Fishing Report (May 2008)

5-29-2008:  Have you ever fished a tournament when everything came together?  Tonight my wife Kelly and I fished a three hour NBAA Division 8 tournament on the Benton Harbor stretch of the Joe and it happened to us.  The weather has been a little more stable the last couple days so I figured some big lake smallies would be moving into the river.  Kelly and I targeted likely spots and we just whacked'em.  Within the first hour we had a decent limit in the livewell and we were looking for upgrades.  I wasn't weighing the fish so I didn't have any idea what kind of weight we had.  Kelly caught our only upgrade with an hour to go in the tournament.  She culled out a 3 pound fish with a 4 pounder.  I thought we might have about 16 pounds in the livewells so we decided to get back to the ramp early.  

We waited around for everyone to load their boats and start weighing in.  We wanted to wait until last because we were fooling with a couple friends of mine, Mike and Steve.  We were telling them that we didn't catch many at all....LOL....  Mike and Steve ended up weighing a big sack of smallies that went 15.50 pounds.  But that was only good enough for second because Kelly and I weighed in my biggest tournament limit ever.  It was a staggering 18.70 pounds, anchored by a 5.06 pound smallie.  Kelly and I were both very excited.    

5-25-2008:  John Gipson Jr. and I fished an eight hour BAU tournament on Paw Paw Lake today.  It was a magnificent morning with a slight breeze and cool temperatures.  My plan was to fish for smallies in the morning and concentrate on spawning largeheads once the sun got high in the sky.  Jr and I pulled into my smallie spot at 6:30 am and it was on!  Jr caught the first two smallies right away with his secret jerkbait.  They were both 3 pound toads that jumped and fought like they were 10 pounders.  I followed up shortly after with two of my own that were both 3 pound smallies.  I'm not sure who caught our fifth fish but we had a 14 pound limit of smallies within the first 30 minutes of the tournament. 

We fished around for another hour catching keepers here and there when Jr screamed, "I've got a good one!"  Finally we hooked into a giant smallie.  It was tail walking and pulling drag.  Jr skillfully landed a 4 pound 4 ounce smallie that bumped us up to 16 pounds.

We spent the rest of the day looking for that one fish that would put us over the top.  We fished for a couple huge females but we couldn't get them to bite.  I did manage to get one that weighed 3 pounds 10 ounces to eat a Flick Shake worm.  It took John and I about 30 minutes to catch it though.  The spawning fish were in a weird funk.  We managed to cull our way up to around 17 pounds but we still had a 2 pound 11 ounce smallie that needed to get culled out.  What happened next was divine intervention!

With 15 minutes to go I decided to skip and row of docks that I hadn't caught a fish on in three years.  There was about 10 minutes of fishing time left when I made one of my final skips.  It was a deep dock so it took a while for my bait to get to the bottom.  Once my bait hit the bottom I felt a hard thump and I reared into a big bass.  I yelled to Jr, "This is the one we need!"  After a short hard fight we landed a 4 pound 6 ounce bruit largemouth that put us up to 17 pounds 14 ounces. 

We were excited and put the bass in the livewell.  I went to start the motor and the starter hardly turned.  I looked at my electronics and they were off.  My starting battery was DEAD!  I let my head fall and hit the stearing wheel, and I turned the key one more time.  My motor fired and we were off to the weigh-in.

We waited until everyone had weighed in to bring our bag to the scales.  There was one team from Indiana that had a huge sack of largies that weighed 17.66 pounds.  I thought that we might be in trouble but we weren't.  We ended up getting first place weighing 17.88 pounds and we caught the biggest bass of the tournament.  It weighed 4.5 pounds. 

5-24-2008:  The tournament season has officially started here in Michigan!!!  The first event I chose to fish was put on by the Four Flags Bass Masters and it was on the Benton Harbor stretch of the St. Joe River.  It was an eight hour tournament and the weather was beautiful.  I fished with Mike Rappette and we ended up having an excellent day.  Although I started the morning in rough shape.  I lost the first bass that had bitten then I knocked a three pound smallie off Mike's hook with the net.  I told him the sun was in my eyes.  It was a diastrous start. 

Thank GOD it all turned around.  About one minute after I knocked Mike's bass off with the net he set the hook on another toad.  I didn't miss this one and we were on the board with a 3 pound 8 ounce smallie.  About two minutes later Mike caught another decent smallie.  Shortly after that I caught three nice 3 pound smallies in a row and by 8:30 am we had our limit.  We spent the rest of the day looking for upgrades.  We caught about 25 keepers throughout the day and culled up to about 18 pounds by 1:00 pm.  

Mike and I ended up getting first place with a little less than 18 pounds.  Brian Spear and C.R. Gooding came in second place with 16 and a half pounds.  Herman Berry and Tim Cook were awarded big bass honors with a smallie that weighed just less than 4 pounds.    

5-18-2008:  There was a huge cold front that pushed through last night dropping the water temperature in Paw Paw Lake down to 59 degrees.  The wind was blowing fiercely across Paw Paw Lake as well.  Needless to say the conditions were brutal.  The fish were in a little funk but they were still catchable.  There were bucks on beds and the females were suspending in deeper water.  The key to catching them was down sizing my line and baits.  I used 4 pound Gamma Edge and small craws to get most of my bites.  I only ended up catching 6 bas but they were all above 3 pounds.

5-15-2008:  My old fishing partner Rich Charleston was in Chicago working this week so he decided to drive over and fish the river with me tonight.  It was cold out there, only 48 degrees!!!!  The water temperature also dropped to 58 degrees and the smallies were in a funk.  We didn't find any spawning bass at all.  All of our fish were caught fishing tubes in deep current.  We ended up boating 20 smallies and a couple giant drum.  Our best five weighed a little under 15 pounds. 

5-10-2008:  I fished Paw Paw Lake this morning and I had a goal that I wanted to accomplish.  My goal was to locate where the majority of smallies spawn on Paw Paw.  I did a lot of searching over the years but the smallies always seemed to allude me.  Not anymore!!!!  I found isolated rock piles in 6-8 ft of water that had tons of spawning smallies.  I caught between 15-20 smallies that were all keepers between 3 and 6 pounds.  My best five smallies weighed 5 pounds 5 ounces, 4 pounds 6 ounces, 4 pounds, 4 pounds, and 3 pounds 8 ounces.  21 POUNDS OF PAW PAW LAKE SMALLIES!!!!  And they were the hardest fighting smallies I've even fought.  I caught all of the smallies with a small craw tied on 6 pound Gamma Edge. 

The largies were also spawning everywhere on the lake.  I was only able to catch one giant that weighed 5 pounds 8 ounces.  I caught her with a Flick Shake.  Overall I caught 23 pounds mixed bag of bass. 

5-7-2008:  Paw Paw Lake was the scene of one of the best fishing trips I've experienced in a long time.  I replaced my broken trolling motor with a new Minn Kota Pro 80 and headed to Coloma.  I launched my boat into Paw Paw Lake at 6:00 pm and the water temperature was 59 degrees.  There were males up on beds and huge females staging on structure throughout the channels.  A couple beds did have fish paired up on them.  I chose to fish a Flick Shake for the pre spawners.  The first bass I caught was an absolute toad, loaded with food and eggs.  She fought incredibly hard and jumped three times before I finally landed her.  She weighed a little over 6 pounds.  I couldn't get any other pre spawn fish to bite so I fished for spawners the rest of the evening.  I found 20 beds pretty close together with bass rubbing fins on them.  They were eating everything I threw at them.  I caught two giants back to back, one was 5 pounds 6 ounces and the other was 5 pounds 4 ounces.  They both ate my trusty little jig.  I caught so many big fish off beds it was ridiculous.  My best five bass weighed 25 pounds 12 ounces and it wasn't even a challenge to catch them.  I've never fished spawners that were so easily caught.  Remember to release these fish immediately after you get a good picture of them.  Every fish I caught went right back to it's bed.  :)

 

5-3-2008:  It was a good and bad day on Magician this morning.  The good news was that I was fishing with my dad and the fish were biting.  The bad news was that we had to try and catch the fish in high winds without a trolling motor.  We started fishing jerkbaits at 8:00 am on the windy shoreline.  They were smacking them hard just about jerking the rod out of my hands.  I actually caught two fish on one jerkbait twice in a row!  After the jerkbait bite slowed down we fished Jackel Flick Shake worms in 3-6 ft of water next to weeds.  They were gobbling it up and we were having a blast catching quality keeper bass.  I caught one largemouth that was 4 pounds on the Flick Shake.  

Once the sun was high enough to see into the water we started targeting smallmouth on beds.  The first fish I found was a 2.5 pound male that had a nest next to a log.  I was fishing for it when the cable in my trolling motor snapped.  I was a little TICKED OFF to say the least.  I tried to fix it without success.  We were at the mercy of the wind.  We used a drift sock to slow our drift a little but it was tough.  Luckily we drifted over 20 or so smallmouth beds on the flat.  We repeated the drift a bunch of times picking off a couple smallies each drift.  There were 2.5 pound males paired up with 3-5 pound females on each bed.  It reminded me of Lake St. Clair.  I caught a couple that weighed close to 5 pounds and lost one that was well over 5 pounds.  We ended the day with catching about 20 bass and five that weighed 19 pounds, 3 ounces.

Fishing Report (April 2008)

4-30-2008:  I was on the Joe again this afternoon for four hours of fish catching.  It looks like I'll be fishing the Joe more this year than ever because of the price of gas.  It's the closest body of water to my house.  It started out kind of slow to be honest.  The cold nights pushed the fish that were shallow back to the deeper eddies.  The water temperature was still 58 degrees though.  I fished a couple back water spots to start the day looking for beds.  I found a couple largemouths on beds and they were willing to bite.  One weighed about 3 pounds.  Next, I fished deep current with a tube jig in about 15 ft of water and found the mother load of smallies.  I would catch a 3-4 pound smallie on almost every cast.  They were throwing up shad as I was bringing them in.  I caught 9 fat boys out of the school before they disappeared.  My best 5 from the school weighed 21 pounds. 

4-26-2008:  The catch and immediate release season is officially started.  I chose to fish the Benton Harbor stretch of the St. Joe River this afternoon with my good friend Ron Nelson.  It was chilly and very windy with winds over 20 mph.  The water temperature was 60 degrees on average and most of the fish were in a prespawn stage.  The first spot we fished only produced one bite but it was our biggest smallies of the day.  Ron caught a 4 pound 8 ounce smalljaw on a jig.  It was so windy where we were fishing that I couldn't believe he felt a bite.  We motored out to fish a couple other eddies and ended up running into the mother load of fat lake smallies.  We were catching them on almost every cast.  We were using small jigs to catch most of our bass.  We ended up catching between 20 and 30 smallies between us and our best 5 weighed 18 pounds 3 ounces.

Fishing Report (March 2008)

3-21-2008:  The steelheads are just not cooperating this year at all.  Ron and I fished my favorite little creek for three hours this morning with out catching a single steelhead.  There were a few steelies shooting around my favorite hole but not many at all.  The main run of steelies is a little late this spring.  There were a couple monster walleye in my hole that were willing to eat our egg presentations.   Their not in season right now so they were all immediatly released.  We each caught three eyes while we were fishing for steelhead.  Ron caught a couple 9-10 pound fish along with a giant 12 pound 6 ounce sow.  I caught a 6 pounder, an 8 pounder, and a monstrous EYE.  She weighed.....Well I'll let you guys guess by comparing it to Ron's 12 pound walleye.

3-18-2008:  I went to my secret creek to see if any steelies moved up yet but I didn't see much.  I think they'll start running in the next week or two.  I did see one shooting around in a hole so I made a few casts with a small minnow jig with a pink head.  I had a good hit and I thought I had the steelhead but it ended up being a huge walleye.  The eye' was 32 inches and weighed (11 pounds 6 ounces) *I had a typo.  She was packed full of food and eggs.  It was the widest and fattest walleye I've ever caught!!!  This fish was released after I took a couple pics.

3-9-2008:  There are a few Giant Walleye sneeking around my favorite little creek.  This pig was caught using a black stone fly and it weighed 12 pounds, 15 ounces.  It's important to catch, photo, and release these huge females!!!  Walleye season closes March 15 on this side of the state.

 

3-2-2008:  Here we go again!!!!  March madness is upon us and I'm not talking about basketball.  It was a perfect 46 degrees today with plenty of sunshine.  Ron Nelson and I fished the Joe for steelhead this morning starting out at 8:00 am.  I've always used an egg imitation bait and a fly rod to catch steelhead but Ron showed me a new technique that's a ton of fun and effective.  Using spinning gear and light line we fished current seams with small jigs that had pink heads and a paddle tail.  I was skeptical at first but Ron loaded up on a steelhead right away.  I caught the next one but it was only a tiny 2 pounder.  Ron caught our last steelie that was another 5 pound beauty.  We were simply casting the jig to a current seam and letting the current sweep it across the bottom.  The bait would just stop and it was either a fish or a snag.