Smallie fishing is hot!!

[Waterfoul]

Just spent 3 1/2 days fishing northern lakeshore area lakes with my good friend Ed Dyer.  To say we caught a few fish would be a gross understatement.  The one exception would be Lower Herring Lake where the bass fishing was going very slowly until we happened into the outlet creek that flows into Lake Michigan.  There we found these strange looking fish that seemed inclined to hit a crank bait.  Wierdest looking bass I've ever seen.

We did very well on Pere Marquette and Manistee lakes as well.  Ed managed a new personal best 6 lb 4 oz smallmouth bass.  A tick over 21" long with a massive 16" girth.  Now that's a TOAD!!!  My two best fish went 4-06 and 4-12, both from Manistee.  Most of our fish were in the 2-3 lb range with many in the 3-4 lb area as well.  Very few smaller fish. 

[FishermanJohn]

Those are some nice looking smallies!  I dunno about that long silver one, though...    Manistee Lake sure has some big smallies and plenty of structure to find them on.

[thedude]

great fish. now is definitely the time to be out. i've caught my top two MI LM bass (ever) in the last 2 weeks. the 5-10 was probably a 4-8 6 weeks ago!

they got the feed bags on!

[Waterfoul]

Think I might try to get up that way again on Sunday...  need to put a few more fish in the boat this year.

[Mike S.]

Nice fish.  I have been catching them like crazy on Muskegon lately, but none that big.  They are starting to get bigger, though.  I started throwing chunkier baits tonight, and noticed that my fish were better quality.  They were also loving the lipless cranks tonight.

[bigmojet]

Arcadia Lake gave up a 5, 2.5 and a 2 in the last hour and a half of light tonight.

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Nice job Mike and Ed.  Thanks for posting the pictures on FB.  It's a trip I'm sure you'll remember a long time.

    Hey Mike, skip work Monday and Tuesday and we'll go together !!! 

[edyer]

I agree with Mike that the fishing was fantastic. I caught a 4-7 on Pere Marquette, a 4-11 on Arcadia, a 4-7, 5-9, and the 6-4 Mike posted the picture of on Manistee. It's not "Automatic Fishing" by any means. It took us a while on both Arcadia(The Channel bite was non-existent), and Manistee before we found the better schools of fish. We were getting ready to leave Manistee on Monday when we tried "one more spot" and then stayed on that spot for about four hours. Be prepared to lose a lot of jigs if you like fishing tubes. Mike was Texas rigging plastics and doing pretty good on numbers,so I switched over after getting a snag on every cast on Manistee. The big girl didn't seem to mind the switch up, but I did catch the four other fish over 4 pounds on tubes.

[bigmojet]

I fish Arcadia a lot since its only 5 minutes from my house. The channel bite comes and goes quickly especially when the current going through there changes directions.

[Waterfoul]

Bigmojet.... too bad we didn't know you lived right there... you could have joined us for a time while we were up there.  Always looking to meet up and fish with new friends!

Jeff... I don't work on Monday... we should fish then!!!

[bigmojet]

Waterfoul, I have a 18' camo War Eagle with a 60 HP  yamaha. If you see me out there please stop and say hello. If I'm fishing alone I usually  will have my black lab with me.

Sometimes I'll walk around and fish off the marina docks this time of year if time is short.

[Waterfoul]

Well it's looking like I'll be on Manistee Lake Sunday morning if the weather permits.  Black and silver 18' Triton with a 150 Merc.  It usually says "West Marine" on both sides... but I had to get new graphics a week or so ago and haven't had a chance to put the new ones on yet.  If you are around...

Mike

[thedude]

bigmojet - i think we saw you on arcadia like 3 weeks ago in the evening maybe.....? we were in a white javelin.

[bigmojet]

Dude, probably was me. Was that the evening the salmon were pretty frisky jumping all over.the place? Felt like those  eurasion carp videos of them jumping in the boat.

[thedude]

i don't remember any salmon jumping (could have been). it had to have been oct 8th. we pulled in about 4pm and passed a boat like yours with 2 guys in it bass fishing on our way out toward the piers.

[bigmojet]

Dude, yes I remember that evening. We only picked up a few bass and some nice pike. I have a few chores around the house and gonna hit it later this morning or early afternoon.

[thedude]

it was slow for us too, but the last 2hrs of daylight were pretty stellar in the piers. we were using Xtreme muskegon goby tubes and the color seemed to make a difference. not as many bites on GP or perch