Fletcher's Pond

[TimH]

After hearing for years about Fletcher's Pond, I decided to head up there last week for a summer vacation. For those of you who want to fish Fletcher's this summer, here is another alternative for you...
Go out to your boat, take a sledge hammer and smash your prop for 5 minutes
Light $500 in cash on fire in your driveway
Replace your prop
Smash it with a sledge hammer again for another five minutes
Rip your transducer off and bust the bracket
Find the closest rain puddle or ditch and drag lures through it
And when you are all done with that, launch your boat on you front lawn, fire up the outboard and see how far you can go.
Congratulations, you have just expereinced Fletchers Pond without having to drive for 4 hours.
This was my first and only time I will ever go the Fletchers.  We stayed at Angler's Hideaway (nice place with helpful/friendly staff), but the "canal" that you are suppose to park your boat in is about 8" deep. They claim the entire lake/pond/floodwaters is down 2 feet this year, but I have a 16' tin boat that took a trolling motor riding as high as it can go, an oar to push of the bottom, and 20 minutes of frustration just get out to the main water.
Once you are on the main water, the weeds cause you to travel 200 yards, put the boat in reverese to blow off the weeds, and then forward again.  You aren't "stump safe" in any water seeings as how I jacked my prop in 10 feet of water on a stump.  The fishing sucks, and I mean sucks.  I have never fished so hard for such few fish.  The most frustrating thing is that it like looks like it should be the best bass fishery on the planet because of all the structure and weed beds. 
I truly think that Fletchers is almost a dead pond.  I wouldn't be suprised if all the rot has gotten to point that the tannic acid is really high causing the lake PH to reach a level where it is hard to sustain life. 
On the plus side, this was my first full week off from work in over 8 years and I came home a day early and went to the Nothern Open weigh-in and had a real good time.  Then I went on St. Clair sunday morning and caught more bass in four hours than I did the entire week on Fletchers.

[red68prostreet]

Tim,
       I feel your pain. About 20 yrs ago we had the same trip. My buddy had a brand new bayliner bass boat that he took up there. He ended up staying in the lagoon near the dam for 3 days. Never caught a fish. The rest of us rented beat up boats that came with spare shear pins so you could replace them every quarter mile. We never caught a fish either. We stayed at some place down by the dam. The owners were showing us stringers of fish, all kinds of fish. The stringers were 10-12 ft long. In looking closer at the pictures all the vehicles were from the 60's. Have never been back and never will. It is the dead sea for sure.
            Mark

[djkimmel]

Obviously... neither of you represents the local 'Fletchers Pond tourism association.'

Sorry you both had not fun experiences there. Maybe you just have to use the electric motor only and just fish around rather than risk your outboard prop?

I have seen better 'fishing reports' from there in the past 2 or 3 years though not many have been stellar. I did have an MDNR fisheries biologist tell me 5 to 7 years ago that the lake had a large population of 4 pound largemouth bass. I just never got the chance to test that out. I would imagine, from what I have heard lately, the population has tapered off some. I do recall someone catching some smallmouth and largemouth bass there last year I believe? I recall a member or two saying the like to fish up there. Maybe you just need to drive an old truck to catch fish there? (sorry)