.78

3 Mark Dereadt 10.60

4 Scott Hartman 8.93

5 Art Honsinger 7.57

6 Connie Honsinger 5.41

7 Tom Curry 5.02

8 Kathy Maurer 4.94

9 Randy Peck 3.82

10 Leo Knox 3.10

11 Matt Morgan 1.73

Big Bass: #1 Scott Rice 3.51

#2 Tom Curry 3.26

Cadillac Info

I am heading out of town Thursday morning, not to Cadillac unfortunately. But I have some info concerning the club tournaments I'd like to pass along. We will be launching from the city launch which is located on the northwest corner of Lake Cadillac. After crossing between the lakes on M-115 take a right just past Pilgrim Village and head north along the west shore of Lake Cadillac. The city launch will appear on the right and there is parking for vehicles across the street from the launch which is part of the city park I believe.

The weather is kind of cool right now with lows in the 40's tonight. But it will warm into the 80's for the weekend and partly sunny. A chance of showers is possible for Saturday but isn't there always a possibility? It should be good fishing weather and I will post results as soon as they become available to me. Good luck to everyone.

Morgan goes back to back

As a club rookie last season, Matt Morgan had a pretty decent showing with several top 5's and a classic berth. But he was not able to seal the deal on a few tournaments and still had not won an event heading into 2010. That all changed at Hardy Dam and after he dropped 13.37 pounds on the scales this past Sunday at Michigan Center, Morgan had won his second SCMBC event in a row and now sits atop the AOY race by nearly 3 pounds. Here's how he did it.

Matt has lots of experience in tournaments but most were on big waters, St. Clair and Erie so joining the club last year was a learning experience. Learning to fish smaller inland lakes for largemouth was not new to him but something he didn't do to much. Matt commented to me that prior to Michigan Center that he never thought he'd have senkos and flukes littering the front deck of his boat. But that's exactly what he had tied on after doing his research.

Morgan learned that several events on Center this year had been won fishing soft stickbaits in the pads and slop in the stump fields on the south end of the lake. He also knew the water was high and when those conditions are present, the fish are usually always shallow. Matt and I fished Center on opening day and although we only caught a small limit, the groundwork was laid and we learned quite a lot.

Armed with a heavy 7'0" flipping stick, 50 pound braid and senkos, Morgan and his partner Craig Deck headed into the heaviest slop Center had to offer and they found that dragging the soft plastics into holes in the weeds and letting them soak for a few seconds was the key. Once the fish bit the heavy gear was then necessary to winch the fish out of the cover. Green pumpkin and brown were the colors used to fool the bass and Matt alternated between the two and only used the larger 6 inch worms. There is a lot of "junk" to fish at Michigan Center but Morgan had a few key areas that had isolated pads and holes within the weeds to present the baits.

Other than the heavy tackle Matt said there was one other key to his success. "My GPS route plotter showed me where I had been so although we stayed in a small area, we never went over the same route and were always fishing new water." Morgan culled about five times and caught two fish over 3 1/2 pounds while his partner caught four legals.

Jim Rice had his usual strong finish weighing in 11.46 pounds to finish second including big bass that went 4.38 pounds. Mike Maske also had a strong finish coming in third and could have challenged Morgan for the win if for not losing a 3+ pounder at the boat late in the day. The part time Center Lake guide Jim VanAken took fourth while club rookie Leo Knox notched his first top five appearance as well as capturing second big bass. There were 25 entries into this event and nine limits came to the scales. The club will now travel to Cadillac / Mitchell where they will fish two one day tournaments. More info on that event to follow soon.

Michigan Center Results

1. Matt Morgan 13.37

2. Jim Rice 11.85

3. Mike Maske 11.46

4. Jim VanAken 10.5

5. Leo Knox 10.11

6. Roy Albert 9.50

7. Jerry Smith 9.41

8. Tom Curry 9.36

9. Bill Maurer 7.32

10. Craig Deck 7.21

11. Rob Schlosser 6.43

12. Joe Pritchard 6.05

13. Mike Pritchard 5.85

14. Brian Masters 5.77

15. Scott Hartman 4.48

16. Mike Mullaly 3.54

17. Art Honsinger 4.18

18. Randy Peck 3.79

19. Tim Chapman 3.32

20. Mark Dereadt 2.85

21. Patricia Rice 2.19

22. Connie Honsinger 1.68

23. Scott Rice 1.24

24. Matt Zielenka 0

25. Kathy Maurer 0

Big Bass: Jim Rice (4.38)

Big Bass #2: Leo Knox (4.09)

MC updates

With most of the pre-fishing completed I have a few more tidbits to pass along concerning the club event on Michigan Center this weekend. The water temps have cooled from near 80 to the low 70's I'm guessing due to last weekends rains. The water is still quite high but I have been tracking it and it is 2-3 inches lower this morning than on Wednesday. I still don't think I can access other lakes beyond the Moon Lake Rd bridge though so that may throw a wrench into a few game plans.

There were two more tournaments on Center Wednesday night, a 12 boat event out of 5th street and a smaller one out of the DNR launch. I'm not sure about the official results but I heard that it only took 6 pounds to win the bigger tourney. I don't know if all the tournament pressure will affect the fishing or not because this is how Center is but it's hard to believe that it won't.

The weather man as of Friday night has taken rain out of the forecast for Sunday except for a few showers very early. Highs will approach the low 80's but I expect the humidity to be quite high. It calls for partly sunny skies but who knows if that means mainly sunny or overcast?

As for the fishing, I expect it to be very good especially if the weather is overcast and the Saturday rains keep weekend anglers off the water. I heard from one contact that they threw topwaters most of the day last weekend and caught nearly 50 fish during their tournament. This is the time of year when fish are recuperating from the spawn and start putting the feed bags on so the bite should be fairly good. I expect double digit anglers to bring limits to the scales and 13+ pounds needed to win. If the conditions change and the weather and fishing pressure change then it may only take 10 pounds or so to win but I expect it to be a slugfest. Hope to see a good turnout and maybe the weatherman will be right for a change.

Michigan Center Report

I personally have not been on Center Lake, site of this weeks club tournament since Memorial Day but I have been keeping up with the latest info. There have been several local events held on the lake and some good limits have been coming to the scales.

The opening day tournament I was a part 0f took 14 pounds to win and close to 11 lbs for a check. Two more tourneys went out last Tuesday and Wednesday and it took close to that to claim first place. The lake seems to be fishing really good currently and I'm not aware of any tourneys going out this week so hopefully the bite stays consistent.

I was at the lake today to just look around and the water is very high, more so than in recent memory according to O'briens bait store. All three gates at the dam were open this afternoon and the current was ripping pretty good. The weeds are also about 75% of where they'll be at mid-summer so conditions will play a major part this weekend. Water temps are well into the high 70's and the fish should be in a heavy post-spawn pattern.

I assume topwaters, sinkworms and finesse plastics will all play a part in the outcome Sunday and hopefully the fish and the weather cooperate. The forecast calls for Temps in the high 70's with rains forecasted for the whole weekend. I've heard the topwater bite is starting to heat up and with overcast conditions, we could be throwing them all day. Hope to have a good turnout again and we will be launching at the 5th street launch in downtown Michigan Center.

Burt Lake Trip

A few of my "boys" hanging out at the Burt Lake Cabin

Just got Back from my annual Burt Lake trip with my buddies and thought I'd share a little info on the fishing. I've been going here for about six years and usually eight of us head up the weekend following Memorial Day and spend a few days fishing and drinking cold beers. One of my buddies has a family cabin across the street from the lake so it works out perfectly. We usually have a small four boat tournament and it takes anywhere from 18-22 pounds to win. This year was no different, it took about 21 lbs to take home the trophy but the fishing was not the same as in years past.

Typically this is a bed fishing bonanza and you can go ripping down the bank throwing jerkbaits and spinnerbaits and catch lots of fish. Beds are usually plentiful in 4-8 foot of water and lots of threes and fours are bedding. There are a good number of deep bedders too but with the fishing so good shallow, who needs to do that? Well the last few years that has not been the case. My team personally only weighed in three fish for out tourney as did one other team. I know the winners did catch 21 pounds but the overall fishing for this time of year was disappointingly bad. Many club members remember a few years back when we fished a SCMBC event there and many big limits came in. Well I am hear to tell you that this lake has fished very differently since that tournament four years ago.

The friend that caught 21 pounds and many of the top finishers in the BFL event held on Burt Saturday ( the winner had 27 pounds) all caught their fish on very deep beds. Some reported catching fish as deep as 15 feet. I know smallies will bed this deep at times but I got to thinking about this and wondered if the fishing pressure the past few years has made more of the fish spawn deeper? There were some beds shallow but most were empty and in past years these same shallows contained two to three times the beds. Maybe most fish have spawned already but wouldn't I have seen more empty beds?

Bass adapt to their surroundings and just like getting conditioned to not bite a certain hot lure, wouldn't the increased pressure do the same thing to the spawning habits? Maybe I'm reading too much into this trip and we were just a little late and next year there will be shallow beds everywhere but I am a little concerned. I can go out and catch those deep fish but I want to catch lots of big fish throwing topwaters and flukes and fishing for deep bedders seems like a lot of work. We did catch our share of fish eventually over the weekend and had a great time as always but I'll be interested how the fishing shakes down next year.

Speaking of the BFL event, these guys had no trouble and it took 19 lbs to get a check but I know most were out deep because I saw them practicing on Friday. I did notice that several guys were using underwater viewing devices to help locate the deep beds. This device basically emulates someone looking into the water with a scuba mask on only it is three feet long and you don't have to get your face wet. It is called a "flogger" and has become very popular for bed fishing. Basically it eliminates all the surface glare and ripples and you can tell if that dark spot is a log or rock and if there is a bed present next to it.

One thing I learned this year for sure is that I will learn to look for deeper beds next time and I will own a "flogger" even if it is only to win a four boat tournament. Either that or I'll have a mask on and my partner will be holding me by my ankles. I think I'll probably spend the money.

Spring Open Results

Here is the top 5 from Saturdays Spring Open held on Wamplers Lake

1. Jim Rice / Mike Pritchard 15.36

2. Mark Dereadt / Jay Dereadt 13.07

3. Walt Keyes / Walt Keyes Jr. 12.66

4. John Bittinger / Bob Rumsey 11.54

5. Bill Maurer / Roy Albert 10.92

There were 16 teams involved and 12 of those brought limits to the scales. Jim Rice and Mike Pritchard also weighed in the big bass of the tournament and took home a total of $650 for their efforts. Thanks to all who participated and who helped make it a successful fundraiser for the club.

Burt Lake

I'm heading up north this weekend for the first big fishing extravaganza of the fishing. Burt Lake is the destination and it marks the 6th year in a row for this great trip. My buddy owns a cabin just two doors down from the Burt Lake State Park so it's real convenient and makes for an awesome home base.

We usually have a small tournament on Saturday, four boats with eight fishermen and as you can imagine some of the weights are pretty high this time of year. I think two years ago was the worst fishing we've had and it still took 17+ pounds to win. Usually it takes 20+ to beat everyone and I think the best weight I can remember was close to 25 lbs.

The BFL has it's annual Burt Lake event this Saturday so we may need to find a new venue for our event but that's OK with me, I like fishing new water. Hopefully the smallies will still be on beds which should be the case so I'll have some good pics to post when I get back.

The club will visit Michigan Center the following weekend so I'll start posting pre-fishing results as soon as they become available to me early next week. Hope everyone plans on fishing the SCMBC Open this weekend and I'll post the results of that as well next week.

Spring Open

Just a reminder to everyone that the spring open will be held this coming weekend down at Wamplers Lake so if you havn't made plans to fish then do so soon. I believe the event will start around nine since the park does not officially open the gates until 8am but contact Mark Dereadt or Bill/Kathy Maurer for more info.

I will be up north and cannot be in attendance but the tournament is a good fund raiser for the club and always a lot of fun. A few years back it was held in Coldwater but has since been moved a few times to Wamplers and Michigan Center in order to get the participation level back up to where it was once was. Hopefully this year will see a good turnout and as always there will be a lot of good people involved. It is a team tournament which is always fun so get on the phone and sign up if you have not done so already.