Surviving is Thriving on the Grand in 2025
Starting off the year for the D&R Series on the Grand River was a switch up. For whatever reason we just have never been there that early and I have very little experience in June there. But usually shallow water fisheries like that have plentiful bites post spawn but it is just hard to come by size. That would be my assessment without ever getting out on the water. I never made it out for practice but fortunately my river rat of a partner put in some work. Not surprisingly the practice report was catching fish was easy, catching big ones was not. Getting to where we needed to be was going to take some gambles and a little luck.
One of the more interesting things about the river this year is the low water. I mean it is low, like hard to get your boat places, treacherous to run the big motor, and a lot of the good stuff from the last few years is high and dry. The other interesting thing about the river is just how far behind the vegetation seems. I think it got a jumpstart with the one heatwave we had early in the spring but then just kind of dropped off with the cold weather. One other note is this would be the first day of the year that I’ve fished where the weather is actually pleasant. No cold weather gear, flip flops, and it actually felt too hot.
Going into the tournament the real hope was that we could have an area with a lot of alewife activity and capitalize on that first thing in the morning. Alewives are often your best chance in West Michigan this time of year and if you can find where they are spawning, there will be fish around. With nothing great found with that we were going to gamble on smallmouth in hopes of getting a few to start our day. Not only was it risky but it also was a time suck, luckily it wasn’t the only thing going on in the area. So, despite being quite a ways out of the way it wasn’t just 1 tiny spot. Being boat number 7 was even more encouraging because we would likely get out pick of the area.
We got there and got settled in but nothing was happening. We picked up a bonus largemouth fairly quickly on a whopper plopper. While it wasn’t a true dink, it wasn’t going to do much for us but in the livewell it went. Finally we had some action we were looking for but that fish found its way into an underwater cable or something. For the next 5 minutes we tried letting it swim out and doing whatever else we could to get it out. It did jump a couple times and was one of the right ones, but it would never come to the surface near the boat where we could net it. Eventually the line broke and we were back to fishing. We picked up another incidental largemouth and a smallmouth we hoped to get rid of at some point throughout the day. However, if it ended up being up one of our smaller fish, we could live with it.
It was back to largemouth fishing in the next area and more unconventional tactics for us on the Grand. That is one thing we do a good job of and it is always trying new things in practice. While it would be nice to find all the best spots and have them be good every tournament. It just doesn’t work that way on these fisheries connected to Lake Michigan. The water level is always changing, the weeds are always changing, something is always changing and keeping us on our toes and with an open mind. Trevor was very confident we would get a good one here and worst case leave with a limit. The bite was off in this area too, we did fill out our limit with the spinning rods including another fish we could weigh in on a tough day.
Those were the 2 areas we really hoped to make our day. But in tournament fishing, life rarely goes as planned. So it was time to improvise and start making things up as we went. The one nice thing about the day is that we planned on just grinding the rest of it out in the river vs flip flopping around between there and Spring Lake. We got a couple of good swirls on the frog next. They definitely could have been the right ones but it is really hard to say. Especially with fish being moving so much water as shallow as the water was. We also culled a time or 2 just by ounces on a spinnerbait. I was just shocked at how far the vegetation was behind and had some tackle adjustments to make to account for that.
In our next area the swim jig bite going and we finally had a solid fish on. Despite throwing at the log several different times we gave it a shot from another angle and bam. It was so shallow you could see the fish from so far out and we desperately needed it. We scooped it up with the Clam Fortis net and while it wasn’t a giant anything over 3 pounds is a big deal on a day like this. We caught some more keepers swimming a jig and a spinnerbait and made one more small cull. We didn’t have any rats at this point, and it was good just to have all our fish over 2 pounds on a day like today. We were in position that a 4 pounder would go A LONG WAY. So we kept junking around with no real pattern. The only thing I’d seen so far is that your odds went up with the swim jig in small areas of denser pad stems. We were mixing in a chatterbait too and that was also firing. But as we suspected catching fish wasn’t hard but catching big ones was.
We had some decisions to make on what to do. Keep junking around or suck some time up making big moves to high percentage 3 pounder areas. It was after noon now and making a big move to a high percentage 3 pounder area was the call. It was going to suck a lot of time but if we could just cull up a little bit then we had a good chance to at least salvage the day. On the move we went with plans to stop at a couple other high percentage spots for bites in between. Do you ever do silly things in tournaments like I do and throw baits you really never use because you think they might work? I’ve caught very few fish on the free rig but for whatever reason I felt like I should tie one on today. It paid off on the next stretch and while it wasn’t a big one we weren’t going to need the balance beam for the next cull.
Our best odds for a 3 pounder were with the smallmouth so we were fully switching gears again. We got there and Trevor hooked up with a magnum. I suppose it could have been something other than a bass but usually drum or catfish will give it away with their sweeping headshakes. I didn’t see any of that but it also never jumped and we’ll never know. I also know that even if it was a 5 pounder we weren’t going to overtake Norm Greene and Nate Fredrickson’s impressive 18-pound bag for the win. I do know that I am thankful for our next bite which was a smallmouth over 3 pounds that actually made it in the boat. That fish was a big deal for us and I felt that with such tough fishing for big ones that it could have snuck us into check range. The rest of the day didn’t bring much action, partially because it was tough to get in on places the closer you got to ramp.
At the end of the day, we just pulled into the middle of The Sag across from ramp and hoped to find one on a grass patch. I had the MEGA Live in landscape mode and was amazed at all the life swimming around. Lots of big trashy fish in schools, I’m not sure if they were big gizzard shad, suckers, or what. But there was a massive pike in there feeding on them and they would bump into your lure but not bite. MEGA Live 2 in landscape mode was crazy though. There was no delay and you could really see everything happening around you. I was impressed and can’t imagine how awesome it would be on a place like Houghton Lake.
That was it for the day though and with that last fish we both felt like we survived the day. Maybe we would slide into check range but we were going to get some valuable points. We weighed in pretty early on, since we were first flight and made one big mistake. We hadn’t given our big fish too much thought because we didn’t have any and we misjudged our biggest largemouth. We almost didn’t weigh one but thought we better for tiebreaker. Turns out it mattered because we were tied for 2nd with 13.37 but got bumped because of big bass. I don’t know that ours would have been big enough to bump the Slager’s down but it would have been close and we’ll never know. Besides an eventual 5th place finish was such a pleasant surprise I wasn’t going to be bummed at all. We got some of that bonus money too from Humminbird/Minn Kota. If you aren’t fishing D&R you are missing out on a great opportunity to boost your winnings if you pay attention to the contingency program. Let’s get that published one day though because we missed out on a random draw bonus because I didn’t have my hydrowave on the boat. Had I known that contingency was back, it would be back on the boat. We’ll have it on for next trip! Hardy Dam is up next and that is going to be pretty much a clean slate/no history tournament for us. Should be fun and a learning experience.