MIbassyaker

The publicly available depth charts on fishermaps and navionics are pretty good for more popular places, but I have found some wild inaccuracies on lesser-known and smaller lakes compared to my own Garmin quickdraw maps . It's still the case that not every place has been well-mapped... and the lesser-known a lake is, the more I want to go there! I still rely pretty heavily on Google earth and google maps, and MI DNR info on public launch sites, lake surveys, and maps of public land. And often, I just have to get in the car and and go see the place myself. It has happened more than once that something I saw on a satellite image, but could find no other information about, turns out to be accessible if you can find the right road.

To catch the skunk, one must be the skunk...

If my schedule allows me to throw a cast anywhere other than may backyard before early March, it will be a miracle. Double-miracle if I can get out more than 2 or 3 times before the last week in April. And whether we actually have open water whenever I next have time to go is a always a crap shoot. We opened up for C&R year round statewide for bass round in 2015. Before then, the season was like yours used to be.

My last one 😢 It will stay in service until it falls apart.

"Now I'm not a biologist..." Huh. You don't say. Wonder why the DNR is staffed with scientists rather than, say, YouTube content creators? I'm sure it's all a government plot to "threaten our angling rights" 🙄

I use spinnerbaits every year, but only occasionally outside of the Spring and Fall months. But this year I caught bass on them all summer long, seemingly in all conditions, even when I couldn't get a bite on anything else. They kept working, so I kept throwing.

Nicely done! Now, how poorly-tied could it really be if you got bit?

MI was $26 in 2023 for all species. If you ever find yourself feeling down about the cost of a State fishing license, try this simple exercise: Divide the cost by the number of hours per year that you fish in your state while enjoying its natural resources. Then look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, honestly: What other activity could I possibly do that would be greater bang-for-the-buck in total recreational value per hour given this usage fee? Even at California prices, I can't think of anything that comes close.

Crankbaits for me too. Didn't throw a crankbait all year. Not because they disappointed me in any sense. I just never found that a crankbait was right for any situation I was facing.

You expect us to believe this didn't happen?🤣

Sounds suspicious...

Yup, same here --there are hundreds of places I can fish within an hour of my house -- natural lakes, rivers, creeks, impoundments, gravel pits, swampy bayous, neighborhood ponds, and a giant freshwater sea. They range from inches to hundreds of feet deep, with nearly every kind of natural and manmade habitat imaginable -- wood, rock, shallow vegetation, deep vegetation, brush, docks, piers, seawalls, rip-rap, sand, etc. And depending on which one I visit, and when, I could catch virtually any species of fish that swims in the state of Michigan.

beat me to it.

I record information mostly so I can calculate catch rates and average sizes for the 40-something different places In my area that I have fished, under various conditions and times of the year. This is very useful for identifying where and when I should spend my limited fishing time.

7" Berkley Power Worm 6" Zoom Lizard Honorable mention: Rage Tail Space Monkey

I keep track of everything because I am obsessed with data and can't help it. I concede, it is not for everyone. If I don't record durations, catches, sizes and such, it haunts me constantly afterward that I don't know what they were.

I don't actually doubt that there could be some DD largemouths swimming around in Michigan waters. The issue is finding one and catching it...which nobody seems to have done in decades. I don't see that changing unless something else changes. A private, unpressured pond with exceptional forage and gene pool would seem to be the ticket. The smallmouth situation is different because great lakes goby infestation, which has supercharged their growth rate. Gobies get into some of the inland lakes with connecting waters, but those are also mostly smallmouth habitat. I would bet a confirmed 10lb smallmouth is caught before a 10lb largemouth. As for new lakes, we don't really get new lakes around here unless it's a private or residential pond. The majority of those are small, shallow, and vulnerable to winterkills and oxygen deprivation. Most of our waters are natural lakes of glacial origin, and, if anything, the current trend is toward removing dams rather than adding them. I don't know what the current status of Sanford lake is, but if/when it gets refilled, maybe that's an opportunity. Quite a lot of trout stocking happens here already, even in a number of waters with good largemouth populations -- I can think of 2 or 3 small lakes in my area that, until very recently, got annual plant of rainbows for many years. I have caught some nice largemouths in these lakes, but they are certainly not giant factories. The presence of trout could help in conjunction with other factors, but that's not going to do it by itself.

For bass, 129 total hours over 31 days, anywhere from 30min to 8 hours at a time, but the majority of trips around 4 hours. Also brief excursions for stream trout on 3 days, totaling about 4 hours.

I maintain that, unless climate change increases the growing season in MI so much as to overcome the effects of fishing pressure, the Michigan largemouth record will not be broken. The first problem is growth rate -- A typical bass lives 5 to 10 years. In MI, a 10 year old largemouth bass is about 5lbs. To reach DD size, a bass would probably have to live to around 20 years. To live that long you would have to NOT get harvested or otherwise be killed, or die naturally, before reaching that size. That's really quite a tall order. The second problem is fishing pressure. There is simply no way of getting around the facts that: (1) growing seasons up here are short, so you have to live longer to grow bigger. the longer you live, the greater chance you will have of getting caught. (2) because of recreational development, technology (e.g., FFS), and human population growth, the chance of any bass being caught is a LOT greater now than it was just a few decades ago (when the 1934 and 1959 records were caught) (3) Being caught reduces your chance of survival. Greater chance of being caught means greater chance of being harvested. Even if you are not harvested, it means greater chance of being mortally injured, mishandled, deep-hooked, kept out of water too long, etc. And that's assuming you survive natural hazards like birds, otters or winterkill. (4) Even if you survive, being caught previously reduces your chance of being caught again. It has been established in both laboratory experiments and field studies that Bass learn to avoid lures on which they have been previously caught (provided they can tell the difference between the lure and real prey). This is the main reason why bass are typically harder to catch in heavily fished waters, even when catch-and-release is practiced. Thus, any bass large enough to break the State record would likely be one with 20 years of experience not being caught. And chances are, if you haven't been caught before, you won't get caught in the future, before the end of your life. It's not impossible, but given the circumstances seems vanishingly unlikely to me.

alright, alright, alright.... first pass, event 1: A. Jordan Lee (new shiny object! shiny object!) B. Taku Ito C. Stephen Kennedy D. Caleb Sumrall E. Davis Jr

Husky Jerk is a proven fish-catcher, and still good value for the price. Besides, jerkbaits are all a little different in action, profile and bouyancy -- you want to have a variety of brands and models.

I predict @gimruis will recommend trying this on Upper Red Lake in January...

Drum, cats and white bass are common in low-gradient river systems & impoundments, and trout need colder water. If you fish mostly natural lakes or classic smallmouth rivers (e.g., rocky, moderate-gradient, warm water), I can easily imagine not encountering these other fish.