Lake St. Clair

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Have been chomping at the bit to make a run up to St. Clair. Couple small windows of opportunity coming up this week and next.  Cold weather/water temps and rain have kept me away.  Not much to see on the satellite images and what I did see looked pretty soupy. Does anyone have any idea if there is any favorable water to fish   Or heard of others out and catching any??  Made the 3 hour trip a few years back and in three days we caught 2 smallies because the water looked like coffee with creamer. After giving it the ole college try each day we resorted to fishing the channels. Also does anyone have a good link to a water temp site?? 
   Thanks in advance for any assistance.  Much appreciated.

[21XDC]

Many have fished there including me... Look at the BBC Michigan forum for details... I'm not going for 1-2 more weeks... It's chocolate milk and will be for a while. Lk Huron is muddy too keeping it from clearing up.

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Man I was afraid of that .  Thanks Mike !!!

[Hollada]

Google belle isle water temp

[dartag]

To me it's not worth the trouble driving over and back until May.  It takes me 50 minutes in the morning and almost 2 hours in the afternoon.   I will suffer it out on inland lakes until May.   Only catching 30-40 a day will have to do.  I will have to go practice to defend out title in the DK.   

[fiker]

You'll have to teach me how to catch 30-40 a day. 

[djkimmel]

  Have been chomping at the bit to make a run up to St. Clair. Couple small windows of opportunity coming up this week and next.  Cold weather/water temps and rain have kept me away.  Not much to see on the satellite images and what I did see looked pretty soupy. Does anyone have any idea if there is any favorable water to fish   Or heard of others out and catching any??  Made the 3 hour trip a few years back and in three days we caught 2 smallies because the water looked like coffee with creamer. After giving it the ole college try each day we resorted to fishing the channels. Also does anyone have a good link to a water temp site?? 
   Thanks in advance for any assistance.  Much appreciated.

1) Pretty much any link you could ever want can be found on one page: http://www.greatlakesbass.com/weather/.

2) If someone is catching them recently on St. Clair they aren't talking apparently... but I suspect as many have pointed out - the lake is mud with lots of floating trash and no one is really on them yet! I was told Monday that the ramp at Crocker still needed to be dredged and cleaned out yet with no docks. That could change any day but I would confirm or check before heading to that ramp.

[djkimmel]

To me it's not worth the trouble driving over and back until May.  It takes me 50 minutes in the morning and almost 2 hours in the afternoon.   I will suffer it out on inland lakes until May.   Only catching 30-40 a day will have to do.  I will have to go practice to defend out title in the DK.   

Had a meeting in Detroit all day yesterday. The looonnngg drive home with frequent dead stops for no apparent reason reminded me why I could never live in that part of the state...!! sheesh!

[WishingIwasfishing]

Had a meeting in Detroit all day yesterday. The looonnngg drive home with frequent dead stops for no apparent reason reminded me why I could never live in that part of the state...!! sheesh!
[/quote]

BUT I can be on St. Clair in 15 minutes any day, and that's with those frustrating stops. So for now I will deal with it LOL

[djkimmel]

I could handle 15 minutes too!

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Saw a video fishing report from Justin at Sportsman's Direct yesterday and they have dredged Crocker launch.  Not sure if all lanes were open but you can launch a boat.

[Firefighter Jeff]

  Oh, and when I go to St. Clair, the trip has to be at least an overnight to go that far.  I used to do the one day trips to Erie at Sandusky.  Leave about 1-2 am and get home about 10-11.  I'm way too old to do that stuff in a day.  ZZZZzzzzz   

[thedude]

i do day trips - little over 2hrs to get to mile road ramps. Leave early, arrive around 7 or 8 - deal with a little traffic, stay until dark, leave - no traffic home by 10 or 11

[motocross269]

I know this is GreatlakesBASS.com...but guys are catching the Walleyes on the river.....I wouldn't want to be there on the weekends, I saw pictures of guys lined up out of Elizabeth park for a mile this morning...If I was going to get out I would definetly go chase a limit of walleye right now for a couple of meals..During the week..

I would be willing to bet the bass are biting somewhere on LSC...Seems like guys always find ways to catch them..

[dartag]

I will be going walleye fishing during the week.   The last couple years with FB and the other sites it is about an hour to launch during the week to.  Erie Metro Park Launch was full this morning.   My first LSC bass outing will be around May 1 getting ready for the DK Open.   Lot of inland lake fishing to keep me amused.

[triton22]

just got home from st clair spent 4 hours on the very muddy mile roads , no bits but did see some clean water coming out of the channels

[djkimmel]

Unless we keep getting lots of rain and wind, it can clear up within a few days so it could get good soon. I just have seen no reports from ANYONE of catching more than a bass or two out there in the past couple weeks. I guess that just means that sometime soon probably anglers will be out there catching a bunch of hungry bass!

Glad to hear they cleaned out the Crocker Ramp - thanks for sharing that! I figured it could be any day considering past seasons.

I know I heard in the past of plans to build a breakwall out there somewhere in the bay to minimize the pileup of debris and muck at that ramp but no one now seems to know about such plans (or where I heard it from??). One Parks person told me if they had discussed such plans in the past maybe they figure now the money might be better spent elsewhere in the long run? If that has any positive effect on a nice, new boat ramp on Belle Isle I would agree with that. Hopefully there may be some public meetings on this very topic in a couple-three months.

[Firefighter Jeff]

Unless we keep getting lots of rain and wind, it can clear up within a few days so it could get good soon. I just have seen no reports from ANYONE of catching more than a bass or two out there in the past couple weeks. I guess that just means that sometime soon probably anglers will be out there catching a bunch of hungry bass!

Glad to hear they cleaned out the Crocker Ramp - thanks for sharing that! I figured it could be any day considering past seasons.

I know I heard in the past of plans to build a breakwall out there somewhere in the bay to minimize the pileup of debris and muck at that ramp but no one now seems to know about such plans (or where I heard it from??). One Parks person told me if they had discussed such plans in the past maybe they figure now the money might be better spent elsewhere in the long run? If that has any positive effect on a nice, new boat ramp on Belle Isle I would agree with that. Hopefully there may be some public meetings on this very topic in a couple-three months.

    I heard the same thing about them building a breakwall or something there.  Only makes sense.  I remember last year it was down to only two places to launch out of 6.  I think this was near the end of April. You couldn't leave your motor running while you parked the trailer because even with the motor trimmed up it would suck in floating crap and block the water intakes.   I by chance had the number of the local DNR and asked when it would be dredged.  He said the following week.  I told him by then all the launch would be unusable !!

[dartag]

Every time I launched last year I would trolling motor out about 100 yards.   Saw quite a few guys get stuck in the GOO.   Sure hope they clean it up.  Makes it so much easier to fish where I like to fish the mile roads.   

[djkimmel]

It does need a more permanent solution really of some kind. Maybe I will ask about the break wall idea again next chance I get and see what they say this time.