Escanaba Family Trip

Just got back from a "family" vacation to the Upper Peninsula yesterday but I was able to mix in a little fishing as well. Escanaba is about 140 miles west of the bridge but it's good sized with plenty of resorts, cabins and even a Wal-Mart. But best of all it is located on Little Bay DeNoc and is loaded with smallmouth.

Having never been on this body of water it took me a few days to find fish and on the final minutes of my outing on day two, I was able to locate some cleaner water that had a lot of good looking rock. I returned early on day three and my hunches were right as my brother and I caught around 25 fish with a 4.4 pounder (shown above) being the medalist for the trip.

Little Bay DeNoc is actually part of Green Bay as is Big Bay but I consider it all Lake Michigan. I had expected to be fishing 10-20 foot and drop-shotting offshore reefs but most of our fish came in less than eight foot of water on tubes. I even caught a few on topwaters, awesome fishing for mid-August.

As luck would have it, the BASS Federation Nation Northern Divisional was being held on little bay the same week and I was able to attend a few of the weigh-ins. I have never been to a BASS event and it was cool to see it in person. I also found out an old college football teammate of mine was fishing for the Michigan team and we were able to catch up a little as well as talk fishing.

It was also cool to go out on Wednesday morning to some of my newly found spots and find a few Federation guys fishing them. I kept my distance so not to interrupt the event but also followed a few guys later in the day and did a little spot stealing. I didn't fish any "stolen" spots but did include them on my GPS for future family trips.

Escanaba is definitely going to be a staple for the Smith family in the upcoming years after what I saw. It's a great town with plenty of sandy beaches, restaurants and of course big smallies. It is known for it's perch and walleye fishing and we hardly targeted them at all so there is plenty to explore next year. If anyone is looking for a long getaway destination with good fishing than I would definitely recommend this area. I may even part with a few of my newfound coordinates.