Grand River Practice and Fun Fishing

Before I get into practice I got to get into “pre practice”. Which meant taking some time out from the tournament grind and getting the girls and my nephews out fishing. The nephews got into town and we had big plans for an afternoon of bluegill fishing and then a big adventure on the big lake Saturday. It was amazing that the weather was looking perfect and captain Cam had the time to get us all out.

The bluegill adventure was complicated by a very rough Muskegon Lake. The big gills were down deep on a reliable spot but it was just too rough and difficult to fish for what was supposed to be a fun fishing trip. After some searching, we did come up with a calm water honey hole and bobbers dropping like crazy. What was supposed to be a catch and release mission turned ugly fast. It’s hard to say no when they are requesting to fill the livewells. We stopped at 50 and they did do a good job of running the fish skinner and getting them out of the livewells for me.

The big adventure was going to be salmon though. An early wake up and something completely new. It was going to bring a lot of excitement whether the fish cooperated or not. Cold water was everywhere which meant all our lines would be in play and a lot of times this yields some really good trips. It was troubling to get the spread set without any bites but the kids were having a good time picking spoons and goofing off. They picked the order of operation by closest guess to the number of bluegills we kept the day before. Ethan was up first and got a feisty coho on a diver. We were on the board and everyone was awaiting their turn. June was up next but that next bite just wasn’t coming. We had been picking some new baits and changing some stuff. I went to change out the 300 copper and got about 3 cranks of the reel when it got smashed (I’ve always wanted that to happen). We got June on the cooler and ready for battle. This fish peeled so much line, so fast, all she could do was hang on with a lot of my help. It sunk the board and I took over until we were able to get the board off. The kids had all realized this was a big one. After we got the board off June would crank until she couldn’t any more and then I would help. The fish surfaced and they all said it looked like a shark out there. With some good teamwork we got it to the net and big fish June had a 22 pounder in the boat! Unfortunately that would be the last of our action but the trip was still high on fun and the kids never wanted to give up. That one big fish will leave some lasting memories and it was awesome of Cameron to take the time to get the kids out there. I know we all really appreciated it.

Now to that Grand River business. The thing that resonates most about practice is just how hot it was. Hot, still, stagnant, just misery out there. I also couldn’t believe how grown up with big lily pads the river was. They were everywhere and they were providing a ton of bass habitat. Fish could just get lost in there and never come out. The other thing I really noticed is just how many juvenile shad were out there. Just clouds of them in places and they were going to be a big player the rest of the year. The goal was mostly just to eliminate water on the river. When you never find anything good it is a lot of eliminating. We caught some fish throughout the day but no real nice ones.

The flipping bite seemed off, the frog bite was a challenge, and the shad bite was the same. There was one place that was loaded with shad and bass. They were blowing up on shad everywhere but they were so dialed in that they wouldn’t touch any of our presentations. It is that time of year in West Michigan and if you find fish on those small shad…it is feast or famine. We’d gotten some bites on a little bit of everything but the most reliable thing I’d seen was a swim jig. However, that wasn’t exactly working in big fish areas so it was unlikely to be a big player in the tournament for us.

We were likely going to gamble on an area that we never checked if we got a good boat number or dip into Spring Lake if we didn’t. That meant there were going to be a lot of rods in the boat on tournament day and we would be prepared for anything.