Whopper in the Summer

I haven't posted too much about my fishing in the summer of 2016.  I notice that some of the places I blog about start to see a lot of pressure once I've posted about them, and I have seen a lot of people harvesting nice pike from the Looking Glass that take years to grow.  I get worried, too, that anglers fishing in places I blog about don't do a good job of cleaning up after themselves, and that people will think that it's me making  mess. It's not.  For that matter, behave when you are out.  I don't want people thinking some kid acting like a jerk is the guy with the blog.

I continue to have fun fishing in northern Michigan.  I attend a camp on natural resources north of Alpena in August, and always stop by the Thunder Bay River for some bass fishing;

Meanwhile, fishing along the Looking Glass is good.  Recently I caught two bass and three pike using a live target frog popper and a Heddon One knocker.  I have also had great success with a Heddon Super Spook Junior with a white body and a chartreuse head.  Black and blue hack attack jigs with a pacca chunk as a trailer are effective, too.

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Up North Success

Last week, on our annual trip to the Crooked River Lodge on the Crooked River near Alanson, Michigan, I tried my luck fishing from the dock behind the Lodge, again.  I did not have high hopes, as we have been coming to the Lodge for years, and I have never caught anything larger than a four-inch sunfish from the dock.  But I was pleasantly surprised this trip by abundant pike, bass and walleye.

My first encounter with a sizable fish Up North happened Sunday night, when I was fishing a chartreuse Lucky Craft jerk bait in the stained waters of the Crooked River.  This fish happened to be a legal northern pike, which surprise me quite a lot.

The next morning, I enjoyed more success from behind our hotel by one of the nicest walleyes I have ever caught and in one of the most surprising places.  At first I thought the fish was another pike, but I was surprised to see it was a walleye that had taken my jerk bait.

Throughout the rest of my time at the Lodge, I caught many pike and a nice northern Michigan bass.

I went to the Oden State Fish Hatchery a couple of times;  it's one of my favorite places to visit in all of Michigan.  Kids can fish on Tuesday and Saturday mornings in the big pond behind the hatchery visitor center, and it is a great way to get little kids started on fishing.  I'm a little old to participate now, but I helped kids fish. Teaching kids to fish is very enjoyable and I look forward to helping out again!

The Longest Day of Fishing, 2016

The time of year has finally come around when my dad and I spend the whole day fishing at various places around DeWitt on the Saturday closest to the longest day of the year, an annual event that we call The Longest Day of Fishing.

On Saturday, June 18, we started off our morning around 7:00 by fishing one of my favorite smallmouth fishing waters, the Grand River in Grand Ledge at Island Park.  The smallmouth fishing that day was pretty decent, but not great.  The tactic I used for the day was a small, 3 1/2 inch black tube on an 1/8th of an ounce jig head. 

The day started off kind of slow, with lots of small fish under 10 inches, but it was saved five minutes before we were going to leave by a nice, 17-inch smallmouth that I fought. for over a minute.  The smallmouth that I caught, was the biggest I have caught out of the Grand at Island Park so far, and it was a great fight with many jumps and long, drag-peeling runs.  I was proud to land such a cool fish after such a long fight in a fairly small river!

Armed with gold shiners from Grand River Bait and Tackle, our next stop was the Looking Glass River in DeWitt.  A lot of years on the Longest Day of Fishing, the Looking Glass is still flooded somewhat and not real fishable.  This year, I was in luck! 

I was excited for this part of my day, because just two days before, I had seen many pike in the river, and just that morning, friends were texting me about where I could find big pike in DeWitt's Riverside Park.  I was a little worried when we first arrived, because we only saw one pike, and I wondered where they'd all gone.  After we identified the one pike, I went in with a bobber and minnow rig, and quickly caught him.

This was a nice pike, about 32 inches long.  After this, the number of pike sitings started to increase, both at Riverside Park, and down the road at McGuire Park.  But as the day grew warmer, the fishing started to deteriorate. 

Later in the day, I visited Hawk Island Park in Lansing, where the week before, I had been catching catfish.  This is a photo from one of those trips.  Unfortunately, I was shut out during this trip.

We finished up the day fishing at Motz Park in northern Clinton County.  Although I did not catch any giants out there, I had fun closing the day by catching a bunch of blue gill on light tackle.  I would recommend Motz Park as a place to bring little kids who are fishing for the first time, as they'll catch a fish with almost every cast.

The day ended under the moonlight when the park closed at 9:30, making for a great Longest Day of Fishing!

Mid Michigan Bass Fishing





This weekend, I attended the Meridian Township Fishing Derby.  Last year I attended this event, and I won the category for the biggest fish, and I was hopeful for the same result this year.  I have fished this pond, at the Meridian Historic Village, a lot during the last few summers, so I had a good idea of where the fish could be found and what they were going to bite.  I was also hopeful because two days before, on Thursday, I had seen a man named Kelly stocking the pond with pike and bass that he had caught.  I thanked him for doing that! 

 

Fishing, unfortunately, was a little slow during the tournament.  Younger kids were catching some blue gill, but the bass were very elusive that day.  I did, however, manage to catch a 16.5 inch bass, which turned out to be the biggest fish caught during the day.  I caught this bass using one of my favorite approaches on this pond, which is fishing one of the many weed edges with a shiner below a bobber.  

 

 



 

 

I would like to do a shout out, and thank the gentleman named Kelly for stocking the pond and making it a great resource for kids who want to fish, and everyone else who worked hard and donated equipment to make the event a fun first day of summer vacation.  I was also pleased to talk with Mike Devlin, with the Meridian Township Recreation Department, and Mark Stephens, from Project F.I.S.H. at MSU.  These gentleman are real resources for young people like me, and they deserve our appreciation!

 

Nothing to Carp About

Several times over the Memorial Day weekend, I have hauled in some nice-sized carp: two here in the DeWitt area and one over in the Macatawa Channel at Holland State Park on  Lake Michigan. 

 

I saw several carp jumping at the Macatawa Channel, but I had been mostly catching white perch and I was surprised when my pole doubled over.  The carp, which is pictured below, probably weighed about 10 pounds, and I caught it on dropper rig with a base three-ounce sinker.  I did not have my net with me, and as I was fishing from the pier, and it would have been difficult to land the fish, given its size, so I released it in the water.  I was the only person on the pier that caught a carp while I was there, although other people were catching catfish and sheepshead.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back in DeWitt, I was catching carp locally on gulp worms.  These carp put up a really good fight!  I'm still a pike fisherman and a bass fisherman first and foremost, but I really enjoyed the battles I had with these carp!

 



Whopper in the Pond!



May has been more successful than usual for me in the Lansing area when it comes to fishing for bass.  Many of the bass were big, they were on their beds and they put up good fights.

 

 



 

 

Most of my fishing in May was done at the Meridian Township park over behind the Meridian Mall.  Generally, I found that the fishing was better from the shore than from the fishing dock.  I have been catching the majority of my bass on wacky-rigged senkos in natural colors.

 

 

Some of the bass in the pond are real brutes!  I am a little concerned that the pond is getting a lot of pressure, maybe because I talk about it too much on this blog, and that the fishing experience is being diminished, however.  I'll be looking for new fishing locations around mid-Michigan in the summer!

Catch and Immediate Release

 

I have been enjoying early season bass fishing in mid-Michigan.  In Michigan, from now until May 28, bass fishing is catch and immediate release only. To me, this means as soon as you catch a bass, you shouldn't diddle around measuring it or weighing it, or doing more than a quick photo.  Instead, put that bass back in the water!

 

 

So far this spring, I have been enjoying fishing for bass at several of our mid-Michigan ponds and lakes.  The place where I have found the most luck lately is at Hawk Island Park on the south side of Lansing.  The technique that I have found most productive at this lake, even with the cold water, is a reaction bait know as the square-bill crank bait.  This may seem weird to some people, as typically, ice-out bass are caught on finesse baits, but I have found if you work a square-bill slow enough, it can be just as, if not more productive, than finesse baits.  With the water being so clear and cold at ice-out, you want to keep your presentation natural and on the smaller side.

 

Again, the fish this time of year are still not extremely active, so you do not want to use a bait that requires too much energy for them to chase down, or that could even spook them.

 

 

 One more tip for people heading out this time of year is to fish shallow, because the bass are trying to warm up, and they are also getting ready to spawn.

 

 

Although there might still be cold temperatures out there, and while conditions can be challenging, spring bass fishing is still a lot more fun than staying at home!

Joseph on Thin Ice

 

 

A friend of mine suggested that people who go ice fishing now, in the last days of February around Lansing, should wear a life preserver.  With that in mind, I will share information about what may have been my last ice fishing trip of the year, at least near DeWitt, which was to Park Lake near Bath.

 

 

 

 

On my previous 2016 trip to Park Lake, I only caught some small blue gills.  In mid-February, I went back to Park Lake and wound up over a number of larger fish.  The fish we were seeing were all at around 8 to 10 feet deep toward the western end of the lake, and they seemed to be very active.  One thing I did notice is that usually crappie suspend over the gills, but this time, the blue gills were suspended over the crappie.  The crappie were more bottom-oriented.  Although the fish appeared active, any time I dropped down a spoon, the fish would scatter, so I downsized my presentation to a small tungsten jig tipped with three red spikes.  Because the fish were so active, I would jig to call them in, and then pull the jig about a foot over them and wait for them to race up and bite. 

 

 

 

Throughout the day, I caught a number hand-sized gills and a nice, 11-inch crappie. 

 

 

 

It's possible there still might be ice fishing locally this winter, but time is starting to run out.  I often do a northern Michigan ice fishing trip in March, but we'll see if it's safe, or if I'd be on thin ice!

 



Joseph on Ice

This weekend was the first weekend I was able to get out on the ice.  In this post, I will talk about fishing in two local lakes here in Clinton County.  Although people may be wondering if the ice is safe, ice thickness at Park Lake and Muskrat Lake is about six inches.

I started off my weekend fishing at Park Lake in Bath.  This was also the first weekend I got to use my Lowrance Elite 4X Chirp ice fishing machine.  We started our day by drilling holes in 8 to 20 feet of water.  The only fish we were marking were in 17 feet of water, so that is where we set up and camped out for most of the day.  On the fish finder, I could see a huge school of fish, but unfortunately, they only turned out to be three-to-five inch perch and blue gills.  My technique for that day was a small tungsten jig tipped with one red spike.  Although the fish were small, they were quite finicky, which I think is due to the colder weather we have had recently.  The first day I got out, I was only able to catch three small fish, but it was worth it to be out on the ice the first time this year and to break in my new fish finder.



 

 On the second day of my weekend, I was able to visit Muskrat Lake with some friends.  Most of the lake is shallow, and it can be described as bath tub-shaped, with very little in the way of drop off points;  for that reason, I set up shallow on a mud flat.  I managed to land several keeper Michigan gills.  One thing I have noticed is that the fish are very picky, and that they want a stationary presentation, or a very slight jigging movement.  Again, I used red spikes that I nipped very slightly on the end.

 

 

 

I'll look forward to seeing everyone out on the ice this winter!