Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

dartag was kind enough to invite me fishing to his Union Lake. I say his lake because he lives there, and fishes there enough that I think the bass know him personally! It was an interesting day because we started catching very few fish, mostly largemouth bass and a couple walleye, then the largemouth bass started moving up and we caught more, and then suddenly in the afternoon the smallmouth bass moved up and we started catching those! Made for a fun learning day.

dartag always catches them good on Union Lake but as I said it did start out very slow in the morning, maybe not that surprising for a fall day! I started out catching walleye!

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/walleye-union-lake-swimbait20161003_084553_HDR.jpg)
I was slow-rolling a small 4 1/2 inch swimbait near bottom when this small keeper walleye whacked it good! Not long after I was swimming a small Ned Rig in when another walleye about the same size whacked it. Must have been the cloudy, low light that had the walleye roaming and eating.

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/dan-largemouth-bass-union-lake20161003_103056_HDR.jpg)
dartag caught a few bass and I finally got a small keeper. I think I was fishing the Stevie Rig (named after him because he uses it so much - a drop shot variant). I was trying different lures trying to get the bass to bite because we were seeing a few but not catching many yet.

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/steve-nice-smallmouth-bass-union-lake20161003_124232.jpg)
We caught only largemouth bass for awhile, mostly on the drop shot, and then early afternoon dartag finally popped a nice smallmouth bass off a point! It was our first smallmouth bass and it was almost 1pm.

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/dan-kimmel-topwater-union-lake-smallmouth20161003_132024.jpg)
Like someone flicked a switch suddenly the smallmouth bass started to make a show after a morning of only largemouth bass. This decent smallmouth bass just SMASHED a LC topwater I was walking along the edge of some weeds!

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/steve-nice-union-lake-smallmouth-bass20161003_133427_HDR.jpg)
Things definitely changed as we started seeing single smallies and small groups of smallies cruising and even sitting up real shallow. We spooked a small group of them that had a nice one mixed in and dartag threw in his Stevie Rig and the biggest one actually still grabbed it and he landed it!

(http://glb.glwimg.com/images/dan-topwater-sightfished-smallmouth-bass-union20161003_134500.jpg)
I was looking up real shallow and I told dartag I could see a bass sitting next to one tuft of weeds. I threw my topwater up there and the bass swirled, bulged the water under the lure and then when I walked it twice the bass slammed the topwater. Couldn't believe I didn't spook it since it was sitting in about a foot and a half of water!!! It was pretty cool as far as bass bites go!

We got off the smallmouth bass after moving out of that weedy flat area. I thought I saw a largemouth bass near a dock so I tossed the walking lure up there. I couldn't see the bass anymore though it was less than 3 feet deep. Out of nowhere the small largemouth bass ate the topwater! I love fall topwater bites!

dartag was still catching a few largemouth bass on his Stevie Rig but we decided to go back to the breaks we saw a few largemouth bass earlier on. The bass had REALLY moved in then! We could see largemouth bass swimming all over the place BUT we couldn't hardly get them to bite! Boy did we try. We got a couple to bite but there were bass swarming all over the place that we couldn't get to do more then swarm around the break, each other and the boat, sometimes heading off into the deeper water, and sometimes swimming back up onto the flats! It was fun and frustrating at the same time.

All in all, we caught a good number of bass though we saw 5 times or more bass than we caught but it was another fun day on the water with some memorable fish! Thanks dartag!

My fish live a Pampered life out there.  They are lazy and only like to come out when the sun is shining.  As I tell people that fish out there.  You will see many times more fish than you will catch. 

If you ever figure out how to catch half of what you see you will really catch a bunch then!!! I will keep trying...