Road trip to Burt Lake makes me wonder why 9-1-2017

[djkimmel]

I get a call from Steve Petersen. He's on his way to his in-laws up north and is stopping Friday on Burt Lake. Do I want to fish with him Friday (9-1-2017)?

Yes, it's only one day and a loooooooonnngg drive there and back for one day... but it's the Inland Waterway - possibly my favorite non-Amazon River fishing spot anywhere. If he had said Mullett I would have said yes without thinking but Burt Lake is close enough since I haven't made it there sadly in several seasons.

Fishing Thursday is bad, bad, bad. We see tons of minnows along one shore but only get a few pike and tiny bass bites so I'm thinking This, THIS will make up for it. In spades!!!

I get up before o'dark thirty to meet Steve at the Burt Lake State Park boat ramp shortly after 7am from my home base in SW Lansing. The drive is long but smooth. I make great time only stopping quickly twice.

I'm coffee infused and pretty much wide awake when I get there. Steve slept in his boat under his cover at the campground. He's still sleepy when I get there but we get going fairly soon.


Though I was first met by the local wild turkey greeting committee when I pulled into Burt Lake State Park. We also flushed a Bald Eagle out of some shoreline trees. Saw it fish a little. Lots if gulls - some that looked different than normal. Lots of ducks including more Ruddy Ducks than I've seen in a long time. A couple Loon families too. Looked like mom and dad were teaching 2 youngsters how to fish. If I was there to see birds it was a great day... but I was there to catch BIG smallmouth bass, lets be honest!

We started out somewhat deep on a rock/gravel bar. I think Steve was throwing a spinbait 80 over the top of the point spine when he had on something that hit and fought well, but got of pretty quick so we'll never know for sure what it was...

Unfortunately, 'Burt' and I still don't get along well... When the bass move in, sure I can catch them good. But when they vanish from the rock edges and shallower rocks I struggle often on the big lake. I started up there on Burt first many, many years ago (about 1991 I believe) but after a few years I found I just get along a lot better with Mullett Lake though there's no arguing there are Giant smallmouth bass in Burt!

We worked our way up a lot of the east shore throughout the morning and into early afternoon without seeing much sign of life. We fished anywhere from 4-5 feet deep out to 20-22 feet deep.

As the afternoon progressed, we finally started seeing a few signs of smallmouth bass life up on some of the rock bars though it was very streaky and spotty.


I did end up catching 2 little smallmouth bass like this - 1 on that whacked a painted spinnerbait cast over shallow rocks, and 1 on a follow up Case Plastics Lil Magic Stik on a drop shot I tossed between 2 block anchors after it swiped at but missed my spinnerbait.

We tried hard. Fished deep and shallow. Actually saw some better bass moving in later in the day including 3 progressively bigger bass on 3 different spots. I stalked one that looked to be about 3 pounds but it spooked before I could present something to it that it would maybe hit.

One that looked to be about 4 pounds pulled a vanishing act on us. It was about at our visual limit for sightfishing and we moved just out of range, unable to find it again when we turned back towards it.

Steve had a shot at the biggest of the day, an easy 5-pounder, real dark sitting like a bigger rock at the deep edge of a rock bar, but I spotted it late and the weird wind blew us over the bass just as it turned on his bait he tossed to it when I said, 'shoot! That's not a rock! That's a Big smallmouth!'

Crazily, it had to be right under the boat when we lost it but I never saw it come out on any side of the boat. I kept looking under the boat thinking it was hiding in our shadow but it was just gone!! My guess is it did a quick color change from the real dark black to a pale green/yellow blending in with the sand/scattered rock on the edge and just slowly swam off out of our sightfishing sight. I've seen them do it before. I'm imaging this fish did exactly that. They can be so sneaky...

Oh well, lots of beauty and a little serenity. I've missed the lakes. Maybe back again later this year? Who knows.

Sure was tired by the time I got home late that evening. Disappointed the day wasn't filled with smacking big slab smallies but that's fishing... and with the way the day before went I wasn't completely surprised. In fact, this day ended up being fishing day 2 of my worst 6 fishing days of the season (boy, am I glad that week and a half poor fishing stretch seems to be over... I hope!?!).

[21XDC]