Dawn to Dusk

Last week I fished 3 lakes and shot a couple rounds of 5 stand. Not bad for working close to 50 hours as  a desk-bound cubicle cowboy.

Thursday started with a pre-dawn run to Lake St. Clair. I met up with Jake, my coworker and trusted walleye fishing captain, at 5:30 am. We launched near Selfridege Airforce base and headed to a spot about 1 mile off-shore. We fished tubes for smallies as the sun slowly popped over the horizon. A beautiful morning. But the bass weren’t interested in sharing the view from the boat.

We threw spinnerbaits and crankbaits in dense weeds closer to shore. We each missed a strike before moving into the canals where we finally found some largemouths.

Jake caught this decent bass on a small floating Rapala. The fish were holding to any visible surface weeds and lounging under boat lifts. Since I destroyed the battery for the troller last weekend, navigating the canals was tough. I’ll be back with a working minn-kota because these in-shore waters are stocked full of bass.

This little largemouth destroyed a tube. I lobbed it up into a sunny spot in front of a boat house. He came out of the water absolutely punishing the bait before I set the hook.

Texas-rigging tubes helps to get them down to the fish buried in the weeds this time of year. But a regular wide-gap hook allows the tube to slide to much destroying the bait after just a few strikes. So I experimented with a Skip Gap hook. The shank of this hook has a little zig-zag in it holding the tube in place and making it virtually weedless. Click the pic above for a quick video about rigging a tube using these new hooks.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning featured my new go-to lure, the black and blue jig-n-pig. I got this tip on a blog of a friend of mine. He wore out the bass and quite a few large pike with this set-up last month. Click here to see his post and some impressive pics.

A stout, heavy action 7 foot graphite rod armed a jig and Zoom rubber crawler trailer was by far the best producing bait last week. It worked best casting parallel to drop-offs in about 17 fow. Or holding the boat over the drop-off casting into shallow weeds and working the jig down the drop-off. Until the weather cools off  I expect this bait to be a top performer.

On Sunday afternoon I shot a couple rounds of 5-stand with the Ann Arbor chapter of the Moose Club near Pinckney, MI. The course kicked my ass at first. I only broke 12 of 25 clays. The next round I got the swing of it and managed to better my score to 17. All they guys at the club were funny and great shooters. At only $6 a round I’ll be back there for sure.

It was a busy week. But making time to fish is sometimes the only way I keep sane. Even if it means waking up at 4:30 am before work, fishing until dusk on Saturday and getting up on Sunday to do it all again.