A Day on the Water

Prototype Bob's Marabou Banger Popper got hit relentlessly.  Last time, I lost the video I got here of bass busting my Popping Wedge when I soaked my phone on the relaunch for the difficult relaunch on the portage back.  Hence this rematch. Today the bass are not hitting well.  I got one bass trying several colors and styles of poppers.  When the sun got lower and I arrived at the best spawning habitat, I needed to change my fly.  A flashy white marabou version of Bob's Banger caught my eye and it started getting hit regularly.  I got some of the hits...

Fished my my new Musky, flash bang version of Bob's Banger.  It was a convincing success although I got few fish landed to show off.  The 5/0 White Banger got blown up by 2 big Muskies, and got cellphone video of one.  That Musky actually came at the popper twice, hitting it well enough the second time to get stuck by the hook for about a second.  Also juvenile muskies, small mouth bass and small-medium pike hit it on the retrieve or in the figure 8.  Bad luck getting the 5/0 hook to catch and set deep enough to hold.  I tried it...

I was looking for more of the fantastic White Bass surface fishing like last year.  The Mouth of the North Channel no longer has good public access.  Decker's Landing has been closed for many months now due to very high lake levels.  Many home and cottage owners are being flooded out or are fighting to save their homes from the high waters and big motor boat wakes.  I put in at Saint Johns Marsh and made the long paddle downstream to outlet of the North Channel into Lake Saint Clair. Along the way I threw bass and musky poppers in weedy bays,...

Great Lakes bass key more on silver-white baitfish and Bob's Banger with all that silver in it is good.  I spent the day using a 2/0 Marabou version of a Bob's Banger popper. This large pond is connected directly to Lake Saint Clair by a channel that is now barred to bass boats by a very low foot bridge over our now very high water great lakes.  Normally average water depth is about 4 feet deep with near total surface cover of lily pads and other weed beds.   Last spring I found out that the deeper, muddier, colder water had retarded the early weed...

I portaged to a back pond and began prospecting for bass.  This is a shallow pond with lots of wood cover and many kinds of weed cover.  Two years ago I fished here at this time during a much warmer spring.  Then, the weed growth was more advanced and the water level not so crazy high.  I caught lots of bass on a 2/0 White Popping Wedge, some up to 19 inches.    As I worked around the pond, I found 13 inch bass widely scattered in dead cattail stalks or relating to shoreline wood cover.  After the 2nd bass was...