A Little Taste of the South – Only Better
Lake Ovid Bass Fishing
Ever since Dan Kimmel introduced me to Lake Ovid a few years ago, it has been one of my favorite fishing destinations. This small impoundment within Sleepy Hollow State Park has features found in many southern reservoirs albeit on a much smaller scale.
You can find humps, weed beds, shallow slop, channel edges, submerged timber, old road beds, and more. To top it all off, on most days the bass fishing doesn’t seem nearly as tough as the highly pressured fisheries of the south.
Lake Ovid’s natural setting and no wake regulation contribute to an escape from a hectic work schedule, mind-numbing traffic, and the high-speed discourteous weekend watercraft lunacy found on most other SE Michigan lakes.
Largemouth bass, panfish, and muskie are the main targets here. On this past Memorial Day, Dan and I set out for our usual green target, ole bucketmouth.
We started on one of Dan’s favorite points and worked our way along a weed bed back into a bay. We got into them pretty quickly. Dan was poking a black/chartreuse plastic worm into the small pockets in the weeds and caught a couple 2+ lb. largies. I caught one along the inside weed edge that might have pushed 2¾ lbs.
After a bit of a slow spell, Dan wanted to fish a mid-lake hump that usually produces big fish in the spring. The hump tops out in about three feet of water and is ringed with a heavy weed bed. On top there are scattered weeds. Dan starts throwing a Black/Blue Chatter Bait and I stick with a Berkley Green Pumpkin Power Worm. I caught a good one about four pounds off the inside weed edge right about where Dan said he caught hawgs in the past.
Now an official trend, Dan caught several nice fish. In fact, I watched Dan catch a lot of nice fish all day long. He caught them from wood, weed pockets, slop, inside edges, outside edges, and I think I even saw him catch one from a tree limb six feet above the water. Okay, I made up that last one. But if there would have been one sitting on that limb… Anyway, he waxed me pretty good. He was a good sport though and didn’t rub it in…much. Actually, he didn’t even bring it up. He’s a good guy like that.
Overall, the day was a little spotty compared to past outings. We saw a lot of good sized bass wandering around in shallow water. The sunfish were starting to build their nest, but not many of them seemed to be locked on.
Dan was catching a few in the weed pockets like this one in the upper right corner. On this day a black/chartreuse worm in the holes worked wonders.
This point had tons of bluegills beds. We saw a few nice bass swimming around the shallow weeds, but they were extremely spooky.
Dan caught this chunky largemouth on a black/blue Chatter Bait. This fish was caught on an inside weedline in about four feet of water. There were a few aggressive fish that would almost rip the rod out of his hands while winding this lure.
This last one was probably the largest bass of the day. It was lurking tight to the weeds in about four feet of water and hit a 6” Ribbon Tail Berkley Power Worm. In the following sequence, Dan demonstrates his gentle lunker release technique.
