A Day on the Water

Friday July 11, I fished a small Saginaw Bay tributary.  Nothing but frustration in the weedy upper channel with a few small fish timidly rushing the popper.  Down stream in deeper water a big fish Blew up the 2/0 Chartreuse Dive Banger a few pops out from a phragmites wall. I felt nothing but instant slack on my big hook set.  The broken off popper did not bob back to the surface as expected. I retied with a 3/0 White Dive Banger but didn't have any 12 pound leader left so I cut back to 25 pound, so 25 pound...

Thursday July 11 headed up to fish Saginaw River tributaries for Bass, found no Bowfin.  Fished a tributary to the lower Saginaw river where the current oscillates inbound and outbound.  There was an easy roadside launch at a bridge. I started upstream leaving plenty of water for the four bridge fishermen.  A 2/0 Chartreuse Dive Banger cast to the weed edge of the open channel  quickly got a 14 inch bass.  Switched to a 3/0 White Dive Banger and hooked two larger bass, got the skinny one with a wounded eye and and face but lost the chunkier one.  As...

I was launching at a road end but a land owner came down and said he owned the land between there and the water.  He directed me to a launch on a popular local fishing spot not to far away.  I found a easy launch from the nearest of several parking lots.  I followed the river upstream to the first backwater  After changing to a 2/0 Black popping Wedge it took a 14 inch bass.  I got 3 more bigger ones, all after a generous dead stick pause after the retrieve. The next backwater was partly surrounded by a dredged...

Sunday I drove across the state to return to this little shallow weedy river mouth lake known for Bowfin.   The north shore was sheltered from the wind which was also pushing me in the upstream direction.  Lots of Bluegill beads and Bass were near by or in open pockets in the weeds.  They hit a 2/0 Black Popping Wedge.  Upstream and along the south shore I got nothing.  I moved to a weedy bay downstream.  There Bowfin were occasionally coming up for air or leaving faint disturbances while moving just under the surface,  First cast to one of these, I...

Still a North wind, bad if your at the tip of the Michigan's Thumb but the wind speed was moderate and launching at the river mouth was easy.  I needed a rematch for some of those big ones that got off yesterday but first stopped off at the Carp Channel where I had seen hundreds of them spawning in the past.  Spring was late and they were only a few there.  I did get the first Smallmouth stripping in a big 1/0 Pike beadhead bucktail steamer. A dead end channel had produced some of the biggest Smallmouth in years past...