Mbirdsley

i’ve been using the lucas reel oil last couple of years. seems like that stuff evaporates out preatty quick. last spring when my brother had me do his okuma classic and cold water trolling reels i put straight rear end 90 weight in the bearings after flushing. i’d like to get a hold of them this spring to see how it did. those are trolling reels though and arnt casted. i know there are guys that swear by yamaha lower unit 90 weight gear oil. which, makes sense as it would have anti corrosion additives in it. i think this coming spring i’m going to buy a hodgepodge of reel oils and gear lube and see what works. lucas makes a red gun oil that is fairly thick and does not evaporate. i have some of that on hand. its not much more than reel oil. i had been using the pen blue grease on gears which, i think is just blue lithium grease however, that stuff turns into basically sticky cosmolien pretty quick. i definitely want to try the cals gear grease. i’ll end up servicing 10-15 reels this spring so i should have enough variety

in the spring i like the 2.8 inches to 3.3 inch paddle tails on chatter baits.spinner baits illl run the 3.8’s. during the summer ill run the 3.8’s. if im using the 3.8’s as a trailer. i usually cut the heads off of the paddle tails back to the ribbed portion. i use berkley swimmers in the 2.8 size kietech’s and the cabelas knock offs in 3.3-3.8 size. primary colors are white ,sexy shad, ayu, sun gill, black and black and blue. those 6 colors pretty much pair up to any jig, spinner bait or chatter bait

we have thousands of lakes, hundreds of rivers and 4 great lakes in the state of Michigan. all of them have either large mouth, small mouth or both. I love exploring new lakes. other than catching fish. i like checking out new water. Michigan is the best place for it last year after june i was only fishing maybe once every other week and i shut it down real early on october 1st ( kicking my self right now for that). order from biggest to smallest. lakes off hand. this is just last year. Lake michigan @ Frankfort x2 trolling for lake trout and king salmon Saginaw bay x3 Detroit river walleye fishing x1 saginaw, titabawassee, and shiawassee rivers. x6 times. the saginaw and titabawassee meet in saginaw which, forms the saginaw river. even in low water years there is 30ish miles of river to run in a tin boat or bass boat. portage lake x1 ice fishing for perch ( manistee county ) Crystal lake ( benzie county ) 7 mile long lake super clear x3 little crystal ( montcalm county) x 6 times medium to big lake. Dobbunet lake ( grand traverse ) little platte x1 ( benzie county) peach lake x1 ( ogemaw county ) medium sized lake lincoln lake x1 there is actually a canal system to get to 2 more lakes. i can’t remember those lakes right now but, i caught fish in them. clear lake x1 ( ogemaw county ) smaller supper clear lake duck lake x1 ( montcalm county) Muskrat lake x1( clinton county ) really big pond my boats almost too big for it Derby lake x1 ( montcalm ) small lake long lake x2 ( ionia county ) medium sized lake i may have missed 1 or 2 if i would have kept up my pace from the spring it would have been a longer list. i’m expecting another child this summer so i don’t know after july how much i’ll be out.

i use the pencils drop shot weights from a do-it mold. the mold has 2 differnt ways to put the eye loop into the mold. either loop down into the led and you can attach the line like a traditional drop shot or you put the loop up. loop up is how i run the free wieght rig with the line running through the loop. i found 1/4 oz is about right wieght for most of the free wieght applications that i fish which, is usually in sparse grass

i agree with this 100%. i really kinda screwed my self up last year way over thinking things, watching to much you tube, and listening to too many pod casts. it got to the point that i wasn’t even enjoying my time on the water at all. there is a lot of stuff that is talked about on youtube and podcasts that is very region specific and very specific to large damed up lakes. the past 2-3 years i’ve bought a lot of useless tackle that doesn't apply to how i fish. i caught bigger and more fish not worrying about how deep crank is running or the fall rate of specific jig in x amount of water. basically , i was just fishing. i caught a lot of fish running a 4 ft crank over 10 ft of water and not trying to hit bottom. only upside to all of the you tube and pod casts is a feel like i can figure a lake fairly quickly now. from here on out im going to concentrate on 3-4 things per time period IE winter, pre spawn, spawn, post spawn, summer etc etc. only technique id really like to learn is drop shot but, im not really interested in learning anything else because, it doesn’t apply up here and im not a pro fisherman touring the country. this is the first season where i dont really have to buy tackle or make any rod or reel upgrades and it feels good honestly, that i dont have to worrying about if this right rod is right for this random obscure technique.

i agree with this. if you don’t want to mess around with powder coating jigs or blades. testers enamel model paint is a very viable solution. it’s probably the easiest way to paint blades. 12-13 years ago i made a lot of red and silver inline french blades with testers red paint, masking tape, and a cheap convection oven to cure the paint. after cutting the enamel it’s rock hard.

fished on the titabawassee for a couple of hours today. did alright. water dropped almost 1.5 -2 feet in the last week. probably my last trip on the river as i bent my prop pretty good on 2 of the 3 blades. I have an extra prop for this reason. it’s just a matter of time when running a river like that. I did hit 2 things both on the way back to the saginaw river where the launch was located. luckily i wasn’t on plane when i hit the objects ( thinking dead heads) . so i’ll get this prop rebuilt this winter. did catch some smallies and a walleye though. i’m sure i’ll get back out but, i’m starting look forward to hunting season. i feel fall is going to come quick this year. water temp is 68 degrees already. i also snagged this crazy rig out of the titabawassee river. there’s a lot going on here. first some sort of bass jig connected by a steel leader to a barrel swivel, snap, and another barrrl swivel. than it’s 50 lbs braid to a bobber stop than 3/4 oz lead worm wieght. it looked like a nice jig. probably some kid who stole it out of the old man’s tackle box and rigged it up

pb&j is a good switch up to black and blue in muddy water

at the present time for soft plastics i’d probably say yum. soft plastics that they make are affordable and they flat out work. this year i discovered the spine craw and i’m half tempted to throw every other craw/creature bait in the dumpster. i know have the one craw to rule them all 4 differnt colors gp blue flake, GP hayes, cali 420 and black and blue flake. for cranks it would probably in be a toss up between spro, strike king and , norman. spro’s a little higher end but, works. strike king is kinda in the middle and norman falls into the affordable catogory

so i’m actually up north in Frankfort to do some salmon fishing with my brother in his 27 ft sea ray. i decided to get out of work a couple hrs early this morning. get a couple of hours of sleep and hit the road. last minute i decided to take my boat so i could stop along the way and fish. Frankfort is 3 hrs north of where i live and on lake michigan. I stopped at jays to by some TRD’s and some shooting related stuff. originally i wanted to fish a lake called 5 lakes just north of clare ( kinda the half way point to frankfort ). wind was blowing 15-20 mph out of the west . looking at my wind apps it looked like the wind was dying off the farther north i went. decided to try Barry lake just out side cadillac. it’s a smaller lake but, it’s protected from the wind. decided to try it there for a few hrs. i’ve fished it once before in 2019. luckily i did. did very well for 3 hrs of fishing. i caught a nice 3.6 lbs bass flipping a berkley watermelon red flake craw fatty on a pegged 1/2 oz wieght. also caught 4-5 other bass. all came while flipping into silver dollar sized lilly pads. i lost another 2-3 lber in the pads too . salmon fishing tommrow. i might take my nephew out bass fishing sunday before i head home.

it’s worth the half hour drive. im fishing the titabawassee in saginaw. i don’t know if you have boat or kayak. right now with the water levels being up i can get my 16.5 ft 90 hp boat probably, up stream 5-6 miles to immerman park. if you have a kayak starting at the titabawassee road bridge and south there are parks or over passes every 2-3 miles to take out from. once the majority of walleye leave and go back out to the saginaw bay (some walleye always stay ). the fishing pressure drops way off. ran into one other boat yesterday. the closer you get to the confluence 2 miles east of center street launch ( titabawassee and shiawassee form the saginaw river ) you will see guys fishing for channel and flat head catfish. i’ve pulled 15-20 lbs channel cats out of the titt. i’ve got a 20 lbs flat head out of the saginaw before. i believe it’s actually better smallie fishing north from the dow dam in midland to sanford where the dam used to be. i know they pulled a couple huge muskie out of the river around sandford so you never know where one could pop up now that sanford lake is no longer there. i only saw one other boat up stream from the launch. there were a couple more at the launch but, they went down stream looking for the big channel and flat heads.

first post in a while. first time on the titabawassee river this summer. it’s finally starting to fish like it did before the dam failures in 2020. finally caught some fish with a OG6. only took me a year and a half and it was a decent smallie. it was the silver and black back og6. caught 2 sheep head also on the OG6. rest of the fish came on a black and blue spine craw t-rigged with 1/2 oz sinker. did catch the cat fish on a sexy shad rogue jerk bait. it’s been such a weird summer up here. today was the first day in about a month it got above 82 degrees. i’ve not had a great summer fishing wise. i think i hit it to hard in the spring and was burned out by mid june. had to soul searching and reevaluating on why i’m i loved fishing in the first place. I think i’m good to go now. Generally speaking it seems that the hotter the weather the better the river systems are up here for small mouth

bay port and footballs went back to the saginaw bay but, bay port instead of bay city. went out deep out into the actual bay first and only had a dog fish to show for it. went back into the islands in wildfowl bay and shallow. first 6 hrs were slow. i kept seeing huge smallies but, couldn’t get them to bite. i know i saw a couple 6-7 lbs smallie i thought at first they were lake trout. finally bit the bullet and put a coppertreuse trd on 1/8 mustad mushroom head and it was game on. for being mid summer the smallies we’re still in 3-8 ft of water. the biggest went 3 lbs. for the most part the smallies and large mouth we’re running together. occasionally you would see the bigger small mouth running the top third of the water column in 8ft of water. if i would cast the bed rig near them they would fight to get it. caught one large mouth on my number 7 super spook.

mt pleasant is about 30-40 minutes north of me . I live in chesaning

that caught me on my quantum accurist pt this spring. i hadn’t used it in a couple years and forgot about the dual breaking on it. i had it set up for carolina rigging with a 3/4 oz weight. i’d cast and it would go maybe 30 ft. wth is going on here i should be bombing this thing. it aactually took me another trip until i figured out what was going on. oh yeah it has tabs on the inside i’m an idiot.

trolling motors as far as i know very rarely go on sale. i could be wrong though. We don’t have a lot of places that service trolling motors. ideally i would buy one from a place that also services them. knock on wood in 3 years i’ve never had an issue. if i do though i’m on my own as far as repair.

summer craw. one of my better summer time colors. on that note any thing of that lighter green color IE berkley general GP party and baby bass. some times i think GP is too dark. we have a lot of this in between water where it’s not really clear but, not really dirty either. that i between. water is where summer craw/the lighter green stands out

back after a self imposed almost month hiatus. needed a break from fishing. focused on doing some shooting and reloading instead. hit up the saginaw bay today. went out of the Finn road launch which, is 2 miles east of the mouth of the saginaw river. smokey haze was covering the bay. visibility was only 1.5-2.0 miles. started out fishing spoils island which, is right next to the shipping channel. hit a bass and a nice 7.5 lbs channel cat next to a piling in 12 foot of water. both came on a t-rigged spine craw. caught my first ned rig fish in a long time. i just happened to look up and i saw a lower laker coming down the channel headed for bay city. the wind was going away from me. i was out of the channel but, he kinda popped out of nowhere 2 miles ahead off my port bow. it was the articulated tug Olive M. Moor pushing the barge menominee. storms were forecasted and it was rather windy so i decided to head back. on the way back i stopped at a underwater rock wall in 3.5 ft. i found it last year with a buddy. glad i stopped i pulled 20-25 large mouths off of and around it with a green pumkin party general rigged wacky style. not the biggest bass but, i was literally setting the hook on each cast. i’ve never seen fish so charged up. at the end the last worm split in half. so i was like what the heck let’s try it. rigged up each half and caught 2 extra fish on each half. lost my costas in the drink. hopefully the sacrifice will please the fish gods for the rest of the year.

9 times out 10 i’m going dark. if it’s a shad lake or river i may throw some white in the mix.

pick it apart with a texas rig, could use a wacky rig around the outside edges, weight less senko over the top, frog, or my persons favorite get a 1-1 1/2 oz jig and punch through it. this has been a rediscovery summer for my self so far. meaning i’ve had a lot of success on the more affordable brands and lures IE yum, zoom, norman, booyah etc etch. so far all of the expensive designer lures have fallen kind of flat. i may need to add a silver minnow spoon. it would fit in with the above paragraph.

You are right. This is one of the few forums that is still alive in kicking. Michigan sportsmen forum used to be a vibrant kicking place to share stories, reports and other stuff related to hunting and fishing. Now it’s a former shell of its self which, usually divulges into nasty political discussions.

Using a circle hook will help reduce the chance of gut hooking a fishing. I’ve never had an issue with hook up ratio on circle hooks. Some of the biggest bass I’ve ever caught have been from hooking gills, perch, or shiners right behind their top fin. on a lake I’d use a big bobber maybe suspended in 3-4 feet or relative to how deep it is. On a river system I would use a large egg sinker and fish on the bottom. I know in Michigan the gill, perch, minnow or what ever has to be from the same water shed. Can’t be transporting your caught bait from lake to lake unless it’s connected via a river.

Luckily I think in Michigan you’re starting to see uptick in fishing leveling off. Bass is pretty low on the list of things to fish for in this state as we touch 4 of the 5 Great Lakes have 1000’s of public lakes 400,000 miles of river bank. however, I have noticed this year that I have had to down size line and tackle a little bit to get bit consistently. Eventually bag limits for all species are going to be reduced due to the advances in fishing technology, techniques, and the internet. We have allready seen it with bear hunting here in Michigan. We have record number of bears but, the MI DNR reduced the bear tags. Their reasoning is that hunters are becoming too efficient at harvesting bear. It will eventually trickle into the fishing side. the Michigan DNR is finally starting to focuse in the land lakes and rivers. The salmon crash on Lake Huron and Michigan kinda forced thier hand. Some of our inland lakes have not been surveyed since the 1930’, 40’s, and 50’s. They do not have the funding or the staff to do it. All the money is allocated to Great Lakes salmon, trout, and walleye. I mean rightfully so as that is where the majority of the Money is spent and license's sold. Ive soften my stance on FFs but, this fish tips things crazy. Just having FFS dosent mean you’re going to catch fish. Just because, you have spent the money on the boat and gear don’t mean you are automatically entitled to fish just jumping in your boat. Need to put the work in with the blood, sweat, and tears. Eventually you will be rewarded. There’s been times especially starting out target specificly for bass that I struggled mightly, heck sometimes I still do.

I really only have 2. Both made by the same company. The rapala DT series and the rapala otts garage. the DT series I can’t figure out why. I can throw them all day and then switch it out for another crank and catch fish. Maybe I’ve just been fishing them too early in the year. the otts series I believe it’s more to do with the lakes that we have up here or atleast around me. Those seemed to be made for bouncing off of rocks in up to 6ft of water in huge resivours. We have 1000’s of smaller to medium sized natural lakes in the state of Michigan. Which, the bottom consists of the 1-6ft range mainly consists of sand with little no rocks and lots of weeds. It seems like they catch more weeds than a normal crank/square bill. Now I have not tried them in the large river systems near my house which, consists of the titabawassee, Shiawassee, and Saginaw rivers. In the last 1.5 years I have transitioned from that to lake fishing. I’ve got rough ten DT-10’s and DT-15’s. Rough ten combines of the OG-4’s and og’6. If they are not producing by this time next year they are going down the road to make room for somthing that does.

Darn you uncle frank !!! Seriously though,I’ve been killing it on spine craws this year. That GB hayes has been on fire in gin clear Michigan lakes. I didn’t mean to order that many number 7’s I think they were left in from previous times I was on the fence about buying them. all this only came up to $50 with BTl code and free shipping. So I saved around $12. Oh well everything considered they are not that expensive. I’ll fish one, keep one in the package and maybe if I ever run into uncle franks get him to autograph one. Reloaded on Spine craws in GB hayes and GP blue flake. New colors in pearl and cali 420. I think that NXS deep diver will be good on cloudy days in clear water.