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!