TOXIC

Normally, overpopulated and stunted if enough of them aren’t harvested. The bad side effect of too much catch and release.

Is the motor a 4 stroke?

We filleted a bunch of walleye out of Lake St Clair and one of them was full of baby Lampreys. Nasty fish. We catch a lot of fish with the bite marks from them.

Embarrassed to say I’ve used a reel for so long, I’ve worn an alternate line feed on the roller. ?

First let me say that there are some days the fish and conditions match up and you will gut hook some. There’s nothing you can do to avoid it and it sounds like you are skilled at the “through the gill” technique. That is good. On my guide trips I had a lot of inexperienced anglers and was getting more gut hooks that I would like. I see you use a 3.0 ewg. That’s what I used to use. Try stepping up to a 4.0. The bigger hook has a tendency to make contact in the fishes mouth earlier in the strike than a 3.0. Reduced my gut hooked client fish by a lot. It’s all I use now.

Just to highlight that it takes a different set of skills, I was fishing off the back deck of one of my buddies boats that I don’t fish with too often. We were sight fishing beds. We would come up to a bed and because of his inexperience, he usually drifted right over the bed spooking the fish off or had his trolling motor set too high of speed and when he let off, we coasted past the bed. Boat control is paramount. When he did put the boat in the right position, he would throw 3 or 4 times at the bed not catching anything and then want to move on. I would tell him to let me have a go at it. Usually I could get the fish to bite. Trick is to get your bait on the specific part of the bed that annoys the bass the most. Sometimes and more often than not the “sweet spot” was not the center of the bed. Let’s be honest, the reason we bed fish for smallmouth is that this is the only time of year you can catch a 5+ pounder. If you could catch them that size in the summer, you could make a lot of tournament money. The big girls disappear and run in open water packs come summer.

This debate has been raging for years. That’s why many of the individual natural resources agencies have conducted multiple studies to ascertain whether or not bed fishing is detrimental to specific bodies of water and intact appropriate regulations. I just got back from Lake St Clair where the bed fishing is in full swing. Out of an entire week of fishing, we caught 1 fish that had been caught previously. This lake has “Catch and immediate release” regulations until the 3rd weekend in June and after that you can keep a limit. The regulation used to be that smallmouth were off limits until that June date but after studying, it was determined there was no harm to the fishery and opened it up to year round catch and release. Like it or not, it was determined that there was no harm to the spawn. If you fish at all during the spawn chances are you are bed fishing whether you know it or not. We caught pre-spawn, bedding and post spawn fish. The studies found that those that sight fish beds account for a very small number of bedding fish. Those that bed deeper and in other places beyond the bed fishing community holes more than make up for any predation on fry. You want to see what’s more damaging? The picture I posed is on Memorial Day in 2 of the most noteworthy spawning bays for smallmouths. The number of beds destroyed by pleasure boaters is huge. Added to the number of big cruisers churning up the bottom because all of the beds are in an average 2 feet of water. It starts Memorial Day and only gets bigger as the water warms. Don’t forget that not all bed fish are silly stupid. Some will not bite just because you put a bait in the bed. It’s a different skill set and a lot of anglers just blind cast hoping to drag across a bed. I’ll admit I felt a little trepidation about bed fishing until I read and studied the science.

WJust got back from our annual trip to Lake St Clair in Michigan. We stay in a beautiful cottage on Harsens Island which requires us to take a ferry across the St Clair River. The cottage is on the North Channel and the US Canadian border is right out our front door. Normally, most all of our fishing is done on spots across the lake whether it is the famous Mile Roads, Metro Beach or any other spots we have collected over the years. As fickle as the springtime weather is in Michigan, we always plan for what we call a Blow Day where the wind is just too much and it is too dangerous to run across the lake. One of our crew has an older 17ft Champion and although very adapted to the big water and the guy who owns it is a local and grew up fishing the lake, he is our “canary in the mine” so if he says it’s too much, even our 20 foot Rangers agree. We then have 2 options. 1. Load the boats and trailer back to the ferry then re-launch on the sheltered side of the lake or 2. If the wind is out of the right direction we can fish 2 bays that hold a lot of smallmouth, Big and Little Muscamoot bays. For the last few years, when we had a blow day, the Muscamoot bays were an option and we did well. This year that was not the case and we had 2 days of 30+ mph wind gusts and we decided to do something different. One of our by-catches has been walleye but we have never targeted them because that is a whole different discipline from Smallmouth fishing. Sure, sometimes we would catch them on crankbaits while fishing for bass and a couple of times we got enough for a good fish fry or at least enough we could all enjoy a taste but we never targeted them. One of the locals who lives on the island and likes likes to come visit us will usually drop off a bag of walleye fillets for us to enjoy. Although totally unequipped, we decided to go out into the St Clair River and dodge the freighters and try to jig up some walleye. Drifting the river in the wind was doable. All we had were some blade baits and a couple of ball head jigs which to those who walleye fish know, there was a good chance we would lose those in short order jigging in 50+ feet of water in the main channel. When we got tipped off to a spot holding walleye that was close to our cottage, we ran over and there was a conga line of hard core walleye fisherman drifting. One boat with 4 fishermen saw us pulling into the end of the line to make our first drift, was nice enough to tell us to follow him they were on the most productive drift line. So we did and it was the beginning of 2 days, 3 boats, 2 anglers in each boat, limiting out on walleye. We had enough for everybody to bring home a couple bags of fillets and we had a small fish fry the last night with grilled and fried walleye. That my friends is how you make lemonade out of lemons!

Just got back from Michigan. 38 degrees in the morning for a 70mph, 20 mile run across the lake. Hard to tell the difference between sunburn and windburn but we caught the snot out of them.??

Dessert with a kick. Pretty sweet but good. We actually got it because our friend who flew in from Australia has 2 Brittany Spaniels and wanted the bottles. He couldn’t take them on the plane full soooooo…..?

Awesome pics. Great captures!

For those that dont know, on most boats the bow strap connecting point is far enough back on the keel that you used to just lay on the deck over the nose of the boat and attach the strap. With todays bigger and multiple graph mounts, that’s no longer possible. Even if you were at a dock, you would still have to step from the dock to the trailer to tighten the bow strap. My Ranger has a factory step level with the trailer that helps stepping down but it is a stretch and not as easy getting back up to the deck. The multiple steps that AJ has mounted allow you to remain upright and just step off the deck onto the trailer and down to the bow wench. Getting back up level with the deck is just like walking up some short steps. Buddy just put some on his trailer and can’t believe he waited this long to do it. They also help getting into the boat while it is on the trailer and dry land. Finally, if you have enough room to drop your tailgate on your truck, the steps help you just walk up to the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. Good piece of equipment. You can see his from out trip attached to my truck.

I’ve been wearing Shimano Evair for years. Even in winter with a pair of socks.

Just got back from Lake St Clair. 6lb mono on Ned rig, 8lb mono on Dropshot. Never broke one off. Pics are a representation of the size fish we caught all week. Probably 30 to 40 per day. Good sized largemouth in there as well.

In Michigan, along with our regulars, we tried something a little different. Was good.

“Memorial” Day. In Remembrance. Never forgotten.

No idea but I’ll take a guess….J.O. James Overstreet?

This was what I was hoping to show instead of those peanuts out of the Rappahonock River. We just got back from lake St Clair and the fishing was good.

Totally depends on the body of water. Bigger water like St Clair, Erie, Lake Michigan, Lake Champlain, etc., depending on wind direction because they all set up differently, my max in a 21ft bass boat is 20-25 on average. You can push it with deep v multi species boats and knowledge of specific bodies of water. For example, we know we can go into Big and Little Muscamoot Bays when we stay on Harsens Island on St Clair because we don’t have to cross the lake and the way those bays set up. Also, in heavy seas, spotlock can be downright dangerous.?

I’m not being a smart Alec and you can use whatever knockoff bait you want but I gotta say if you are tearing up a Senko in grass, you’re doing something wrong. I use a Senko to punch with in heavy grass and I drag it with a 1/4 ounce football head jig on St Clair. I’ve had them last for over 10 fish in heavy cover depending on a few things and I’ve drug one for multiple days and fish on St Clair through the sand grass and sandy bottom.

Gotta root for Ben, we’re both hometown Omaha boyz. Reppin the 402! ??

Wind on big open water in a bass boat is no fun. I’ve been on St Clair in waves big enough they were taller than our heads sitting in the seats. You drive up one side of the roller and angle down the other. You mess up in that kind of water and you are swamped.

Always great to be able to fish with friends and make new fishing friends. Leaving tomorrow for our annual trip to Lake St Clair (our 20th year) and will fish with friends from Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona and Australia.

I can take the temperature drops but the wind is an issue if I can’t get out of it somehow.

Well, mine picks up leaves and clutter in the water as well as small baitfish so I would imagine it would pick them up.