Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

Derek and I showed up with high hopes for some nice bass at East and West Crooked Lakes near Brighton, Michigan on September 27th. We had high hopes but were shocked by a strong wind that was ripping down the lake unexpectedly!

We decided to motor right over to West Crooked this time instead of starting right on East. Last time we had caught and saw more bass on the West lake (some people call it Little Crooked too).

Unfortunately, things were not happening this time. It was hard to feel a wacky-rigged stick worm like I caught some on last time so I switched to a jerkbait but the front half of the lake was not producing unless you count the big pike that ate a Big O-like shallow crankbait I was tossing over the flat.

Then in the narrows between shore and an island I had a nice 3-pounder slam the crankbait up shallow right at the edge of the island and a 1 foot deep weed clump. The wind current was really whipping through there so that was probably why this good bass was on the prowl. But, it jumped right behind the outboard and threw the crankbait back at me! Darn! Well, I did get a good fight out of it but no picture...

We fished around the back end of the lake where we saw a bunch of bass and caught some last time. This time we weren't so lucky. We had a few bass follow the jerkbait to the boat and take half-hearted swipes at it or just follow down underneath it without coming up.

Derek was doing the hard work of pitching soft plastics into the weed while I switched around on jerkbaits trying to find one they would eat! We just couldn't get the few bass we saw on the hook. A few small pike bit as usual but they weren't picture-worthy and they were few and far between too.

It had to be the wind doing something. You would think wind in the fall would make the bass aggressive though but we sure couldn't prove that.

We finally gave up on the West lake and headed back to the East lake. Derek had a nice blow up on a frog but it missed and that was the only frog bite we got. We never saw the bass but it looked like a good one.

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/nice-east-crooked-lake-jig-bass20160927_140106_HDR.jpg)
Finally, I was pitching a Kustom Kicker Jigs Dock Monkey jig (go big or go home, right?) into deep weed clumps in 13-16 feet of water on East Crooked when I tightened up on a good one! Boy! Did that feel good to set the jig hook on a solid bass after a frustrating day of fishing!!!

It was the same jig and Case Plastics Cash Craw combination I was using on White Lake a few days ago and it worked again just pitching it down weed clumps as best I could seeing how the strong wind made it really hard to judge the weeds and see the clumps well!

This bass came from the side of a good point on the lake. We fished several other points and went out to fish the big sunken island in the middle too to no avail (barring a couple more pike bites including a big one that got off out on the sunken island).

A tough day but I did have 2 nice bass on and landed one anyway. Just means we left a bunch there for everyone else to catch I guess. What a windy, chilly day though!