Skunk

Date:  6-20-15

Body of Water: M Lake

Boat:  Numenon

With: A and K (partial)

Target:  Muskies

Time: 5:45 - 11:45 AM

Conditions: Clear and calm; bright; 80 F; water 73 - 75 F and clear

As water temperatures climb, the window on local muskie fishing is closing.  It will re-open in the fall, but opportunities for catching and releasing a healthy muskie locally will soon be dwindling.  I was first on the lake, but soon joined by many of my muskie fans; and I spent a few fruitless hours casting top-waters, cranks, jerks and rubber without even knowingly moving a fish.

When the girls arrived, we elected to troll.  That seemed a good option given my lack of success so far.  Our lures of choice were Bucher Deep Raiders (one long, one short) and a Rapala Super Shad.  These covered about 6 to 13 feet down, and with clear water and consistent marks at about 15 feet, it seemed like these were in the zone.  I kept the boat off the distinct weed lines and usually in 20-30 feet; but made occasional forays as shallow as 15 feet and as deep as the lake gets (70+ feet.)

It pretty much didn't matter; after a couple of more hours of trolling, we still hadn't touched a fish.

I dropped the girls off and returned to a few known big-fish spots to cast Big Rubber.  I still have never caught a fish on these types of lures, but I suspect if one of these local fish makes a mistake, it will be for a Pounder or Medusa.  The fish and I will be equally surprised.

What do I have to say about this?

I expect more from my fishing, but the girls were super happy with the conditions of the day.  So, I can't really expect more than that.  We trolled a  simple three-rod spread, and at speeds of 3.5 to almost 5 mph, we put a lot of lure-miles in without a strike.  Trolling conditions were good, at least, with well-defined weed edges, suspended fish on the sonar, good water clarity and few floating cut weeds.  And I left at the right time; while crowded, the lake was still fishable as I pulled lines at 11:30; but the ramp was a grid-locked zoo of arriving recreational boaters.

Stripah Time

Date:  6-14-15

Body of Water: Casco Bay, Maine

Boat:  None (shore)

With:  Alone

Target: Striped Bass

Time: 7 PM to 9 PM

Conditions:  Last half of the rising tide; water temps of about 61- 62 F

This was a quick, bonus session appended to a whirlwind trip to New England.  The fishing started off slowly, but at about 7:45 PM or so the mackerel showed up, and for a short time there was a decent bite on small Kastmaster spoons.  A couple of the macks were way too big for live baiting, and the rest were marginally too big.  One of these got hit, but was just too much for the bass to actually take.  It sure was nice to know that there were fish around!   As the tide neared its height, action slowed, and I went fishless at prime time.

Date:  6-15-19

Body of Water: Casco Bay, Maine

Boat:  None (shore)

With:  Alone

Target: Striped Bass

Time: 4:15 AM to 8:15 AM and then sporadically throughout the day

Conditions:  Clear at first but developing rain; excellent sunrise; bottom half of the rising tide; water temps of about 59 F

It is possible to start the day at 4 AM and still be late, just like it is possible to need sunglasses at 5 AM.  This morning was my brief intersection with the northward spring striper migration.  I was pleased to be there, if only for a short time.  Once again the mackerel were slow to appear, but when they did, they were the perfect size for live-lining; and the bass that revealed themselves were the perfect size for my tackle.  

A couple of ghost-like stripers briefly showed themselves just after 5 AM, and when I felt a bump on the Kastmaster shortly thereafter without hooking up, I feared that I might have missed my chance.  But I switched out a fresh mackerel chunk with a fresh mackerel head, and soon the Cardiff's clicker registered the take of a fish.  The circle hook found the bass' jaw, and I was reintroduced to the dogged strength and determination of these fish.  Soon enough I scooped up a 25-or-26-inch striper, my first since 2013.  Success; anything else would be a pure bonus.

A slow but steady stream of perfect-sized macks hit the deck, but only one got converted into a bass.  At about 6:30 AM,  a new mackerel swimming under a float quickly reversed direction, and then escaped to the surface.  It took four or five attempts, but eventually a twin striper engulfed it; and Number 2 of 2015 was soon in hand.

I fished for several more hours this day (during the noonish high tide and again at the turn of the low tide later that afternoon), but other than the occasional mackerel, nothing happened.  It was slow enough at dinnertime to make even me realize that cleaning up, packing, and generally preparing for the next day's 1000-mile ride were the wise choices.

4:15 AM

5:00 AM

5:35 AM; the first striper of 2015 hits the dock.

Tackle and bass, perfectly matched.

Released with a flourish.

What do I have to say about this?

Finally, a chance for stripers after 22 months!  A modest, shore-bound chance, but a chance nonetheless.   There obviously weren't too many bass around; I spent a fair amount of time with live macks swimming without attracting a strike.  If they aren't there, you can't catch them.  

This was good old food-chain fishing.  I arrived with no bait; I had to catch it first.  Mackerel weren't present in numbers, but they were around.  About the same can be said for the bass.

The bottom half of the rising tide once again proved to offer the best fishing, especially for bass.

Weeknight Whitefish

Date: 6-9-15

Body of Water: Big Whitefish Lake

Boat:  DC's Lund

With:  DC

Target: LMB

Time:  7 PM - 10 PM

Conditions:  Overcast, muggy; red, dusty skies from Canadian forest fires; mild winds and water temperatures of about 72 F.  Post-spawn.

What a pleasure to join D on a weeknight, especially as I was leaving town the next morning.  I simply grabbed a couple of rigs, a modest assortment of tackle (my organizational system remains intact!) and drove north a bit to his docked boat.  We started fishing without even starting the motor.  We just found the weedline and started fishing.

D scored a nice 16+ incher right away along the weedline on a Senko, but I got off to a slow start.  I wanted to do something different (no Ned Rigs or Senkos for me tonight), and once I started casting a green tube up onto the flat inside the weed edge, I started to score pretty consistently.  I mixed in some crankbaits and an Uncle Buck's Buzzer over the course of the night, but nothing clicked except the tube.  Meanwhile, D scored fewer but bigger bass on Senkos and spinnerbaits.

We probably got 15 or more bass (and a few more dinks) over the course of three hours.  D got at least  3 over 16 inches and I got one, so our virtual limit would have been at least between 11 and 12 pounds.  We each lost culling fish that would have helped, but all in all it was a pretty relaxing evening of simple bass fishing.  

What do I have to say about this?

Probably the most interesting aspect of the evening for me was the development of a new technique.   I've long used tubes as finesse and precision baits, especially along weed edges and by docks, but this evening I used them as a power tool.  I employed a heavier than usual head, and once the tube found bottom, I aggressively snap-jigged it back to the boat.  I covered a lot of ground and found many more biters for most of the evening than with other techniques.  I missed a few, and lost the biggest of the night, but I still caught enough to convince me to incorporate this technique into future efforts.

TC Scouting

NumenOn the Water

Date:  6-6-15

Body of Water:  North Lake Leelanau

Boat:  Numenon

With: Brad L.

Target:  Smallmouth Bass

Time:  Noon to 6 PM

Conditions:  Clear and bright; post-front; about 65 F; brisk N winds increasing to 20 mph or so.  Crystal clear water at 61 to 64 F.  Pre-spawn!

Last year I had taken two spring trips to the Traverse City area for work and family, but each was without the boat.  There just wasn't the time to fit in a fishing effort.  When the opportunity to accommodate a weekend trip for M recently arose with a chance to fish Up North for a day,  I knew I had to give it a shot.

With the boat loaded with smallmouth gear, I arrived in Leland with the kids a little before Noon, and I quickly convinced M's weekend host (Brad) to join me for a quick fish on North Lake Leelanau.  I'd never fished this lake before,  but it 's cold, deep and clear, and I was hoping to find some pre-spawn smallies.  My research had exposed a pretty good reputation for smallmouth from this lake, and I'd identified a few prominent flats and supposed areas of gravel with which to start; the lake offered more than I could challenge in a single afternoon.  And, since Brad was on a schedule, I knew this would be a quick and easy fish; if it didn't work out or was not otherwise to my liking, I could choose to relocate to one of many other area smallmouth lakes.  East Traverse Bay and Crystal Lake were on the top of my list, but there are probably dozens of other options in the area.

Water temperatures at the ramp were about 61 F; good evidence for my pre-spawn expectations.  As we idled out from the ramp* on the lake's quiet northeast corner, it was all too easy to find lots of attractive edges and flats to fish.  We commenced within a couple of hundred yards of the ramp.

I started with a jerkbait and provided Brad with a Kalin's grub.  (I'll always choose power over finesse in unknown water; at least until I start getting some feedback.)  We were working a color break in about 8 feet of water.  Within a few minutes Brad hooked up on a small keeper bass, and a few more minutes later I switched from actively searching with the jerkbait to pitching to spots and scratching bottom with a Ned Rig.  Pretty quickly a pretty yellow bass of about 3 pounds came aboard, and our day was already pretty much complete;  Brad was happy simply to be out and to have caught a fish; and I was pleased to have caught such a fine bass in a new lake.

Brad's first trip on Numenon was a fun success.

The first of many nice smallies caught this day; but this might be the prettiest.  Virtually all were caught on a PB&J Ned Rig.

But we were just beginning, and we continued to refine our searches and strategies.  When it became obvious that Ned was out-fishing everything else,  I gave it up to Brad.  I scouted with other baits while Brad fished with Ned.  We relocated to the flat adjacent to a creek at the lake's north end, and Brad soon hooked his Bass of the Day in slightly deeper water.  Unfortunately, it got off, but it did show that there were some quality bass in less obvious spots.

Our next and final stop together was a large flat near the lake's outlet on the west side.  My trusty 1951-vintage MDNR survey map had indicated some gravel here, and this area was on my radar before I'd arrived at the lake.  Brad endorsed it as a known spot, and as we pulled up, a nearby bass-boater landed an obviously nice bass.  This flat was much more immense, and the fish holding areas were more subtle, so we again deployed the one-two punch combination of jerkbait and Ned.  Soon Brad was connected to his best landed fish of the day.  When his time was almost up and he'd had his fill, he gave Ned back to me; and I didn't catch much of anything on anything  else for the rest of the day.  I ended my time with Brad on back-to-back beauties, one of which I lost.  By this time we'd caught about a dozen bass up to 2.8 or 3 lbs  or so as well as a couple of big rock bass and a fat perch.  I returned Brad to shore and then went straight back to this same spawning flat.

Fish here were spread out in about 6 feet of water, and a cast to any visible spot with a difference (dark, shiny, log, whatever) could get eaten.  The fish here were generally better quality than those we'd generally encountered at the north end of the lake, and while the bite was perhaps a little slower, I was slowly upgrading my virtual bag for the day.

The north wind was really cranking now, the sun was lower, and those visible features were more difficult to focus on; it was time to re-locate.  "Cemetery Point" on the lake's western side is pretty prominent, and the waves were pounding the point's sand-bar extension from the north.  The point droops quickly into deep water on all sides, but there was an obvious dark trench in the bar on the point's southern (downwind) side.  Boat control was difficult, and a first pass through with a chartreuse spinnerbait produced nothing; but the next drift yielded nice twins on Ned, as did several subsequent drifts.  This was probably the quickest action of the day, but when it petered out, I was pleased to get out of the wind.  I returned to the north end to finish the day.  A couple of smaller fish were taken, but nothing to substantially change the day.

We approached a couple of dozen legal bass between us; my virtual limit would have been a conservative 14 pounds or so.  All but a couple were caught on the Ned Rig in PB&J.  The remainder were caught on slow, scratching Kalin grubs.  All were caught in less than 10 feet of water, and 6 to 8 feet was probably best.  Aggressive, horizontal approaches just did not work.  The fishing was very visible, but I really didn't see bass on beds; they were still searching each other out.  Most of the bass were also very pale; they might have just started coming out of the depths.

I hope to have Brad aboard again, soon.

Quick Action captured by GoPro.  Boat control on this exposed point was not fun, but the smallies were packed into a little, visible trough.  The effort was worthwhile.

What do I have to say about this?

Over the course of the day, Brad and I talked a bit about my experience at C's.  A day like this illustrates both why it was worthwhile, but also why it was time for me to move on.  I've now got more expertise, confidence and gear; but I also now have the time to take on a bonus/spontaneous day-trip like this.  Let's face it, for the last couple of years and with no specific work or family obligations on the schedule; I'd have had to work this weekend.  Had I gone fishing, it would have been local, short, and sweet.  It wouldn't have involved big numbers of sizable brown bass or such beautiful settings, either.

Between LSC and now Lake Leelanau, what a week (or so) of smallmouth fishing!  Again, no giants were landed, but these have been so-much-better-than-average trips.  I'll fish for 3-pounders all day long, any time.

* Numenon was perhaps the first boat of the year to properly use this ramp.  When we arrived, there was no dock; but as we launched, the County's contractor arrived with new dock sections.  Everything was in place and worked perfectly when I pulled her at 6 PM or so.