Fishing Report
Grand River high, muddy, but a little slower
Grand River/Spring Lake, Grand Haven MI, 6/16-17/01 – The Grand is still flowing fast though not the scary torrent it was. It’s still high and muddy to very muddy. Water temps are in the low to mid 70s. To add to the mud, the carp are really rolling now in the throes of their spawn. This affected a few of my bass areas although in one the bass just moved a little deeper. I didn’t see any definite active bass beds this weekend for the first time, but I didn’t look real hard for them. I did start catching bass a little deeper now.
Weeds are still very sparse to almost non-existent. Very strange for this water. I’ve noticed a few smaller bass using current breaks and bare structure to feed, but this has not panned out as a keeper pattern although drum, dogfish and one pike are also doing this.
Even though I say the water is high, it’s still down 3 feet or so from the past. It’s interesting to see some of the stuff I’ve fished in the past now high and dry. It always looks different than I imagined. A lot of shoreline cover is extremely shallow right now. I have found a ton of dinks on some of these banks, but not keepers. Catching keepers right now for me has been a process of looking at what available cover is left for them, fishing it and figuring out how they are relating to it. I will say, I’m still doing best on crankbaits although a worm bite is picking up too.
If you’re fishing there soon, be careful. The muddy water makes it very hard to see things before you hit them. The dredged channels narrow down in some spots. And lots of new snags have shown up even in mid-channel areas. Many of the of channel entry areas such as the bayous are very shallow and very dangerous. I got stuck on mud bars twice in the middle of the channel in the old Lost Channel where I definitely didn’t expect to get stuck. Luckily, I was only on trolling motor, but I couldn’t see the bottom at all.
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