MIbassyaker

The Michigan state Smallmouth record has got to be one of the most vulnerable state records for bass in the country right now. It has fallen twice in the last 10 years, after standing for over 100, and still just a hair under 10lb. Current state record holder is a guy from Florida who did exactly that.

Come on now. Your "latest catch" is your latest catch.

If I had just spent the last week driving 3000 miles, I'd probably still be in bed. I don't know how you do it.

We've got 90+ highs forecast from Sunday through next Friday, and high 80s otherwise. Whew! I usually fish mornings anyway, though, often off the lake by 10, noon at the latest. Unless I'm floating a river, then it's a mid-day thing. A shady little place like this could be in the cards: Might be able to do one of each kind of trip next week.

While I always knew what @A-Jay meant by it, I did spend some time trying to identify the lake featured in the Zona Live epsiode that was originally dubbed "Menderchuck". It was identified at some point in the comments of the video, and it turns out not to have a public access launch. That alone makes A-Jay's Lake(s) more worthy of the Menderchuck moniker, to my mind. EDIT: FYI, for those who haven't seen it, "Menderchuck" is first coined here at about 33:50.

Ahem.

The typical 5 I bring on a kayak are: MHF casting -- t-rgs, jigs MHMF or MHF casting -- moving baits --spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, buzzbaits MF or MXF casting -- topwater, jerkbaits MXF or MF spinning -- senkos, flukes, tubes, other weightless or lightly-weigted plastics MLXF or MLF spinning -- jigworms, ned, other lighter-end finesse stuff, I'll swap out something situationally in order to bring a frog rod, a crankbait rod, another MHF caster, or another spinning rod, depending on what I want to do more of vs. less of.

I'll help you narrow it down - he's not catching them on the Torch Lake Sandbar. Good place to catch other things, though...

Nicely done!

I first think of the same two parameters as anywhere else: --cover the bases for top, middle, and bottom of the water column --be able to make both horizontal and vertical (or stationary) presentations. 1. Senko or other stick worm, EWG weedless, or wacky 2. Jighead worm, 4"-6". 3. 1/4oz Popper or Tiny Torpedo. 4. Flex moving bait, choose among the following based on conditions: --(A) Jighead swimming plastic (e.g, small paddletail, curly-tail grub) --(B) Crankbait (1.0 squarebill; rebel craw, etc.) --(C) Spinner/Spinnerbait (e.g., #2-3 Mepps Aglia, Beetlespin, Booyah pond magic etc,). What, no Ned rig? Bring it as your panic rig, but try the other stuff first.

Well, cold seasons and work/life obligations conspire to keep me off the water over half of the year -- I only get to fish with any regularity May through August, with any trips outside those months occasional at best. I regularly go 5-6 months without making a cast. So, in a way, I take a "leave of absence" every year. If you can manage a few short trips a month, that's not so bad.

(sorry, Brian -- couldn't resist)

I don't get to fish nearly as much as I'd like. But I really couldn't handle doing it as often, or as long as many of you. I have multiple hobbies and they all cry out for attention.

Spinnerbait pumpkinseed - I think it was just a bit too curious:

Not on purpose, because I fish mornings and I want to have a line in the water as soon as possible to maximize time before the sun gets high. More generally I cannot stand to not have planned everything. I get a few hours at a time, a trip or two per week at most. I have enough space for 5 rods and tackle to fit in a single crate. I plan months ahead of time which bodies of water I will fish, and during which approximate weeks and months of the year. Every lure I bring with me is chosen ahead of time for the waters I am going, and starting presentations are always tied on ahead of time, ready to go. I plan what lures to start with, and what lures I will most likely switch to. I plan what spots and areas I will start, where I will go next, and roughly how long to stay. I'm always willing to toss out or revise the plan based on conditions, or feedback from the fish, but I always show up ready to do something, somewhere, based on reasonable and informed expectations.

I can barely fathom what would it would be like to have access to a place like this whenever I wanted, and have it more-or-less to myself. You're living the dream!

Great smallies! 4# would be a PB for me too -- mine are all lean and mean fish from small to medium rivers...not so much "footballs" as "torpedos"

Most places I fish are small, with a public DNR-maintained launch and no fee. Some are on state park land and require a recreation pass for my car, but that's only $14 for a season, and good anywhere the pass is required. A few township and county parks around the area with heavily-used launches charge a minor fee of a few dollars, or you can buy an annual pass for $20-$30-ish. This is most common for larger rivers with access to lake Michigan.

Somewhere in the middle. I don't really enjoy catching lots of little bass, but I also don't have the patience to commit to trophy-hunting and going potentially days without bites. I dunno -- 5? something like that.

If he mentioned money, he meant it seriously. There is a subset of tournament anglers who believe because there is money on the line, they deserve special privileges, and that every other angler on the water must defer to them. It's a bad look on his part. If it's public water, you're not violating a regulation, and he's not offering to share his purse, he shouldn't be telling you what to do or how to fish. I hope he enjoyed seeing you catch those fish. He deserved that.

We need video of this.

I do try to keep all the residential development, agricultural machinery, and industrial waste just a bit out of the frame... To be fair, while it is an honor to be categorized with @ol'crickety, there are about the same number of people living within an hour of my house as the entire state of Maine, and every place I fish is within that radius --even the quieter places are not as untouched as I sometimes try to make them look. 😎

what a great trip!

Visits to a couple of the Grand River bayous, Friday last week and this morning. These are backwater areas connected to the lower Grand as it nears Lake Michigan, consisting of a variety of drowned creek mouths and old segments of river course. KVD has said that the lower Grand River system was one of his favorite places to tournament fish when he was coming up. Bayou 1, on Friday, had 70 degree water already. I caught 13 bass, most in the 13-14" range. About half came early on a buzzbait, then a bunch more on a spinnerbait, with a couple of jig fish sprinkled in. Didn't take any pics of Bayou 1 fish, because I kept waiting for a bigger one that never came. However, one of my favorite spinnerbaits was bitten off by some variety of large toothy beast, which I never saw, but felt for a few exciting seconds. Then, I got a few this morning on Bayou 2. Some buzzbait action at sunrise produced a handful in the 15"-18" range: Then things slowed down. The next three hours produced a few smaller bass on a frog and spinnerbait. Just before putting in at 10am to end my morning, I got another nice one on the last cast: Which put my count at 8 for today. OK, now I need to go back to work....

I pay attention to immediate conditions like levels of light, water temperature, and wind. The problem with barometric pressure is that it coincides with other changes in more immediate weather conditions like cloud cover, sunlight, and wind, which certainly affect fish. So if you want to know whether you should be checking the barometer, what you're really asking is if it is important to know about change in pressure itself, above and beyond the change in immediate conditions that come along with it, that you can see without a barometer. I don't need to know barometric pressure to see that it is getting cloudy, darker, or that the wind changed. Frankly, I see very little reason to believe fish are responding changes in air pressure itself up here above the water, which is a drop in the bucket compared to variations in water pressure they can experience on a moment to moment basis simply by changing their depth by a few inches. And to the extent that bass do respond to changes in barometric pressure, they are still far more responsive to changes in light, heat, oxygen levels, and so on. So as long as I can see immediate weather conditions, I don't feel the need to check a barometer.