Detroit and Rossford stores had a little tournament on Lake St Clair this morning. It included people from all sections of each store. 6 teams from both store paid in, basically a store vs. store, but there was still a payout for first, second, third, and big bass.

 

We launched at 7am and had to be in for weigh-in at 2.

 

We had a really slow day. We made our way up the center shipping channel, caught two shorts in an hour. Decided to move. Went back out the southern channel, fished just outside of it in a ~20 cut and got nothing. We started to make our way back toward 9 mile, but the water was getting rough and Rich decided we should stop and just put our heads down and fish, pretty much right in the middle of the US side, around 10 feet of water. He ended up boating a 3.8# fish, and then nothing for a while.

 

By now, its about noon. I said we should head for deeper water, near the shipping channel that cuts through the center of the lake since thats the closest structure we could get to without making a long run. We motored over pretty slowly to avoid the bigger waves, but it was about 12:15 when we started drifting along the south side of the channel. Fished for about 20 minutes with tubes, cranks, dropshot.. I boated a small keeper on a tube.

 

Another 10 minutes or so, and Rich finally got a hit on a DS. Netted it, and I tossed right into that spot again with my dropshot. I hooked up. In a matter of about 5 minutes, we had a limit. Along the channel, we would see spots of light blue water mixed with the sand-colored stained water. Every time we went by or through one of these color changes, we hit a school. By 1:15, we had culled about 8 times. We had caught about 15 fish in the matter of that half hour. 3#er after 3#er, some just slightly heavier than others.

 

1:20 came around, and Rich said we should start heading back because of the conditions. After about 3 minutes on the motor, we realized it had calmed down a lot, and the run wasn't nearly as bad as we thought. We were very early to weight in. I think if we had stayed, we may had landed a 4 or bigger within those extra 15-20 minutes, and maybe won this thing.

 

Ohio's Store Manager and a fishing associate won first place with 17.85. Rich and I placed second with 16.75, and another Ohio team placed third with 16.65. Total weights combined between each set of six teams - Ohio had 85lbs - Michigan 78lbs.

 

We blame our loss on one of our managers who is an Ohio native. He didn't come in with a limit

 

Nice outing . Congrats on 2nd place. Sorry the Ohio boys won.

Good looking smallies!