Saginaw bay may 26th

[fishon1219]

I have a Fishers of Men event next saturday and thought I should get up for some pre-fishing seeing how I have never been to the bay before.

My brother and I launched the boat at 7:30am and made our way to our first starting spot and were greeted with rain and a nice wind blowing about 10 mph out of the east. We arrived at spot or should I say area 1 and found 8 boats anchored fishing for bass and 3 guys fishing the Top Bass event in the area so we figured we should catch a few fish.

We started out throwing spinner baits and my brother get the first fish of the day a 4lb walleye. Not what we are after, but we throw it in the Livewell thinking we could make some friends around the area later on.

I started a conversation with a guy fishing the TOP tournament and asked him if we could just hang around and watch him bed fish for a little bit and he was ok with that. Just than he hangs a 3 lber and gets it in the boat and throws it back. I ask him if he already has a limit and he says no. He has one in the well that is just over 5 and will not keep anything under 3 1/2.

I didnt belive him until he caught another one about 4lbs and put it in the well and didnt cull out another. He said he was real confident that he could get 5 fish over 4 so he wasent going to keep anything smaller than 3 1/2.

The conditions in the morning made sight fishing difficult because you just couldnt see a bed until the boat was right on top of it.

We started to fish again and caught several largemouth in the area on tubes that were solid 3 lb fish. I left the bed fish I could see alone so the guys in the tournament could have them.

About 10:00am the rain had quit and the sun was starting to shine a little bit and I moved out to some deeper water in the 6 ft range. You still couldnt see anything yet so I was just fan casting my tube and working it real slow back to the boat when I have one about 6lbs on for one jumps worth and get off. I throw a bouy and we procedd to do circles around the bouy and catch several smallies in the 4lb range.

This area kinda dried up and the sun was shining brightly now so me and my brother move up shallow to the back of the bay we were fishing in and I could see beds everywere. My brother has never experienced anything like this and I looked back at him and said " If the sun stays up you are going to have a great time today". He has no Idea what I am talking about so I ask him if he can see all of those tires in the water and he says "Yes" and I tell him those are all bass beds.

We move up in an area with probably 20 beds within casting range from the boat and the boy has a blast. This whole bay was loaded with beds and we caught at least 50 bass each on spinnerbaits, tubes, dropshots. It didnt seem to matter what we threw.

The biggest fish in the boat for us was right at 5-2 and several that were just over 4. Our top 5 would have given us right around 22 lbs and I am now feeling pretty good about next saturdays tournament.

I dont know if the big fish will still be up there next week, But I am guessing some of the deeper beds i found will have some toads on them with more making there way in there o spawn.

The big problem is we are launching on the totaly opposite side of the bay from were we fished saturday so it is going to be a 25 mile run to this area.

I did this on purpose in case Mother nature gives us a strong south wind. That way I will have an area to run to and fish and be out of the nasty stuff for a while.

My practise plan for next friday is to find some stuff around the Charitys and some more stuff around the launch area.

Sorry I didn't give the exact location were I was fishing, it is by no means a secret area, but I just dont want to give it away yet.

[MBell]

FYI ABA is going out over there sunday so they will be all over that area practicing on saturday.  I was there on friday and it looked like the bigger fish were females, there were a few beds with pairs on them. 
-Matt

[thomas]

Kevin,

My son and I are leaving Friday morning for AuGrus. How about you and Mark meet us at Tony's in Birch Run for breakfast and we'll head out together.

thomas