Up North Vibes

We made our annual week-long trip to the Leelanau Peninsula. Older kids meant more fishing and bigger fish. Long gone are the days of only dropping perch rigs and worms (we did do a little bit of that on one lake). The kids would fish everyday if they could but logistics of other plans don’t allow for it. I think fishing happened a record 5 days and then a morning of crawfish snatching too. The biggest challenge is managing who goes on what trip.

The first couple of days was all inland stuff. I got a brief time by myself on the way up on a lake that they suspend out deep. I had previously done that with MEGA Live 1 last year but what a difference it was with MEGA Live 2. The dang things were uncooperative but I did get some nice ones and a walleye for the livewell. The wind was ridiculous and that made it very challenging on fish that were tough to get to bite anyway. It was a good start to the trip though.

The next couple days were spent leaning on some magnum rock bass and some feisty smallmouth. The rockbass bite wasn’t as good as last year but they were down there. The fun thing about it is that it is all artificial for them and they pull back just without the acrobatics of the smallmouth. I really did notice this year that I got more bites from both the smallmouth and rockbass when using a Maxscent flatworm than some of the other dropshot baits without the smell. Catch, clean, cook adds something to the trip for the kids. So we filled the livewells up with magnum rockies and a few 14 inch smallmouth for a fish fry. I did not come prepared with enough cardboard for cleaning all those fish but we made it work. It was a rare chance to check a few bass stomachs out too. It’s always good to see what they were eating and the kids are always curious to see what’s in there. In this case it was all crawfish. The water is much warmer than I prefer to eat fish out of but all the fish were alive when I cleaned them and then refrigerated for a couple days to firm them up. The fish fry was excellent!

My most anticipated trip was a bay trip. It’s really my only chance to do a little exploring as we usually go out longer. Exploring is what I love about fishing and on water that big you just really never have it figured out. First priority was lake trout and I really hoped they would be on a place I found last year. It had numbers and bigger trout than some of my other reliable spots on West Bay. Trouting is best early so we were up at 5am and fishing at 6am. One big difference this year is I could see what was going on down there in 95 feet on MEGA Live 2. We set down on the waypoint, dropped a jig, and immediately had a trout racing over. The 2 ounce P-Line Laser Minnow didn’t last long and we were hooked up. I handed the rod off to my nephew as they hadn’t even had a chance to get their rods down yet. After a fun battle we put a trout over 10 pounds in the boat! I had it on the deck trying to get the hook out and it went nuts, flopped back in the water, and broke my 15lb leader that was hooked on the fishfinder. We were all a little bummed. It would have made a great picture and it would have been great watching my nephew squirm while trying to hold it up. The best part was the kids getting their own fish jigging like that. They were working pretty hard at it and ripping spoons like that is no joke for 8 and 9 year olds. Throw in some complaints about sore wrists after catching lakers and I would say it was a success. We also never had to move the boat so I’m thinking that is an A+ trout spot for that time of year. We released some lakers and kept a few to feed the crew but we had bass to catch too. That was short lived but they were biting good up shallow. Our trip ended up getting cut pretty short as something came up and we had to get back. It is going to be a long wait for more exploring up there, lesson learned multiple bay trips if weather allows next year.

One note on the trout trip is that I think I found what rods I’ll be primarily using to salmon jig this year. Temple Fork Outfitters 735 in the Option Series had the right balance with the big spoons/trout. We experienced very few tangles because of the tip action on that rod and it had plenty of backbone for setting the hook in 95 feet. Those trout were also fantastic eating out of the bay. I’ve been making a lemon/yogurt/garlic/dill sauce with trout and salmon lately and it has been going over well.

The last trip I had was one to Big/Little Glen Lake. The family had a pontoon rental for a few hours but there were too many people for the toon so I had to bring my rig too. I decided to get there early and explore that lake a little bit. I have spent so little time on those places but they seem like cool lakes. Big Glen is deep and clear while Little Glen is more milky colored and shallow. Little Glen seems almost like a mini St. Clair to me and that’s where the action went down. One big negative I see to Glen Lake is the launch, small, busy, and interesting. There is a rigorous boat inspection and washing station upon arrival, so make sure your boat is clean before you get there. I’ve got no problem with any of that and it is a good way to keep invasives out of the lake for sure. However, when they ask you start your motor while it is out of the water at a launch owned by the Michigan DNR, I think that is a step too far. I guess a Mercury Pro XS is not designed to be run on muffs because of a low water pickup. So, I wasn’t starting it out of the water. But hearing “if your boat wasn’t clean already, I couldn’t let you launch” was a major turnoff to fishing Glen Lake and the Glen Lake Association. Can you really prevent someone launching at a DNR launch? I don’t think so! I do support their efforts for trying to keep their lake free of new invaders but don’t pretend you are the governing authority of the DNR launch (and maybe be a little more welcoming). Everyone should do their best to pick the junk off their boats/trailers and clean, drain, dry especially if moving between bodies of water. It doesn’t take much effort and preventing the spread of invasives is worth it.

Back to the fishing, it was a beautiful morning and I stopped short of some really good looking stuff on the map. First cast produced a topwater fish that was close to 4 pounds (why can’t that happen in a tournament?). I had another blow up quickly and saw some fish on MEGA Live 2 so we were off to a good start. I got to where things were looking really good and no fish were to be found. I had a choice to make keep pushing to where it looked really good on the map but similar water wasn’t producing or pull back and expand on the area that didn’t look great on paper but had the action. I went back and expanded and it was the right call. It was a lot of fun running a walking bait over the top of fish I could see on MEGA Live 2 and watching them come up and crush it. This area and the grass in it kind of gave me the recipe of what I was looking for and I had some fun the rest of the morning.

Fast forward to Big Glen and what a struggle that was. The only bass activity I found was a fish busting over 60 feet of water and they were going so fast I could never relocate them. I crossed off a section of that lake I probably won’t be investigating again. However if small perch is your thing (and we did actually catch a few nice ones) that place is loaded. There were giant schools of perch anywhere from just off the drop off to 50 feet. The kids had fun with it and Milllie got in on the action too. They did at least feel a little bigger because you could catch them 2 at a time!

That’s what has been going on and I’ve got one more weekend before our Muskegon D&R event. August gets pretty busy with tournaments although I think I end up out of town or busy for the rest of the HOTD Series. So all my eggs are in the D&R basket and lets hope to keep that momentum going.