Fall fishing in the Traverse area

[fishcollector]

Hey guys, my buddy and I are heading up to some smallmouth fishing in the TC area next weekend wondering if anyone knows what lakes are producing. We are thinking of hitting Skegomog, Elk, and Intermediat lakes. Any suggestions

Thanks,

[djkimmel]

Sounds like a good time to me!

[LennyB]

Hey Fish Collector, those are all good lakes.

P.S. Hope you guys are not really fish collectors but releasers.

[djkimmel]

A few fresh fish meals don't hurt. Though I would prefer perch, panfish and walleye. Taste less like fish.

[fishcollector]

We practice catch & release on bass, just love to tangle with smallies. Looks like the weather will cooperate should be a good time just got to find them and figure out what they want to bite on.

[Firefighter Jeff]

Please post a report.  I'm sure there will be a bunch of members interested in your results.    Including me !!

[fishcollector]

We will see what happens, I will let you know how we do.

Thanks,

[djkimmel]

That would be great. Mostly I have just heard the bass are moving up and down a lot this year. Not much more than that.

[bigmojet]

I have had some recent success on Crystal Lake early in morning on top water (pop r) early mornings. Zip after sun gets high even  though you can see them swimming.

[BIGSHOW]

Always wanted to try spider lake. Anyone fish there or have any input. thanks..

[LennyB]

I fished Spider and Arbutus a few years back which were very similar lakes. We caught a lot of fish on both but they were all small largemouth. Seemed to be a high numbers but on the small side, atleast for us that day. If I were in the area I would give it another try. With that many fish swimming around you would think there has to be some big ones.

[djkimmel]

Sounds like Tomahawk Creek Flooding. I keep thinking there's got to be more big bass in there... At least it is more fun continuing to search on these types of lakes!

[LennyB]

On Spider and Arbutus, I would watch schools of 20 to 30 fish swimming around in 3 feet of water all of which were about 12 to 14 inchers. A 3" senko on a drop shot was the ticket.

[djkimmel]

That's a bunch. There's not that many to school like that in Tomahawk but I'm sure there are other lakes up there like that.

[fishcollector]

Well we made it Elk & Skeg Sat. & Sun. we started out on Skeg and fished the north shoreline in about 10 feet of water the temp is mid 60's and we only found 2 fish around 3 pounds we then moved to the north west shore of Elk and found a few more fish in about 6 feet of water on the dark spots and drops. We marked a few piles of baitfish in the 20' range and tries some drop shots but no takers so we moved to the south end of Elk and found some good size rocks in about 10' of water and picked up another 5 or 6 fish from 3lbs to 5lbs. on Saturday. Sunday morning we went back to the last spot and could not find a fish so we trolled the shore back to the mouth of Skeg and picked up a few fish along the way. We only had 3 hours to fish on Sunday. All in all we did not catch a lot of fish but the ones we did were decent toads. Most of them came on a tube, but also picked them up on a lipless crank. We had a great time anyway its always fun to fish those lakes they are so beautifully probably my favorite in the state.

[djkimmel]

Sounds like a pretty decent time considering the weather ups and downs especially.