Lake Ovid Monday 5/25/09

[djkimmel]

Strange day for this time of year on Lake Ovid. I'm going to blame it on the strong East wind that blew ALL DAY!!

Started off real slow. The shallow weeds are getting thick. Some are clean and some are coated with slimy algae. The mid-depth weeds are almost not there in some places and a couple feet tall to a couple feet under the surface in other places.

The water is an odd color of brown that I don't recall seeing before. Muddy to just kind of brown or tan looking.

It was a slow day. Something that felt like a cement block hit my 7" worm twice (the 2nd time I hit the fish hard and felt the cement block feeling). Nothing to show but a tore up worm and an almost sprained wrist. I'd like to think it was a GIANT bass, but there are a lot of those toothy musky in the lake.

In fact, there were more musky boats out there than I've ever seen. Keep those muskies away from my good lures please

Only little bass on the deep weedlines / creek channel edges. Seemed like every 30 or 40 feet I'd catch one, but nothing substantial. It was tricky to do much pinpoint fishing with that stiff wind, but I did pitch out a really nice bass and another small keeper from shallow weeds. I did not see any bass on beds in the normal places nor see any fry yet.

The water was that weird color; the shallow weeds were thick and some areas with a lot of algae; and some places were buried under floating weed mats piled up by the wind.

I did later see a few places where bass had to be one beds because they constantly chased other creatures away from the same place over and over. Even when I couldn't see the bed or even the bass, I could see the telltale water movement.

The day before, I caught a bunch of bass on another lake on Rage Tale Shads, but not one bite on Lake Ovid this day. Within a minute after I switched to a Zoom Horny Toad instead, I had a vicious blowup!

Lost a really strong fish that wrapped me in the weeds. Landed my nicest one of the day and another small (but mean) bass shortly after and had another mean blowup on the toad. Man!! That is fun!


You can see some of the floating weed and algae mats around me where I caught this bass. I actually snuck up on this fish after watching it aggressively attack small bedding bluegills over and over.

As usual, I enjoy the total immersion in the outdoors experience (even when I'm still coughing too much from that darn cold). As I was sneaking on shallow slop bass late in the afternoon, I was sharing a pocket with this guy:


He was very good at what he was doing, catching more fish than I did from the area. Only, every time I would get the camera out, the bird would get shy. As soon as I put the camera down, ZAP! He'd get another fish and eat it.

Like a good tournament angler, the bird did not want me to record any secrets! I did manage to get this shot though of the red-wing blackbird harassing my fishing partner.


You can see why they call it a Great Blue Heron! "Back off little black bird!!"

Despite the unfavorable wind, it was nice to be on a lake with no jet skis or speed boats... in fact only saw 1 boat running all day on the no wake lake. They didn't run far before they were set straight... always has to be one, I guess.

Think I landed 8 or maybe 9 bass. Not normal for this time of year, but that only means there's still a bunch of hungry bass out there yet!

[Skulley]

Good report DK.  Is the campground nice there??  I like to take a couple of weekend camping trips with the family and we are always looking for a good place to go that has a beach and boat ramp as well as being no more than a couple of hours away from home.

BD         

[Durand Dan]

BD,
Here's the DNR link for Sleepy Hollow. It's a great state park. This time of year with the floating weeds the swimming area isn't the graetest though.
DD
http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?id=495&type=SPRK

[Skulley]

Thanks a bunch DD.  You just saved me sometime navigating through the MDNR website to get this info.

BD             

[djkimmel]

It's weedy around the beach, but there were a fair number of people out there Monday. The campground is nice, quiet. I camped there once for the heck of it. Had a nice time with my little brothers.

The campground is only about 10 years old give a take a couple years. It was full Memorial weekend, but usually has some openings on non-holiday weekends.

No wake lake. Lowland reservoir actually - created by damming the Little Maple River. Farmland with rolling hills. A few old flooded foundations.