Who caught fish today?

[Hollada]

Where?  How many? With what?

darn I'm jealous!

I did yard work :-(

[tim4081]

I had to work today but my son went out late afternoon.  First hour or so nothing, but then found a shallow bay where the temp was about 4 degrees warmer than main lake.  By the time he came in he figured over fifty and both his thumbs were raw.  He was fishing Spring Lake.  Most  were dinks but a few two to three pounders. I'll be out tomorrow for sure.

[robhj]

Felt great to get out and finally chase some smallies. I did manage 15, fishing from 9:30-3:30. Biggest 2 went 4.7 & 4.2, all smallmouth. It was cloudy all day and water temps were 48-50. I thought the water temps would be a few degrees cooler because of the cold spring and recent melting. Last year the water temps were around 54 degrees on this same lake. It was difficult to pick some areas apart with that strong N/NE wind. I threw jerks, lipless cranks, weighted senkos, wiggle wart, & shad rap. Half my fish came on weighed senko & then as the day progressed, the rest of my fish came on a suspending jointed crawdad colored shad rap. I heard LSC was on fire today. Hopefully some of you were able to partake in that early season smallie smack down.

[motocross269]

I had to work but from early reports it sounds like they did good on LSC...That is good news.

[dartag]

Well it was interesting.

Fished Kent and the first challenge was getting the boat in the water. Had to back the truck 1/2 way to the I-96 bridge to get the boat off.  Not sure I have seen the water this low this time of year.  Water was stained with about a foot viability. We Caught fish on a rattle trap and square bill. Wind started howling about 10:00 and that didn't help. Caught about a dozen largemouth. Didn't see a smallie all day. Took a while to get the boat back on the trailer in the wind.

Today I will be blade baiting in clear water on my lake.

ss

[TheFishinPollock]

Can't get out anywhere up here still. Lots of ice still left on the lakes 

[Hollada]

Too bad about kent.  I'd have thought they'd have it full by now.


Any one hit lsc?

[21XDC]

Fished St Clair and caught one 4lb LM , one 25 inch pike, one 32 inch musky, and............. 50-60 smallies.. Most in the 2-4 lb range.... All caught on gold 1/2 oz blade baits in 4-7 ft of water 47*-50*. Jesse and I had a ball, But the wind changed direction and we had to go 10 mph to get back to the ramp...  Only took 2 waves over the bow.   

[YpsiBass]

Cass was a tough bite.  So. Much. Wind.  Trolling motor batteries were dead by the time we got off the water around 3:30.  Do not like trailering boat in wind.  Yuck.  Caught a couple LM and a decent sized walleye who ended up on my dinner plate. Going somewhere next weekend, but not sure where yet. 

[Hollada]

Xdc- great job on the smb.  Did you use jerkbaits at all or was it too dirty?  Sounds like blades were the ticket.   Were you jigging the blades aggressively or was it a light touch?

I'm getting out next weekend finally.  Saturday on LSc for smallies and Sunday on the upper DR for some fryer food. Yum.

[21XDC]

The key to fishing blades in cold water, Is to lift them off the bottom as slow as you can, yet making them vibrate. Lifting them to let them only vibrate 3-4 times. Then gently set them back down. All fish in cold water are sluggish, including baitfish. Making the blade sluggish is golden.  So when you think your working it slow enough, slow down some more.

Make sure you try and feel the bait crash on the bottom... The bites feel even less than that. Hook sets are easy and free...

To me, This technique blows away the jerkbait. In the wind and waves, the blade has no competition casting or feeling.. I'm a darn good jig fisherman, and this is basically the same feel for colder water.

[Mike S.]

I spent 3.5 hours on Mona Lake with my dad last night. I caught 4 smallies, none over 3 pounds, and a 4.5 pound largemouth. Dad got 2 small pike, 1 largemouth, and 6 smallies. All were under 3 pounds.

Water temp was 55. All fish were caught in less than 8 feet of water on a jerkbait and a swim bait.   

[mikesmiph]

I didn't have a boat to ride in, so no fishing for me.

[Grinny]

I wasn't able to get out yesterday, but managed to get out for a few hours today on the Thornapple. Landed around a dozen, mainly smallmouths but I did get 2 largemouths and about a 20 pound carp! I caught them on blade baits, tubes, and soft plastics. The biggest smallies were just under 3 pounds, and most the fish were barfing up crayfish on their way to the boat. The carp hit a 1/2 ounce silver blade in about 13 FOW...that was a first.

[bassmandan]

Cass was a tough bite.  So. Much. Wind.  Trolling motor batteries were dead by the time we got off the water around 3:30.  Do not like trailering boat in wind.  Yuck.  Caught a couple LM and a decent sized walleye who ended up on my dinner plate. Going somewhere next weekend, but not sure where yet. 

i was actually out there today and did ok i guess, we caught 25 smallies and 1 largemouth, 1 pike and a walleye that came home as well

[TimH]

Hit St. Clair both Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday was good directly behind the Ford House.  At the suggestion of many people here on this site, I finally decided to give blade baits a try.  I'm not sure why I ever hesitated to use them before, but to those who suggested it...thank you, thank you, thank you!  I did extremely well with smallmouth in the 2 - 3lbs range...until another angler decided that he needed to fish 20 yards from me.  It was very frustrating because I got to my spot at 6:15AM and this guy comes flying up at 7:30AM and just takes it over like I wasn't even there.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sharing waters with other anglers, just don't be close enough to me where I can read the gear ratio stamped on your reel.  What makes it even worse is, I know the guy.  Not real well, but I have fished at least several tournaments against him so we know each other.  Anyways, after a few minutes of fishing with this guy close to me, I decided to move spots instead of get upset.  I ran about three miles down the lake to a break wall area that always produces well for me and this year wasn't any different.  Stayed in this spot for an hour and did well again with the blade bait and lipless cranks.  Decided to switch it up and hit some canals for largemouth and am very glad I did.  In a short period of time I had caught three 4lbs plus largemouth and several 3lbs largemouth by swimming a black and chartreuse chatterbait around docks and seawalls.  Called it a day around 1:00PM
Sunday went back out at 6:00AM and was greeted by a north/northeast wind.  Decided it wasn't worth fighting the wind just to fish heavily stained water for smallies when I could head back to the canals and target green fish.  Went back to the same area and threw nothing but chatterbaits and swim jigs and did extremely well on largemouth with many in the 3 - 4lbs range.  Trolling motor battery started to die out early (think the battery is going bad because it had a full charge on it), so I called it a day around 11:00AM. 
All in all, a good couple days of fishing.  Working both Saturday and Sunday this weekend, so I won't be getting out then, but I am taking off next Monday and am planning on hitting an inland lake...just not sure which one yet.

[Hollada]

Tim,

Thanks for the report.  Sounds like a great weekend!

[YpsiBass]

Cass was a tough bite.  So. Much. Wind.  Trolling motor batteries were dead by the time we got off the water around 3:30.  Do not like trailering boat in wind.  Yuck.  Caught a couple LM and a decent sized walleye who ended up on my dinner plate. Going somewhere next weekend, but not sure where yet. 

i was actually out there today and did ok i guess, we caught 25 smallies and 1 largemouth, 1 pike and a walleye that came home as well

What did you catch them on? Wind was so rough on the main lake fishing the drops the only bites I got were back in some bays.

[Dave B]

I was able to getout saturday afternoon for about 4 hours, fished south end of the detroit river in the bays found 51f water and I got 8 nice largemouth on a jig and bluegill squarebill. It felt good to get out, cant wait to get out on st clair in 2 weeks

[bassmandan]

caught everything but 1 smallie on jerkbaits, almost everything came from the main lake and it was blowing. i had probably more follows than i caught fish nothing big though, i didnt weigh any of them but im guessing my best was 2 3/4lbs and probably a decent 12lb limit