Mbirdsley

probably a spro rk crawler 55 in either a green color, sparkle shad or goby

what blank did you use ? that is what the blank on the post above is going to be primarily for along, with chatter baits.

it probably dosent matter 80% of the time or to averages sized fish Matte colors are going to matter more up here in the great lakes where it is gin clear and can see the bottom in 20-25 ft of water. big small mouth have gotten that big for a reason and not falling for everything that looks like food. some bait fish are shiny but, everything else that they eat are rather dull colored. some days it going to matters other days it doesn’t.

no problem. i was kind of figuring most people didn’t have lower lakers in their local fishing hole

probably the last fishing trip for a while. went out of lee street on the saginaw river in down town saginaw. The river has been busy with Freighter traffic lately. I was t sure where i was going up river or down bound but, after checking AIS boat nerd site. The 670 ft M/V Saginaw was unloading stone at the Old GM dock. which, is basically as far up river river as they can get before the shipping channel ends. Where the saginaw was docked is roughly 15-18 miles from the mouth of the river and the saginaw bay. after passing the M/v saginaw and catching a nice walleye on a lbs 1.5 square bill. the saginaw blew her whistle made the turn and started her journey back to the saginaw bay and lake huron. it took her almost 3 hours to reach the mouth/bay. I did manage to catch another 3 lbs bass on a black and blue spine craw. good day to end on for a while.

i fished stained water quite a bit. It’s a huge river system that is always has a lot of sentiment due to field run off year round. So black cranks will always work regardless of sky being cloudy or sunny. there are shad in the system and sexy shad will work almost all the time in sunny conditions. Silver will also work as most minnows are silvery color. Silver, chrome, silver and black sunny days work very well. On cloudy days black obviously works very well and so does chartreuse and blue back. those are the 4 main colors i throw on the Saginaw river system and i catch my share of fish.

finally making some head way. I messed around with epoxying the butt wrap and the wrap between the sk2 split grip for 2 weeks. No matter what I did. I kept getting fish eyes. At first i thought there was contamination on the blank. so i sanded the blank down and re-epoxy. still was getting fish eyes, re-sand and than get fish eyes again etc etc. finally i narrowed it down to either old pro kote which, was 1 1/2 yrs old or I had contaminated the pro kote in the bottle some how. So i bought some new pro kote and the wrap finish came out great finally !!!. from now on id i have guide epoxy over a year ill just throw it out. everything on the handle is expoxied up and drying right now ill start wrapping this weekend.

so possibly my last far away trip for a while ( maybe rest of the summer i dunno) untill at least end of july due to my twins being born. fished clear lake in ogemaw county.l which is northern michigan. I had 4 hrs of drive time ( 2 hrs each) and fished for 8 hrs. clear lake is a fairly deep, medium sized lake and ultra clear lake which, on a good day we can see down 20 ft. I wanted to catch atleast one day of the spawn. Im not big on bed fishing but, i guess i just like to see them on their beds for whatever reason. I was the only one fishing on the lake. literally had the lake to my self except a couple of pontoons. glad i’m missing the madness this weekend doe to memorial day. which, luckily i saw both large mouth and smallies on beds. the couple of large mouths that i saw were completely locked down on beds and which, i didnt mess with the large mouth. the small mouth were on beds but, weren’t lock down. most were doing wide orbits around the center of the nest. most of them ran away from any lure. except the first smallie which , crushed a spine craw in gp hayes. I didn’t mess around with the bedding fish too much. I caught that one and than had another get off. All my fish either came on a yum GP hayes spine craw t-rigged with 1/8 weight or a shakey head with 5 inch smoke purple berkley fatty bottom hopper on a shakey head ( first shakey head bass ). So the smallies are either just starting to spawn or it’s about over i couldn’t really tell. most of the smallies that i caught were roaming around across the lake from the beds in 6-8 ft of water. the large mouth all came in shallower water except the big one. I caught my first 3 lbs large mouth of the year which, weighs 3.26 lbs. caught him on the spine craw at the end of a blow down. that was one hardest fighting bass i’ve caught. He actually took a lot on line out. i’ve had 5 lbers that didn’t fight as hard. also, caught a couple cool shots of a loon swimming under water right next to the boat. that loon was in 8 ft of water and swam right over the small mouth nests. still need to get the hang of drop shotting. great day yo be on the water in northern michigan. it was good to be “ Up North “

i may need to get some thinner diameter flouro. right now i’m going 20 lbs hi-viz power pro to a 8lbs flouro leader which, is berkley 100 % flouro. i think the line diameter of berkley flouro line is larger than most other brands. see how it goes tommrow ill. e fishing for smallies in a really clear lake. i think i need to run a longer leader.

i like the mayor a lot. it has a very tight wobbling tail. it will probably be replacing all of the other paddle tails in my lure box eventually as attrition wipes out my kietechs. I have some of the meds but havnt used them yet

apparently i’m the only person in michigan ( maybe the upper midwest )who doesn’t drop shot. last time i was out on the saginaw bay i played around with it. i have making and setting up the rig down. I guess where im confused is all i am supposed to do is cast it out and slowly drag it back to the boat? or if i can see a rock, fish or other structure just cast the rig near it and let it do its thing? is it strictly a clear water technique or will it work it stands to muddy water ? last week i had my leader around 12 inches for the sinker to hook. so far i have berkley flat worm in green pumpkin water melon and some net bait Jr crush in goby color, along with some 4 and 5 inch robo worms ( i’ve had for ever). is there any other must have plastics for the rig? right now i’m using a 6ft 1/4-5/8 rainshadow Rx6 medium (rod acts more like a M/L ) that I built this winter for vertical jigging walleye. ppp

i forgot about bandits those work too

to me there 2 separate baits. the XD has a bit wider wobble than the DT. Both are goods baits the XD i’d work on flats. while the DT comes through boulders and brush better. Strike king has very good shad pattern for murkier lakes where the DT is more for clearer lakes with better natural paint jobs

norman DD 22 strike king xd-5 are a couple that are $7.99-$8.99. both catch fish. i would change hooks on both that I mentioned. getting bite off from pike is just part of the game up here. i run 10 lbs on my one rod and 12 lbs suffix co-polymer on my deep cranking rod. I attach my cranks with a snap and i rarely get bit off while using cranks. usually, i only get bit off if im fishing a t-rig, tube, or other bottom contact lure.

pradco order fire lurenet came today. 6 inch walter melon pearl laminate 6 inch dinger, ultimate craw( summer craw) tubes. fat boy evo, olive blue deep little N, holly speed N olive blue speed N.

what is a good sized spot ?

good luck. i don’t know if im staying semi local or heading 2 hrs north to west branch yet or not. makes for a long day. i was up at 6:45 left at 7:45 and just got home 9 pm.

drove 2 hours and fished wild fowl bay. kinda a rough day. water temp at start of the day was 56 degrees which, was colder than i was expecting. nothing was shallow. started around north island. only thing i had going for me was a goby 55 rock crawler. i caught 4 25- 26 inch pike and a decent large mouth on it. 2 of the pike choked the rock crawler 2nd and last pike to choke the rock crawler finally destroyed it. trying to get the crank out i pulled the hangers out of the crank: ran to the south around hiester island and only saw some gar. oh, i did have a huge smallie follow a jerk bait but that was the only one i saw in 6-7ft of water tommrue any how is another day. i’m calling and fishing some where.

yes this is my scenario also. I fish almost exclusively natural lakes and grinding a crank off the bottom will get it fouled by vegetation. generally speaking i want my cranks just above the weeds. i just discovered the cranks with L shaped bill. I have some shallow shad rap rapala’s currently but, always dis regarded the other brands. i may pick up a couple of the 6th sense and strike king versions. probably would work well where i fish.

slow but steady progress. i have the butt wrap done and the grip done. quality is night and day difference between pre made handles and making your own from cork rings. kinda a pain in the butt process but, definitely worth it quality wise and price wise. the cork rings are from tackle zoom. the darker one is called verticals cactus which, is very dense and has a lot of burl in it. the lighter cork is green mixed with the usual colored cork. i used the verticals cactus on the bottom of the fighting butt and on the ends of the split grips. i’m hoping by using on the ends of the split grip that it will prevent the corners from getting wore down and chipped from use.

This is my one Grandfather and dad side of the family to a T. It does not register to fish for sport but, to just fill the freezer. it’s starting to change people are starting to get educated. I’m not saying you should never keep and eat a fish. However, you don’t need to pull a limit to eat every trip

except in michigan we really don’t have a lot of dedicated Bass stores. Really the only thing i can think of other than Bass pro shop at great lakes crossing in Auburn hills. Only other possible locations would be D&R sports center near kalamazoo ( owned by KVD’s family ) and possibly franks in linwood. Every place sells a little bass tackle but, usually just common stuff and generally with jigs not the best quality. I mean every store sells a senko or knock offs senko’s but, if you want higher quality bass tackle those 3 places are about it. D&R is 2 hours away, bass pro 1.15 hrs franks would actually be the closes like 45 minutes away. Everything is geared towards great lakes trolling, Walleye, and panfish. i still get the side eye telling people i bass fish. great lakes trolling for salmon, steel head, lake trout, and walleye ( walleye fishing in general) is a religion up here. i get it i grew up fishing for those fish.

sunny days and dirty water of 5-6 inches ( not chocolate milk) IE the saginaw river i like bronze blades and chartreuse spinner skirts . cloudy and same water visibility i like black and bronze. straight chocolate milk i like painted blades. sunny clear water 2-4 visibility nickle blades or nickle and bronze blades and natural forage looking skirts and body 2-4 ft visibility cloudy weather i like chartreuse and bronze blades brighter skirts.

i think you would be better off replacing the whole guide. if you don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of guide replacement i would try and find a local rod builder. he or she maybe able to replace it for $15-$25 ( shipping has went way up. if you were closer i would do it. i took all my guides off of my black maxx rod before i threw it out.

thank you for the kind words. yeah i guess i don’t know the difference between a sunfish and a hybrid. should have asked them if there were pure breeds left haha. usually they are good about responding to those questions. its one of those things i think you can’t try to catch one for master angler because, when you do is when you will catch nothing but dinks. you I had come close to a master angler 1 other time. my brother and I were fishing lake michigan over 4th of july weekend 6 years ago. i caught a 38.75 inch ( 28.5 lbs) king salmon. i missed master angler for a king salmon by a 1/4 inch that was tough. dang thing barley fit in the cooler. that was a little tough to take.