I first tried an Oakland county lake in a futile search for Bowfin, following up on a report. Nice lake with good access for small boats and a lot more fishing pressure than my favorite spots. These fertile natural lakes have this weird topography where it will be crazy deep and randomly very shallow with abundant weed growth choking off large areas of shallow water and making a crazy quilt drop offs and edges. Started with a 2/0 white Dive Banger getting two 11 inch bass, switching to a black version got 4 bass between 13 and 16 inches
I packed up, drove to and launched from the rip rap at the mouth of the Clinton River Spillway. I cast a 5/0 Chartreuse Dive Banger along the rip rap and steel sea walls around nearby marinas. I quickly got a bass in the slightly muddy Clinton Spillway water, before meeting a small musky near by. I was picking up to cast when he hit beside the kayak. He was briefly hooked and I held his head up while he tried to turn down with the fly. His whole body briefly came out of the water as the hook came loose. About 30 inches long.
Bass were hitting the big popper well and I finish with five landed. One very large fish hit, I felt big heavy head shakes before he got off. Thought I saw bass colors but I've been wrong on the species before.
One pattern that developed was that there were these patches of duck weed, other floating weed debris, bait fish and my kayak accumulated as the shifting winds and currents moved this stuff around. In a patch of this stuff along a steel sea wall some fish made a disturbance beside my popper. I had fished to the end of this large patch of flotsam when looking back, a blitz erupted of some kind of bass chasing fast moving schools of 2 inch minnows.
At 85% dark I was fishing the back from the point of this rip rap seawall back into the Spillway bay when what I thought was an average bass hit the big popper coming entirely up out of the water. It was the musky I landed.
