FOM Michigan East Saginaw Bay

[fishon1219]

Well we had a preety good turnout for the 1st event of the season on Saginaw bay with several of the areas finest Big Sticks show up. I dont have the final results but it took almost 22lbs to get a check. The winning team had 22.7 and 2nd place had 22.3 I think.
Here is how our experience went.

Practise June 1st- Mark and I launched out of Augres marina with the team of Thomas Valed and John Buckley and we were going to try and work together because of all of our lack of experience on the bay. I have been there one other time and Thomas had never been there.

We made our way out to the charitys with a white knuckle ride most of the way due to the horrer stories you hear of with rock reefs coming out of no were eating lower units. We idle on up to the shelfs that run between big and little charitys and start to look around and were able to GPS several beds that held what we thought were good 4lb fish knowing that was what we would need to have a chance. It was kinda windy so it was hard to see a lot of beds unless you were right on top of them, but i managed to mark around 10 that held good fish and one that held a monster.

We left the charitys around 11:00am and headed over to wildfowl bay were i fished the previoues saturday to check some stuff out over there. Last weekend we caught several fish in the mid 4's so we went looking for somemore over there.

Well we marked a ton of beds that held fish that all looked to be in the 4lb range and we didnt even pick up a fishing rod for most of our practise day. It was now about 3:00pm and we headed back to the launch accross the bay.
Thomas and his son went in and AMrk and I decided to find something near the ramp to hit before we went to weigh in on tournament day and we covered the bay to the south of the Augres river and didnt even see a bed anywere.

We moved up into the mouth of the little marina there and found the only bed within miles and it had a real nice fish on it in the 4lb range. We figured nobody was going to bother that fish so we knew he was ours come tournament day.

Tournament day June 2nd- We drew boat number one so at blast off we headed accross the bay to wildfoul bay in the rain and the nasty chop that was on the water. Is was just a random chop and was tough running in our 18footer but we made it to spot number 1 in about 25 minuets.

We hit the mouth of bayshore marina were we marked a good one the day before, but that fish was gone. We fished around the mouth and caught a limit fairly quickly that had us at about 14lbs. You still couldnt see very well with the cloud cover and the rain so we were just blind casting around working our way over to all of the beds we marked the day before.

We got to our little hot area and ended up throwing back 3 of our fish with some 3 1/2lbers and our limit was now about 16 lbs. All of the fish we thought were 4lbers were 3 lbs and we just started looking around there for some bigger fish. The biggest difference that we did see was the area was loaded with Catfish. We didnt see any the day before, but they seemed to have taken over every bed in the area and had laid there eggs. I dont know if they chased alot of the bass out or waht the deal was, but alot of fish we saw during practise were gone and the catfish had moved in.

We took off from wildfoul bay and headed out to the charitys about 11:00 and started right by little charity and the first fish we got was a 4lber. Now we are at 17. we move to our next area and catch another one at 4lbs and have 18. We are excited because we know were a 5plus is on a bed and start working to that bed. We get close and I see a Marker bouy sitting right near it. Darn it we say. We get close and another competitor in our tournament says "Hey kev, if you catch that fish I want my tube back" Apparently they had here on and she broke off and they couldnt get here to bite again and were giveing her a rest before trying again.

Well I am not going to fish for somebody elses fish even though he gave me permission what was really great of him and just shows the kind of guys that fish in the FOM. The fish was still there by the way and it was a real pig. We moved around alot around the charitys and seen lots of fish, but none that were going to help us so we had 18 lbs even and it was 1:45 and check in was at 3 at the dock so we made our way to our lone unmolested fish at the mouth of the small marina.

We get to the fish about 2:10 and it is still there. Mark throws a tube to it and bam, has it on. It jumps and spits the tube and moves right back. I throw a dropshot to it and bam It hits and I set the hook and break my line. Mark immediatly throws the tube back at her and she is on and in the net. She weighs in at just over 3 1/2 so we have just under 19 lbs.

We head back to the dock with our little limit and find out that there are seveal teams right at or above 19 lbs and we ended up in 9th place.

We were a little bit discouraged but realized that 90% of the teams that finished above us were guys that have fished the Bay that time of year for several years and were happy that we could at least compete with them for only being there 1 other time.

I am looking forward to the next event at Bellville lake were the playing field should be a little more even for guys who fish it alot as well as the guys who have only been there a couple of times.

On a side note we had some Truck problems on the way home along I-75 and everybody that fished the event did stop and make sure we were OK and I want to thank every one of you. It just shows the true spirit of all of the people who bass fish.

Thanks again to all of you for offering help.

[MBell]

Me and Jon Jezierski won it with 22.5lbs with big fish that went 5.32lbs.  We barely beat out Eric Bond who had 22.37.  I heard about those catfish over by wildfowl, they were on beds.  It was impossible to tell how big those fishwere, the 3.5's look just like the 5's, you just have to catch them.  Jon fished the ABA on Sunday and said our winning spot had 15 boats on it compared to 2 incuding us the day before.  It's an awesome place to fish when your disappointed with 19lbs.   
-Matt     

[SODY]

Way to go guys everyone at FOM is very proud of you, I have seen this catfish activity on St.clair before...

[BigSmallie]

That was a nice sack Matt.   We knew it would take 22Lbs to win.   We could only muster 20.32.....needed to get rid of 2 fish and just couldn't do it.    Two of our spots dried up on us and we were counting on them to produce a kicker fish or two.......I think the weather was too nice! LOL!!    Then there's always that fish that won't bite 

Great job Matt.   We'll be back next year on the Bay.

BS 

[thomas]

Great job gentlemen. Hopefully we Southeast MI. fishermen can do a better job next year. Thank you Kevin and Mark for guiding my son and I around the lake Friday. Not many men would do that.

thomas

[fishon1219]

Thomas,
It was my pleasure to help you and your son enjoy your time on the water catching fish. I will never have a problem showing somebody who is as appreciative and respectful as yourself around a lake. P.S. Next time we are up there you get to run point through the middle grounds