Traverse city area help/suggestions

[Firefighter Jeff]

If the weather cooperates the wife and I are thinking about heading from
Our vacation lake in Ludington to the Traverse City area for a overnight trip. Does anyone have a nice little place that might be a little less expensive to stay, instead of right in TC ?? Also, if you were heading there this week, what waters would you fish for smallies? Thanks in advance for any help !!!!!!   Jeff

[motocross269]

I stayed at this place once...A little outdated but reasonable and clean..A little rough but not too bad...It is right on 31 headed up towards Elk Rapids..It sits in a nice woodsy area and has plenty of parking and spots to plug in your boat..There are fire pits and grills there you can use and the owner was pretty helpful...
http://www.camelot-inn.com/

If you are going to the Elk Rapids area the East Arm is awesome....

If you feel like staying south of TC Interlochen has some nice lakes around it...My club (Team Bass) fished a tournament on Green and Duck lake last year...They were both fun lakes with different types of structure and had both Largemouth and Smallmouth..Long lake is right there also...We stayed in a Cabin so I really don't know much about hotels/motels in that area....

Shouldn't you be practicing on Skegomog to get ready for the Fall open...

[thedude]

a good friend of mine owns the fairfield in town, nice place to stay. My guess is you will have trouble finding a place for the next 3 weekends however.

[Dan]

Friend of mine that posts on this site, Puma, said he whacked them on the bay yesterday. There are not many, if any, on the beds yet though.

[Dan]

Just thought that you might check one of several casinos up there. They often offer some pretty good deals for a night.

PS  Tear Drop Tournament on Manistee today. Winners weighed 16 and change.

[Redbone]

Its definitely a full house in TC this coming up weekend.  I'll be in the east bay for a few days.  I should have my boat with me if the weather is nice.  But usually not more than a few minutes of fishing at a time. Still should be worth the pain of bringing a boat.

[Firefighter Jeff]

Brian .......... I think I know of the place you are talking about. Didn't look like the parking area was very big for the boats, but I'll check it out. Oh, and your comment about Skeg was hilarious !!!!!!!!  I have fished Duck and Green a couple times. The East arm also. I was kinda checking for some up to date reports. Thanks though Brian.
    Justin, is that Inn on the bay?? Or across the street from it?? Oh we're not getting anywhere near TC during the weekend. Wanted to go maybe Wed/Thur or Thur/Fri this week, but I'm not sure the weather is going to cooperate. We might be able to go next week though.
   Dan, I may have to message you for some more information. I have fished the East arm in October and way on the south end during the summer. I could sure use some pointers on where to try. Not sure if launching out of Elk Rapids would be too far north right now or not, since they haven't spawned.  Oh and were most of the fish, smallies that were caught on Manistee??
   Redbone, not sure what you meant about only fishing a few minutes. LoL

    Thanks guys !!!

[Redbone]

Yeah, I dont get that part either.  Everyone should be able to fish for a min of 3-4 hours daily. 

[Dan]

I don't know the numbers of smallies vs largies from Manistee, but in the past several years there have been more and more largemouths caught. There will be a write up with pictures in a few days on my website. I didn't fish the Tear Drop tournament, but my son did.
I'll also try and get more info on the bay in the next few days. I have mega company coming for this weekend, and won't be able to fish for several days. We'll have to get together some time. I fish Hamlin a lot and have a cabin about 35 minutes east of there.

[djkimmel]

Some people say they haven't bedded yet on the Bay and others are saying there are tons of beds and some are already done. Always good to get conflicting information

Watch out for Shaw Grigsby. He's up there somewhere. Who know who else you might run into...

[Dan]

Who's saying they're done? I was hoping to get up there next week, and would like the latest. I know two friends were up there this past weekend.
I'm thinking because it was a late spring in the north that they will be spawning for a while on the bay. I'm getting reports that they really aren't up in any kind of numbers yet.

[Firefighter Jeff]

Well, it won't be near warm enough in the mornings but me and the wife are going to head up tomorrow morning. Dan (s). I talked with David Rose a little earlier and he said it should be pretty decent, that some fish were up And others not.

[thedude]

fairfield is a marriot chain he's on the south end of town away from the water - near the cracker barrel, meijer etc.

[TheFishinPollock]

Shaw was at Torch this morning. stopped in and chatted for a few on my way to work. As for beds we  just did 2 on the bays for nbaa and numbers were good.   Course  last tues was too windy for my 17 footer  so I skipped and today was west arm.   Course the TM cooked sunday and I couldnt fish it.  When I was out 2 sat ago there were lots of beds on the east shore of east arm ,but they were skitterish, Ya had to do some long range casting to get them to hit.

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Sorry this is late.  It should count as a report, shouldn't it Dan??  The wife and I saw Shaw also.  Pulled up to the same launch about 9am or so.  Of course I had to do the geeky "take some pics of his truck" deal. 

   The weather was pretty good.  A little breeze and pretty darn chilly.  I fished my way down the west side of East Bay.  I didn't see a whole lot of fish or beds.  Water temp was in the low 60's. Made it to the south end and saw Shaw.  He had two guys in his boat.  One with a camera. There was another boat with one guy in it tooling around. 

   I was fairly close but kept my distance.  Is it inappropriate to approach them on the water to say "Hey"    Anyway I only saw him get one fish in about 30 minutes.  Hmmm I caught the same...... one fish.  It was funny.  My wife was laying on the back deck bundled up some with a blanket and was checking out Shaw's boat with binoculars.  lol  I kept asking if she could tell what he was using or how he was working the bait. The two boats took off north and I said we should follow him and the wife said... "Why not??"  lol So we did.  He set down a couple miles north on the east side.  So did we.  I saw him get at least one more fish before he moved again.  I figured he was going back to the launch but his rig was still there when we pulled the boat at 3pm.

  The breeze settled down.  It was easy to see.  There were minimal amounts of beds in all the areas we fished.  Pulled a couple small fish off them.  Found a few more fish just into deeper water but they didn't want any of the many offerings I gave them.  It was really tough.

  Made it out the next day on the East bay after fishing Skeg in the morning. (Caught some fish   )  I didn't see Shaw's rig there or on the water.  So he either had to head home or the fishing wasn't that great for him either the day before.  The winds were even lighter.  Saw more fish cruising and even got a couple to turn around and come back for my bait, but one just nosed it and the other I missed on the hook set.  Tried a bunch of new areas, even went farther north but the fishing was tough tough tough.  I just hope the fishng was off and I'm not THAT bad of a fisherman  !!!!