Keeper fest on Lake J

[djkimmel]

Got a hot tip from a friend on a new lake to try - don't think I've ever been there before, or if I did it was long years ago - and in order to honor a pet lake tip I will just call it Lake J. The good news is any techniques and locations will work on many other Michigan lakes, and we have lots of good, small inland lakes that fish very well. We are blessed and fortunate

Derek and I headed to Lake J on our almost weekly Thursday trip a little late in the morning starting fishing around 9:30am. I wonder if we missed a hotter morning bite but it can't be helped, and the bite in general was really good once we started to figure the bass out!

We started on a point near the boat ramp on Lake J because points are often good. Derek had a bite on his first cast with a popper. Some think that is a bad sign and some think it is a good sign. Since we saw a keeper near the boat ramp and had a couple bites in the first few casts from small bass I took it as a good sign, and it was as far as I'm concerned.

I want to thank my friend for the tip publicly again because the day was fun!

We weren't sure what to expect though we had heard good things let's just say...

The bass fishing didn't heat up at first as we worked down a break. It looked to me like the weeds had been recently treated. It wasn't quite what I expected - more sparse and thin clumps.

At the very first inside turn on a bigger point we could see going out into the lake a ways I caught my first solid keeper on a clear Bill Norman Deep N. Did I mention the water was clear to slightly stained - more so than I expected too?


Did well on deep cranks on Lake J at times - well almost anytime I threw
them most of the day!

For a few casts every cast I threw up onto the side of the point I got whacked! Some were keepers and some were dinks. Some hit pretty hard and some of them fought like they had true spirit. The crankbait bite slowed for a minute and I was getting a little shallow, hooking more grass sooner.

I could see the brighter sand grass on the point so I started tossing a Neko Rig and a 'Chicken' Rig up onto the sand grass. The bite was ON again! They were grabbing it before it got to the bottom, or right after the first or 2nd hop TUNK and I'd be into another bass. Still a mix of small keepers and dinks. They were jumping and running fast (from their 'buddies' I think). So I was losing some worms to them when they would jump and shake the rig.

Meanwhile, Derek went back to our popper bite and he was into them almost every cast too. This lasted for a few minutes of fun fun! The bass started catching on to after a good number of fish.

We started working our way out the point trying to cast to the drop in 9-11 or so feet. We fished out into scattered weeds in 12 to 15 feet. We would go up on top of the point in 5 to 8 feet. We would hit a little wad of bass and catch a few fast. Then we'd move a little.

There did not seem to be a magic depth or magic location. We were catching bass at all depths from top to bottom. Nothing was definitely catching bigger bass either though we averaged a little better size keepers overall when were on the break or fishing out a little deeper on crankbaits, worms and a black/blue jig and pig. We even did a little better a few times on poppers out off the break a short ways!

I, being the guy who gets bored easy and having been fishing a popper a lot lately, I broke out a Sammy and started walking the dog. I can throw it a long ways so I heaved it out to some darker spots up on top of the point in the bright sand grass. KABLOOM!! My first cast the Sammy got crushed by a cinder block blast reminiscent of a small peacock bass strike!


Topwater Sammy blasting bass on Lake J

The bass fought hard and I was more than a little surprised that it was just a solid keeper not a whopper. Derek said if I wasn't happy with that strike I couldn't be made happy! I think you can tell by the look on my face that I was pleased!

The bass had the lure crossways in it's maw and had 5 of 6 possible hook points stuck solid in it! In the next ~30 casts I caught 3 more keepers off the top of the point, all solid, on the Sammy I had almost the fully gamut of topwater bites with the first BLAST, then a 'suck it down' type hit, then a slash from the side and the final 1 just rolled up over top of the Sammy to kill it! All 4 were hooked solid!

Talk about fun!

The rest of the day Derek would go back to topwater more than I would - I don't think I ever picked up the popper all day because so many different fast techniques were working along with plastic worms - plus I had a middle of the day conference call with the MDNR about some possible partnering fishing activities that broke up my fishing. Derek would invariably catch bass on the popper every time he tried it though they averaged smaller later in the day.

I kept busy on crankbait including deep divers when we were out from the weeds farther, and a KVD 2.5 when we were shallower. Only caught 1 pike all day on a shallow crank but I enjoyed a bunch of great crankbait strikes throughout the day with lots of little spurts of action most often when were on the few obvious points on the lake.

Whenever I picked up the Neko Rig or the Chicken Rig it usually didn't take long to get bit either though I started getting into some worm stealers later in the day...

Though we tried fishing as deep as 17 feet and moved around a lot we never found any big bass. Another guy in a bass boat said he was catching bigger ones early on a jig out off the break but he was birddogging us a little when we got there because we were catching lots of bass and he said his bite had just died. I don't know if we would have caught bigger bass in earlier in the morning but we caught quite a few keepers so I'm happy.

We had a number of instance of small spotty topwater busting of bass along breaks and a short ways off the breaks. We even had some diving gulls a few times near us though we decided since we were catching bass we wouldn't go off chasing them. They moved along pretty fast too so I think it was a good move.

The bass just seemed to be all over the place and moving around quite a bit except on the first big point where we caught the most bass. They were moving a lot but they stayed pretty tight to the point anyways.

When we could cast towards a spot a bass busted we often got bit or we would have a flurry in that general area if we got there pretty quick. When it was about time to leave mid-afternoon things had slowed down about as much as they did all day. We didn't have too much trouble deciding to go over to the first big point again and that's where I caught my biggest bass of the day.

We were catching a few again on poppers and jigs (Derek), and worms and crankbaits (me). I had switched to a C-flash bluegill deep crank because I thought maybe the bigger bass would appreciate the gesture . I was fishing the weed break, and I turned and fired a cast way out away from the break while we were already sitting in 12-13 foot. I reeled the crankbait down and about the time it reached it's deepest point it got hammered! Probably my best crankbait strike of the day.


It wasn't a monster but it was longer than any bass I'd landed this day and it has a one fat, fat belly. We caught several bass that had real fat bellies but this one was my fattest. It even jumped a couple times too so yeah, it was a nice day of bass fishing!

Another thing that made the day fun was for awhile the deep crankbait bass were doing the hit the lure just as it turned to come up to the boat! I love when they do that, the sneaky little bass! I would sometimes see them dart out of the weeds to whack the crankbait just as it changed vibration and turned up! Made for more excitement that way and I got most of them even when they surprised me!

[21XDC]

I can tell exactly where you are, But I wont say anything "This time" 8^)

Nice day for sure.

[djkimmel]

You may well be able to do that but I appreciate that you don't because it's not fair to a friend who told me I should go fish one of his favorite lakes! Sometimes you've got to protect your sources and it's not like there aren't plenty of good lakes in Michigan with 11,000 and the Great Lakes to choose from!!!