Lake St Clair Tomorrow. Going for Broke!

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

Well this will be my first solo adventure into Lake St Clair. My only experience is a guided day of fishing this summer, which was a great time but I had the luxury of fishing with an experienced guide with a bunch of productive locations ready to go. This summer I bought a boat that is capable of handling St Clair so this will be the first chance I have to give it a go. No waypoints, no previous scouting, and not enough smallmouth experience to make me feel confident so I’m just going to hit the water, cover as much ground as I can starting early and if I run into some, great. If not I’ll fish until I run out of steam, hopefully save a few waypoints for later and make the 2 hour drive home to cold beers. 
 

The weather has changed recently and we’re at the beginning of a stretch of actual fall weather. Two weeks ago I had planned to go but couldn’t make it at the last minute. Then the water temps were about 70 and since they have dropped to 61. Cooler nights with modest days so I predict they’ll start moving shallow when the sun hits the water but we shall see. I’ll cover everything from 25 feet to 3 with just about everything I have in my tackle to throw at them. Going for broke!

[HawkeyeSmallie]

Looking forward to hearing about how it goes.

 

I was going to get a guide this fall but he never called me back.

 

It's my dream trip.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

Looking forward to hearing about how it goes.

 

I was going to get a guide this fall but he never called me back.

 

It's my dream trip.

You gotta try harder than that for your dream trip! 

[SAL321]

It's been a tough bite. We have been working the Canadian side around the shipping channel. In and around Grosse Pointe the perch and bait are there but we haven't found any bass in numbers chompin on them...yet. That water has been chalky for a few weeks so we've stayed north. Seeing plenty of fish but nothing committing.

 

[raydomz]

Good luck out there!

if you don’t mind, what guide service did you use?

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

48 minutes ago, SAL321 said:

It's been a tough bite. We have been working the Canadian side around the shipping channel. In and around Grosse Pointe the perch and bait are there but we haven't found any bass in numbers chompin on them...yet. That water has been chalky for a few weeks so we've stayed north. Seeing plenty of fish but nothing committing.

 

Hmm I’m hoping some cooling temps might get them going. Hoping! When you say a tough bite is that hardly getting bites at all or getting lower number than you’d like? 

[SAL321]

Just now, Bucks Bass and Bourbon said:

Hmm I’m hoping some cooling temps might get them going. Hoping! When you say a tough bite is that hardly getting bites at all or getting lower number than you’d like? 

No it's been lower numbers. When we've got bit they are healthy and chunky. They are gorging on bait somewhere just not anywhere near where we are. 

We'll be out tomorrow and hitting the area I mentioned. We've seen fish there maybe you're right they are in the mood to bite.

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

 

37 minutes ago, SAL321 said:

No it's been lower numbers. When we've got bit they are healthy and chunky. They are gorging on bait somewhere just not anywhere near where we are. 

We'll be out tomorrow and hitting the area I mentioned. We've seen fish there maybe you're right they are in the mood to bite.

Maybe it's coincidental you say the ones that did bite were chunky. I'm over in the Lansing area where most of the lakes are predominantly largemouth lakes. I saw a ton of suspended fish on one of the better lakes nearby last Friday and barely got anything to bite. One decent one on a finesse underspin out of everything I saw. A couple more but those were all shallow fish on the same underspin or a spinner. The ones that did bite had fat bellies too which was an encouraging sign but the bites were extremely few and far between.

 

I'll be launching out of Selfridge and probably spending the day hitting Anchor Bay or maybe shooting over to the mile roads or something. I'll report back whatever happens. I may not catch many but I promise you it won't be from lack of effort or too few presentations. I'm packing the rod locker with everything haha. If you find some bites over by you please let us know, Maybe I'll find an excuse to run over next weekend too!

[HawkeyeSmallie]

6 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You gotta try harder than that for your dream trip! 

Well when we are talking back and forth via email and he then asks for my telephone number, I guess I’d expect him to call me back.

 

Apparently he doesn’t need the business bad enough.

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

5 hours ago, raydomz said:

Good luck out there!

if you don’t mind, what guide service did you use?

Marcel’s Guide Service

[TOXIC]

Since you were a client of Marcels, give him a call and tell him you want to give it a go on your own.  I’m sure he will at least give you enough info to get you into the general vicinity or at least the pattern.  He’s a great guy.  

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

I thought about that actually and still might. I went out today and kinda got my tail kicked but no big deal. I covered a good amount of water but as was mentioned they didn’t seem interested. Did manage one nice 4 pound 20 inches within the first 40 minutes in about ten feet of water and thought I might have a little luck after all. Then nothing for the next six hours aside from a couple little perch in depths from 6 to 15 feet. Finally headed back toward the launch and covered some more water and found an isolated patch of grass and caught a small one. I host need to get out a few more tikes to learn it better. Lots of water to learn. 

[raydomz]

Can’t complain about a 4lb’er! Nice! 
what will you do differently next time?…or the same?

[Bucks Bass and Bourbon]

12 hours ago, raydomz said:

Can’t complain about a 4lb’er! Nice! 
what will you do differently next time?…or the same?

Oh absolutely not. Definitely the highlight of my day and to have it happen so early was a great jumpstart.

 

Not much different in hindsight. I would however launch at a different section of the lake to gain some more familiarity and just keep getting a better feel for the lake. I feel like I gained a lot out there yesterday and don't necessarily think I would have done much differently aside from maybe moving a little faster to keep searching. Sometimes on a tough day (especially when I'm graphing fish) I stay too long in one place even if I can't get a bite. I've done that couple times recently where I knew I was on fish but my lure may have well been invisible to them. Wasted time on fish or maybe very few fish when I could be elsewhere making better use of my time. 

[raydomz]

40 minutes ago, Bucks Bass and Bourbon said:

Sometimes on a tough day (especially when I'm graphing fish) I stay too long in one place even if I can't get a bite. I've done that couple times recently where I knew I was on fish but my lure may have well been invisible to them. Wasted time on fish or maybe very few fish when I could be elsewhere making better use of my time. 

Man I can relate to that. Curse of the graph. But moving is key on tough days. Excited to hear about your next trip out!

[WRB]

Never fished St Claire looks big!

I have fished using sonar for decades and it’s an excellent search tool to determine where the bait fish are and how deep the “life zone” is located. Knowing those 2 facts you eliminate a lot of unproductive water without spending time trying to catch the sonar marks. 

Sonar can’t catch bass it can only located “fish” of all types. Fish that are on structure elements, especially isolated, are usually bass. If the structure element is in the life zone then try catching them. 

Tom