Grand River Break it down...

[SODY]

DJ and others how did you do?? The results are not posted yet.
I was stuck at a work function and could not go. The BFL schedule is just not working for me this year, I'm missing it and all you guys.
I did win another CATT, looks like several of us will make the classic and they have promised a web-site upgrade in a letter to their members (Good News). Also the results of the shootout series are on KDAWG.net.

I would be particularly intrested in how Mac was after the discharge of sewage etc. Has any one fished her and is the damage all cleaned?
What was it like in 90 degree heat!!! Was the coast guard festival on...did anyone get busted for no wake. let's talk BFL!!

[djkimmel]

Holy Smokes! You have a lot of questions! I did not get home until tonight because of our TBF State Championship today. I had to get the camper off and unpack, and after two mornings in a row of 3:30 - 4:00 AM wakeup calls, I will be unable to answer all your questions tonight.

BFL: I think Norm or Nomran Green onw with 16-something. Eric Bond (a member of this forum) took 2nd with 14-something. He's on a hot streak. rufus also took 3rd or 4th in the BFL with 12-12 I believe.

On the nonboater side, team houston took 3rd I think and Bish took 6th with ~7 to 9+ (somewhere in there, but I can't really remember at this time). Oh! I almost forgot - young Troy Stokes also finished high up - possibly 2nd,  but definitely top 5.

I did not hear any definites on Macatoilet.

I did not have a weekend I want to remember unfortunately. Bish says I actualll moved up in the BFL standings even though I only caught 1 small keeper in Muskegon.

Coast Guard festival was just starting so it wasn't too bad yet.

A fair number of 10 lbs+ bags on the boater side. 

[grasslakebasspro]

I found fish in practice but the large amounts of rain water flowed down the Grand late Friday into Saturday and my water was muddied.  I zeroed for the tournament and dropped from 20th place to 51st due to the zero.

I yet have had a good tournament on the Grand. 

Well...on to Lake Erie for our next BFL..

[Team houston]

I had my best day on the grand in 20 yrs as a non boater.  I caught two limits of fish but could not get a kicker. I am not complaining 8.12 and 4th place I will take all day long. We caught all our fish in Spring lake. We found one magic dock that had a school under it. My partner and I took 6 keepers from it. A lot better fishing this time than in years past. lots of limits, even 5 or 6 on the co-angler side.

[Eric]

I went big, and got me a limit that went 8-2.  All from under Spring Lake docks, too.  Practiced Spring Thurs and did pretty decent.  Practiced the river and bayous Friday and never got a keeper.  My partner Saturday caught keeper smallies dropshotting the break.  And I caught a boatload of catfish on the same dropshot in the same places.

[rufus]

Wow, what a day and practice on the Grand River. It was nowhere near what I was expecting. I had a great practice fishng from Tuesday through Friday. I fished White, Muskegon, and the Grand River (2 days on the river). White was red hot on Tuesday. We caught a lot of 2-2 1/2 pounders and 4 over 3. Muskegon was tought to fish on Wednesday. My best fvie from White went about 13 1/2 pounds. It was extremely rough and no finesse fishing was to be had on the north and east shores. I managed 5 good fish including a 3 3/4 pound smallie and a 3 1/2 largie and the Coach had one 4 pound smallie. My five from Muskegon would have went about 14 pounds. The Grand proved to be the best I found though, I fished areas I had never fished to learn new water on Thursday and found a few big largemouths from 3-3 1/2 pounds. I also found an area that was chuck full of 2+ pound fish. On Friday I had my mind set on what I was to do for the tourney so I just "junk fished" all day looking for different stuff in case I needed something to go to. I checked my number one spot first thing making only two casts, I caught a 3 on the first cast and pulled my splashoot away from a good fish and had two other fish chase it in as I was speed reeling it back to the boat. I never made another cast and tried the new stuff the rest of the day. I got onto another good pattern that produced8 more keepers in a few diiferent spots on the river, but they were just 14 1/2-15" fish. I was fortunate to draw boat 5 and was able to get to my 2 pound spot first. I had two fish in the livewell before I saw the first boat come into view. I was then quickly crowded in by 4 other boats. One of them was within 10 feet of me a few times, but justice was served and I put a limit in the boat and culled one out and my co-angler had two. A co-angler in another boat caught two also and the rest of the boats went keeperless. I then went to my big fish spot and my partner and I both immediatley lost three fish 3+ pounds a piece. I broke one off on the jump and lost one on the jump and he lost one on the jump. We then caught a couple shorts and moved about 50 yards. We hit a honeyhole that got him his limit in about 15 minutes and I culled out two more fish. To make a long story a little shorter we sat there and whacked them the rest of the day. I ended up with 15 keepers and my coangler had 10. We lost at least 5 other good fish, but the first three we lost were the big ones. I caught nearly every fish on a green pumpkin Senko and a few in the morning on a magnum splashoot. My partner caught all his fish on the Senko. All but one of the fish I caught in the morning was culled on my secondary spot. All of our fish came from the Grand. The morning fish were shallow from 3-5 feet and the secondary fish were in 10-17 feet of water.
God Bless and Good Fishin'
Rufus

[dhuff]

Good job Rufus.  What place did you end up in?

[Andy]

You can dropshot springlake ?? I would think that it would be part of the river system, therefor making that a no no. Or am I wrong.

[kalidunn]

Andy,

Didn't you also have someone doing the same thing in Lake Macatoilet last week during BFL practice. Maybe I no not understand the rules around dropshotting the great lakes.

Ken D.

[Andy]

Ya sure did, he said he was doing good on it to. Maybe he was sheephead fishing ? were some big ones in there were he was fishing. Maybe Mr Kimmel can enlighten us with his words of wisdom.

[canvsbk]

Spring Lake is not a drowned river mouth. OK to drop shot.

[djkimmel]

Read the 2nd post on this thread from January for the whole story as of 2006. I was asked this question by several anglers Friday. I was glad to see I got the answer right (my memory has been spotty lately).

What I didn't get right, losing a practice day on Friday, was that Muskegon had gotten pretty tough and the Grand was the place to be (or Macatoilet). So I ran to Muskegon and blew too much of my day thinking it was only a matter of time before I came across the big bites. I almost went to Spring Lake, but I couldn't figure out which way was 2nd guessing verses just not wanting to bounce around on Lake Michigan some more. That's what happens when you let previous season bias rule your decision verses present conditions and indications.

[angolajones]

I practiced with Rufus all week and bird dogged him.  He was catching a lot of fish and I caught a few.  Since it was my first time on this lake, I had a lot of water to cover.  Tourney day came and I told my partner I was on nothing but I thought we could catch fish out of Stearns.  (I didn't want to fish Rufus' water since I knew where he was going.)  I ended up with three out of there and one in the river.  My four went 8-10 and that lack of a fifth fish cost me a check.  From what I heard, the Grand fished a lot better than in the past.  I enjoyed this river and hope to figure it out someday.

Jonesy

[225XS4Garza200PXL]

I had a decent practice at the Grand and Spring Lake... I spent 1 and a half days on each and was catching decent fish on some different patterns. I also wanted to fish a spot on the last day of practice but ran out of time. It turns out my co-angler wanted to fish that same spot. We pull up and Rufus is already there... I try to give him enough room while he just put on a fishing exhibition... Rufus is a good guy and he had a few other boats to deal with. He kept his cool and I think highly of him even though this was my first time meeting him. After sitting there and only catching one nice keeper I had to move because he wasn't budging... I had a pattern goin with deep docks that was producing the better fish this week. I had a couple 3 lbers doing this and good solid keepers. Well to make a long story short... I didn't catch any keepers doing this... it was a bust and all those docks and others similar to it produced only small fish. I had some good bites and some good fish on but I lost my focus early and I miss and lost alot of them. I believe I should have weighed a limit but I blew my opportunities and thats something you cannot do on this body of water... I ran back to the first spot of the morning and me and another boat were closing in... I got there first and he wasn't happy... I caught another keeper dropshotting and spent the rest of the day there...

The Stratos ran great and that 225 XS is a beast!!

I'll see you guys at the next one...

Jose

[cameraguy]

Man, no wonder I couldn't get any fish off of docks in Spring Lake late Sunday morning.  You guys picked 'em all clean like vacuum cleaners.  Nice work.  Very thorough. 

[CuradoKev]

I had the coolest boater I've ever had in the BFL. We went pad fishing for the first few hours and after he realized his big fish were gone. He looked at me and said "I'm done fishing" and I said "What?". He said he was there to win and didn't need points. So he decided to let me fish to get enough points to hopefully make the regional, he did fish some. But he watched me screw up a few times and cost myself enough fish that I could have cashed a check.

I've had boaters ask me where I want to go or let me fish a spot first. But Barry Dagan was WAY too nice, watching me fish for a couple hours went above and beyond being nice and I appreciate it. Plus, he protected an area on the river while I picked it apart and put my 3rd keeper in the boat. Very cool... As they say "luck of the draw" 

Ended up 28th with 3 fish - 2 on Horny Toads and 1 one a beaver and I had a nice jump in points.

Congrats to Team Houston and Rufus for a great finish on the Grand. I doubt we'll ever go back, fine with me.

Ckev

[Troy Stokes]

Dan, quite to my surprise I did make it into the top 5 in fact I took 3rd place. I was expecting there to be more limits taken out of Muskegon Lake by the co-anglers but I was wrong. I had a total weight of 9-10 and actually caught my three biggest fish in the river. My dad also caught a fish so now we are both making the top 40 cut. How were the weights on the TBF tournament?

[SethV]

Well this was my first time at the Grand river.  Based on research, I decided that I did not like the Grand river, even before I first saw the place.  In fact, the first time I saw the water of the Grand was tournament morning.

I decided to travel to Grand Haven the weekend prior, and get a couple of scouting days in.  On Saturday I fished Port Sheldon and White, and fished Muskegon on Sunday.  I was moving quickly, just trying to get a feel for the water and hoped to pick an area to focus on.

My tournament practice started on Thursday morning.  I left Wixom at 3:00 AM and arrived at White Lake at 6:10.  My plan for the day was to fish the entire north 1/2 of the lake.  I started on the slop near the ramp.  1 small blow up on Kermit.  I then fired up and ran to the mouth outlet to the big lake, and started to fish my way back.  No solid locations, but the fish were really easy to pattern.  Backs of the coves, on the slower tappering shorlines in milfoil without gunky moss in 6 -9' of water.  Plenty of 2 lb fish, without fishing any 1 area really hard.  My Dad arrived at about 3 PM, and I had finished the north shore (long way all on the trolling motor!), so we fished the west shore.

Day 2 of practice, we again went to White.  This time we focused on the south side.  Getting on the water early, we had a killer time with topwater.  Those fish are so stupid and agressive, gotta love it!  I knew I would not be there that early on tx day, so we used it as a search tactic to hunt for mean fish.  By 2 PM we had fished the remainder of White, so we pulled out to refuel and prep tackle.  I had 11 GPS spots that I felt I could catch good numbers of keepers out of. 

Tx day I had already decided to go to White...as you can tell by my prefishing I had no backup in case it got windy.  I would just have to tough it out and make the run, conditions would not be a factor.  Luckily, tx morning we had a moderate SW wind, and I made the run to White with ease.  After 20 min of fishing, I thought I was in trouble.  My co had 1 short, I had nothing.  Finally, the fish decided to play and I had my limit in about 40 minutes.  I continued catching fish, with about 12 keepers for the day.  I even got one that my dad caught in a weed bed.  Very distinct hole in the weeds.  First pitch to it and she bit.  Nice 2 1/2 lb fish.

The run back was a tad bit bumpier, but not bad.  I tried to take care of my fish, stopped often to give them a break, but it was too much for my smallest fish.  She died as I was waiting to weigh in (I even got back early).  Bad thing was that I had 2 other fish her exact same size on the balance beam, decided to keep her.  Oh well.

I ended up 9th.  Moved me up to 14th in the points.  Bad thing was that I neglected to register for Ranger Cup...hey, my first year in Michigan, I won't win that!!!  Wrong, it went to the guy in 10th....doh, there goes $500

It was a great time, and I had a great non boater, Dave Matual, for the day.

Seth V

[SODY]

Way to go guy's, what a great talk, I almost felt like I was in the boat. Way to go Bishop! Great Day Rufus!

Dan,Does that clinch a spot for JB on the co-anglers side, I noticed Jason Madigan cashed a check too, I like that kid.

Sody.

[djkimmel]

I forgot about Jason - half of MadWags - and I even talked to him there. Jason is a good angler.

I haven't actually looked at the standings yet because I had to go right to the TBF event prep and follow through (still things to do).

I have no excuse for fishing poorly. Possibly, a Friday practice would have shown me that things had changed on the Grand more than what we saw the weekend before (cameraguy liked it better than I did) and more homework would have shown that another lake was doing better than I'd heard. I'd say I fished like a girl, but that would be unfair to girls everywhere. I know a few of the Spring Lake spots I would have fished were popular and had boats on them before I could have gotten to them.

I think we need events like the Grand to really pull out the one-lake specialists from the better rounded anglers. I thought the weighin was pretty good for many.

I don't know if anyone is 'clinched' yet. A lot can happen in two events.