Lake St. Clair Sat-Sun June 17-18 2006

[djkimmel]

I've been trying to do too many things and some out of order so I did not have my Ontario and Walpole licenses yet... not a problem - I just go over to the Chematogan Camp store and get them. NOT! Ben calls me on the way over Saturday and says don't waste your time, they are out of licenses. You can usually get a Walpole license at Lakeside tackle at 10 Mile and Jefferson, so I stopped there and got the Walpole for $40.

But, I just knew I didn't want to be putting off the Ontario until the last minute where something might go wrong just before the BFL, so the only place left besides across the Detroit River is the Marine City ferry. Wish I could have called before driving all the way up there, but luckily, they have plenty of licenses. I rode across as they wrote my Ontario license - $61 US.

Finally on the water early afternoon and launched at the North Channel launch since it was the fastest I could get to on the lower river. The short report is that the river is not quite there yet. There may be a spot or two or three with some good fish, but I couldn?t prove it. I caught 7 or 8 keepers and about half that many dinks, but the biggest I caught was probably 14 ? inces so my total limit would have been just over a 14 inch average? not a tournament winning strategy.

For the moment with only one more day of practice (and now only having been on St. Clair for a day and a half total this year) I have to write the river off. Sunday, I ran the mile roads and beyond down to the Detroit River. I should have paid more attention, but as I moved South the wind continued to build strength until it was blowing ? technically ? like a son of a gun! I?ve forgotten what a truly good Great Lakes beating feels like! I remember now!

Ouch, my back. I actually drifted north about 3 miles at one point on the afternoon stiff breeze just to take a break (and to hope I tripped over something interesting). I caught bass all day at least, but no big ones. They were somewhat scattered, but as usual with smallies, I would find them in small pods at times and they did seem to be traveling by size. Before the wind really kicked up, there was a period where I saw some good mayfly eating too, but once the wind really kicked up a few notches, that bite disappeared around me.

I am pleasantly surprised to see that the average ?mile road? bass is up this year, but everyone is catching them pretty good. The northern mile roads were pretty crowded until the 2 or 3 PM weighins came along. The southern half less crowded although there was a small swarm of boats south of the Delphine a ways.

The bass were somewhat aggressive although they tended to swat at many of the faster baits or just follow them, but once found, I could catch 1 to several on tubes or grubs. I tried light tubes and dark tubes, and although I don?t have a structured study to back it, this day seemed like I did better for larger fish on dark tubes.

I would have to guess my best 5 only went around 14 pounds so I?m not planning on a big post-BFL party, but those bigger bass are somewhere around and I haven?t even started to check out Canada yet (unfortunately, as I pointed out, that was my last practice day for this one too though??).

About half way through the day, my new GPS antennae decided to quit responding to my GPS unit. I don?t know if it drank more water than I did ? while fishing for over half the way, I took waves over the nose; I took waves over the side; I took waves over the back. Between the very stiff ?breeze? and just enough tuna boats to keep things interesting, I was good and wet. Hopefully, I can figure out the GPS antennae thing before Saturday.

I guess I have one decent spot I should be able to get a solid limit on, but getting dead on it without the GPS might be tricky since it is out far enough to be challenging to pinpoint. Fortunately, it was right beside this big ship, so I should be at least able to run out and line up again with this really long ship and get close anyway. Got my fingers crossed.

[dartag]

hey dan

i am going to be out there all day tomorrow.  why don't you send me the GPS points and i will make sure the fish are still there..  hope these storms get out of the way as i also am running out of time

ss

[djkimmel]

ss - just look for the really big ship and line up about in the middle with him - 6 to 11 feet, rocks and weeds - my GPS antennae went out so I don't have all the waypoints. Thank goodness for large things to line up with...

[djkimmel]

Ok - I got one of the key waypoints off my GPS. Here it is and good luck:
42 28.643
82 53.340

[djmaclf]

Dan, I had something similar happen to me last year with my GPS as well,  A good drying out and then a good coat of di-electric grease did the trick for me.  I also now carry my handheld GPS just in case!

Good Luck!

[SODY]

Dan, Just read the BFL results and cringed, I was on fish that could have given me about 17-20lbs. I could not be there because of a Nieces grad party (Oh well) I fished three tourney's this week. Won 1 Seen you got Three fish for 8.03 good points anyway. David cashed a check(Cool). He had a small bag at the Catt on 6/17 like us.

We caught over 40 keepers and Fished mostly north and west of the launch on 6/16 & 6/17 for the CATT tournament. It was Dan Kimmel fishing at it's finest. Eat a sandwich catch a fish have a candy bar catch a fish. Pee catch two fish. Mostly white spinnerbaits and plastic. My biggest was 3.7 Julie lost a toad at the boat. She also found out why you don't leave a Kalins grub hanging off the back off the boat while netting a fish as a big one jumped up grabbed her rod and proceeded to swim off with a $200 dollar rig fortunately he came off and I retrieved it all with the candy bar and still firmly held in my teeth. What a fishery!!

Julie and I weighed in 12.63lbs and won a $50 gift card to Froggers eatery. Just in time for our anniversary Sunday 18 years. Thanks Len and Jack!!Thanks Froggers for a great time and for supporting great lakes Bass fishing!

I won the Thursday night Catt tournament 6/22 9.02 off Gull Lake. Mostly plastics 9-12 feet. PS I did find bigger fish starting to relate to 12-16 feet of water on St.Clair

Rich Soderquist

[djkimmel]

I did many, many things wrong on yesterday in the BFL, but my last stop had enough bass on it to make me not want to get into running around anymore (possibly ending up like a chicken with its head cut off).

I caught 2 keepers, but my co-angler used a dropshot goby to catch 8 or 9 keepers. He uses them a lot (I'm behind the curve on the dropshot although my last two keepers came on a drop shot tube). He ended up with 15 lbs and 8th place. I couldn't see leaving when we had a huge area all to ourselves and at least one of us was catching them.

All I could catch on the Mile Roads were tons of dinks that weren't there before that day. I had someone share a good spot with me that I checked Friday afternoon for 20 minutes and caught 2 small keepers on. I never got a bite there even by a dink on Saturday. After spending half the day running the west shore, I decided to go to old standby spots in Canada despite not practicing there at all.

The 2nd spot is where my partner cleaned up. He gave me some of his gobies to try, but all I caught on them were rock bass (no respect!). Every little bit, he'd catch another one, so I stayed figuring eventually, with a pure heart and the best intentions, I would catch my limit. Just didn't happen somehow.

I've only been on St. Clair 4 days this year and it definitely shows.

[yukonjack2]

Dan:

If its any consolation, I was in a similar situation - nothing but dinks, oh and a 14" perch.   Everywhere I stopped, there was either a boat on my spot, or nobody biting for me.  My co-anlger got one keeper at each stop.  Felt more of a guide than a boater - lol.   Anyhow, had no fish in the boat at 12:30, and my co-angler had 4.  I decided he need to fill out that limit, and I need one fish for points - couldn't bear another zero after burt/mullet.   I ran to my largemouth spots up in the channels, and proceeded to get my coangler one, and myself 5 respectable greenies - they were on fire for a few minutes where we caught 10 keepers in about 15 minutes.  Gotta love the good old standby for 10 lbs or so. 
I can't wait till they get in that full bore summer pattern.

Jack

[dcain]

Getting ready for 2 week shutdown. Plan on spending a lot of days on the St. Clair. Has any fished this year around the tip of the thumb? Harbor Beach??

[Revtro]

A buddy of mine just fished off of Harbor Beach this past weekend and got into some decent Kings and Lakers.  He said he was quite surprised to see Salmon in the area again.  That's all I've heard about that area.  No bass reports.

[Bronzeback5LBER]

Hey Tom how ya doin? Havn't seen any posts by you lately so since I seen this one thought I'd just say hi.