Saturday Morning

[dartag]

Launched at Metro early this morning.  Headed out with my son who had never been on the lake.  We started at the wreck on metro point to get him going.  Caught 6 small fish and a couple rock bass.  Headed out the 12 feet along the drops and caught more small fish.  Went out to 15 feet and drove around a bit with the side and down scan on.  Found some nice weeds and couple of rock piles.   Drifted across and we both caught 3 pounders.  Had steady action all morning.  The wind was light out of the east.  Caught a couple on tubes but most were on drop shot using Gulp Fry Worms.  We ended up weighing 7 fish that were over 3 lbs but nothing bigger.  A lot of the fish we caught were spitting up small minnows.  Tried a jerkbait and crankbait but didn't get bit.

We headed in around noon. 

[Team houston]

Nice report. I fished the BFL Sat. On our way to St.Clair my partner lost a cylinder on his engine just South of the Ambassador bridge. We idled ,trolling motored and fished our way back the rest of the day. Managed to boat 4 small keepers. Should have had a limit but lost three keeper sized fish.What can you do? Happens to everybody at some point. At least we weren't heading back in with 20lbs each.

[rudycard72]

I fished the bfl out of the back of the boat on saturday as well, my boater stopped upstream of elizabeth park a few miles when he saw some docks he liked. Decided not to fish there and put her up on plane and hit something very hard and tore up his lower unit and prop. Was not a pretty site on a brand new motor, we limped back to check in with 1 minute to spare, he had 5 small fish and I had 3. I learned a few things about st clair fish and also learned that outside of those channel markers on the river is no mans land, you better know what your doing or it gets expensive.

[djkimmel]

Nice report. I fished the BFL Sat. On our way to St.Clair my partner lost a cylinder on his engine just South of the Ambassador bridge. We idled ,trolling motored and fished our way back the rest of the day. Managed to boat 4 small keepers. Should have had a limit but lost three keeper sized fish.What can you do? Happens to everybody at some point. At least we weren't heading back in with 20lbs each.

Bummer... but good attitude. I had the limit to make the 1st day cut AND big bass on the boater side coming back down the Detroit River with plenty of time when my old outboard decided to snap off the year I drew McCarter in his first BFL (poor guy - took some soakings from the river that day while we waited for the tow boat guys). Rougher than blue blazes that day but everything went pretty good until the big snap. That kind of stuff I sure don't miss about fishing when and where someone else decides for me!

[djkimmel]

I fished the bfl out of the back of the boat on saturday as well, my boater stopped upstream of elizabeth park a few miles when he saw some docks he liked. Decided not to fish there and put her up on plane and hit something very hard and tore up his lower unit and prop. Was not a pretty site on a brand new motor, we limped back to check in with 1 minute to spare, he had 5 small fish and I had 3. I learned a few things about st clair fish and also learned that outside of those channel markers on the river is no mans land, you better know what your doing or it gets expensive.

Another bummer... they make maps for those kinds of things. People on websites like this one also recommend not running just anywhere on the Great Lakes too all the time. With the lower water, common sense says don't run where you don't know for sure it is safe. I always hate to see a boater learn this the hard way. (At least I hope he learned it?!? )

Thing about rivers too is new stuff can float in so something you knew last year might not be so good this year... When I was serious about this stuff I pretty much always did dry runs looking for new surprises on rivers. Wasn't a bad idea on lakes either.

Better luck the next one. Glad you learned some things. That is always the most important part of competitive (or any) fishing - always learn something. It's always there if you look for it.

[Team houston]

Speaking of water levels, I didn't notice until we pulled out. The water was over the riprap breakwall at Elizabeth Park. My memory is that the last couple years there was plenty of rock out of the water. Is it my imagination or has the water come up quite a bit?

[djkimmel]

It's supposed to be up. But I thought it was still lower than it had been a few years ago? I would have to check the water levels charts to see where St. Clair and Erie are at now. Last fall it seemed half the people thought Erie was a little low and half thought it was super low?

If I remember right, the USACE who gave us a talk on his modeling for the lakes expected St. Clair to be a little lower than average and Erie about average to a little higher than average. Lakes Huron and Michigan were the ones suffering the lowest levels.

Some of that changed after all the rain we had but not so much on Lakes Michigan and Huron.

From http://www.greatlakesbass.com/weather/#glother :
Great Lakes Water Level Weekly Summary

GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DETROIT/PONTIAC MI
1000 AM EDT SAT JUL 13 2013
THE FOLLOWING ARE THE AVERAGE LAKE LEVELS FORECAST FOR THIS WEEK.
LAKE               LEVEL... INCHES FROM CHART DATUM
SUPERIOR                      +5
MICHIGAN AND HURON            +3
ST CLAIR                      +27
ERIE                          +33
ONTARIO                       +40

Also from http://www.greatlakesbass.com/weather/#glother :
You can visit Great Lakes Water Level Data to look at various short periods of the lake levels. Since April, the average for Lake St. Clair is up less than 1 foot according to their daily measurements.