LSC 2017 v.6

NumenOn the Water

Date:  October 9, 2017

Body of Water:  LSC

Boat:  Numenon

With:  Alone

Target:  Muskellunge

Time: 7:45 AM - 2:45 PM

Conditions:  Three seasons of weather (Fall, Spring and Summer), but the big factor was torn up weeds on the surface and lots of mud pumping out from Anchor Bay.  Water was about 66 - 68 degrees F and varied from clear green near the South Channel/outer main lake to muddy (south of Metropark) to chalky green (Grass Island.)  Conditions were pretty choppy as the night's rain ended at dawn, but as skies cleared it became unseasonably hot and fairly still by Noon.

I re-purposed some of my dormant salmon-fishing gear and I was able to pull together a nice, serviceable high-quality 6-rod spread incorporating line-counter reels.  This allowed for more precise and repeatable trolling presentations.   I experimented constantly with lead lengths, but these tended to be short as opposed to long, if only because of all the fouling weeds.  My spread basically consisted of three of the following four rods at any given time:

• Perch-colored Shallow Super Shad Raps, 40-80 feet back
• Livingston Bulldozer, 25-100 feet back
• Bucher Deep Depth Raider, 20-100 feet back
• Spanky bucktail off the down rigger, 3 feet down and 10-15 feet back

Trolling speeds varied from about 3 to 4.5 mph, but presentation just didn't seem to matter; I didn't bump a fish all day.  During this time, I visited and tried a bunch of different water:

• Anchor Bay Grass Island and North Channel area (high confidence area, and nice looking water, but lots of weeds and no bites!)
• South of Metropark Beach (way too much weeds and mud!)
• Clinton River Cutoff (still probably too muddy, but marked lots of fish here; mostly casted bucktails and Swedish Pig Shads)
• 400 Club weeds and offshore from there (much better water clarity, but still tough to fish with weeds; casting)
• Mouth of South Channel, to side of shipping channel (clear water, beautiful weeds and worth revisiting for any species, I suspect)
• Estuary from South Channel to almost Strawberry Island (good conditions, just no fish; not as weedy as up in Anchor Bay); and
• Back to my higher confidence areas further up in Anchor Bay.

What do I have to say about this?

It's always disappointing to get skunked, but it is especially so when one has high hopes built on recent success.  I was quite certain that something good was going to happen this day!  I'll claim as "good" a few things that I learned from this trip that should help me out there in the future:

• This is a dynamic system, and one needs to be prepared to adjust to the conditions present.  One can find different conditions (perhaps even more favorable ones) by making a move; one is not chained to a set of conditions.
• It's about a half hour from the dock to Grass Island.
• That deep cabbage bed near the mouth of the South Channel has got to hold fish, and it will be worth revisiting, repeatedly.
• The Pig Shads look and feel good in the water, and it's just fun to use them.
• Don't pound down the lake with six rods rigged with muskie baits!  They will get hopelessly tangled!
• And, finally, there's always next time!  This seems especially true with the muskellunge.