Big ole Lake St. Clair Bass October 15, 2016

[djkimmel]

Okay, to be honest there was only 1 big ole St. Clair bass but a 5-8 smallmouth bass is always a nice catch and we caught a few more nice ones! Steve Peterson wanted to head to Lake St. Clair and wanted some company so he invited me along which was very nice of him to do.

He even bought a Canadian license so we could have some options. Unfortunately the weather was on the windy side so the bumpy water made running very far very fast very uncomfortable even though he has a big Crestliner. So we covered some water but we limited ourselves a little just to minimize the wet, bumpy rides.


I took a picture of the Lake St. Clair Metropark boat ramp while I waited for Steve. That's where we launched from.


We ran right to the Firecracker first because I thought we could catch a few there. I managed to catch a decent smallmouth bass on an Xtreme Bass Tackle Canadian Mist 4 inch tube with a 3/8 oz 2K goby jighead!

We fished there awhile without catching any other bass so we headed upstream to fish some of the channel edge.


Steve had spot lock on his trolling motor and he put me dead on an old waypoint of mine on a flat near the shipping channel when I whacked this big 5-8 smallmouth bass right on top of the spot of old! It felt great to set the hook and feel the big weight and head shake of a big smallmouth bass! I had to thank Steve for putting the boat right on the key spot.

Unfortunately, we couldn't buy another bit there. How there could be one big bass and no others that would bite there is always beyond me but that's smallmouth bass fishing sometimes. They don't always jump in the boat.

We fished more around the shipping channel along the edge and up on the flats without finding anymore bass. Not even wayward muskie which is surprising!

We ran out into the lake a few miles because it was calming down a little and fished some rocks out there. I whacked a big sheepshead on the same Canadian Mist tube setup. Tried a number of different techniques with only a few bites from what felt probably like perch.

Then we ran in back towards the Firecracker. We started fishing out in the lake a little ways and work our way towards the Firecracker area. I had a nice smallie about 3 pounds or so smack my tube but close to the boat it jumped and threw the tube! Darn, that one got away! They do that sometimes don't they?

We got all the way to the Firecracker when I got another thump on my tube. I set the hook and was into a strong fish!


Something wasn't right. It wasn't fighting exactly like a sheepshead but not like a bass for sure either. It would strip out some line and then do some big head shakes, and then it started rolling a little. I finally figured out it was a big Channel Catfish! My first Lake St. Clair catfish! I've caught them all over the place over the years but despite Lake St. Clair being full of catfish I've never landed one. So I've broke that door open now. Who knows what will happen in the future now that I flung that door open!

After a bit of no more bites though I saw a boat nearby catch a nice bass and they apparently also caught a catfish apparently, I suggested we move across the channel to the number 2 marker. I used to catch them good there. But not today...

I caught another solid sheepshead on the St. Clair Flats channel side that hit hard, too hard to be a finicky smallmouth. Then I caught a dink smallie and missed another one. Steve missed several small bites too. I think we were in perch, gobies and dink smallies there but no keepers.

After that we ran out of time and headed in. I drove the boat up the Black Creek while Steve tried to get a topwater largemouth bite going but it was just one of those days.

Since this spring, the Michigan side of the lake has been slow and tough for most of us. It was amazing this spring but the smallies seem to have headed bigtime over to the Canadian side and stayed there because that is where a lot of the action seems to be for numbers.

[robhj]

Nice write up as always and even though you didn't catch many, it's always a great trip when you can manage one over 5.

[djkimmel]

Thanks! That's kind of how I felt about the day - we didn't get on them real good but the big ole toad made it a great day nonetheless!