AJMichigan

Nice fish! Where in Michigan are you? Keep fishing through the late fall man until the water temperature dips below about 45 degrees. I went out yesterday morning on a series of connected lakes that is a runoff/connects to the Grand River via a 10-15ft wide channel. This is my best fishing spot down here in the Grand Rapids area and always catch them big from the opening of bass season until the middle of October. That's when I switch to targeting smallies out of the actual Grand River itself. If you wanna come down to this area (I don't know where you are) i'd be happy to show you some of my best spots and I promise you won't be disappointed. Nothing like fall bassin' in Michigan!

Had an incredible morning out on the lake/river runoff and my best bass spot this morning. For those of you up in the midwest who hang up the poles when the temperature starts dropping, you are missing out. The largemouths get real aggressive up here this time of year and if you're not catching them at 14+ inches regularly you're doing something wrong. A couple more weeks and i'll start targeting the smallies out of the Grand River, weeee! Here are a few pics from this morning, got out there right before dawn and caught my biggest fish of the day on my 2nd cast. They were eating up my spinner's today on a quick, aggressive retrieve. All four were over 14 inches and keepable, but i'm a catch and release fisherman as the bass population is dwindling up here along with the Salmon population. First fish was 16 1/4"

Hey all, I'm heading out to Cooperstown on June 26th, so would anyone want to contact me and lets figure something out to go fishing? I'll be out there until July 4th, that's the day im leaving.

You can count me in!

Will do, thank you. This won't be until the end of June.

hey guys, So i'm making two trips this summer and was curious about the fishing in these areas. I've done some research but was curious what you guys knew. I'm heading out to New York this summer to umpire baseball. I was out there a few years ago as well, but didn't really have the chance to hit the bass. This time I want to make sure I have a chance. I will be in Cooperstown/Oneota, and was curious about the fishing in this area. Target species is largemouth. Also curious about boat rental, licenses, ect. Next, I'm heading down to visit a friend in the Bowling Green, KY area. The only real thing I could find online was Lake Kentucky and Barkley lake, and this is 2 and a half hours away and did not really want to travel that far. Also curious about licenses as well. Any insight would be great guys, thanks! Can't wait to get back to fishing this spring! Hoping the winter goes away soon as the high school baseball season is set to start at the end of March and can't afford to have games canceled! Also, I want to get fishing!

Only reason I bought the line is because it was 50% off, and I needed some new line anyway. However I will be filing a complaint with the company for sure. As for eagle claw being bad, I use their hooks and have never had an issue with those.

So, I picked up a spool of 10lb biodegrabable line and put it on my reel. I get to my fishing spot and the first cast the line snapped as I was casting my spinnerbait and there goes my spinner... I tie on a new spinner and a few casts later it happens again, snap. Same rod/reel/spinners that i've used before, and it did not snap off at the knot, it snapped off in the line right at the top of my rod. It is eagle claw bioline, Flurocarbon clairty 100% biodegradable...any suggesstions/tips?

These looked promising, however they did not produce for me. In 3 days of fishing with them (I had the red/black ones) I caught one pike and it was a small one. Tried many different retreival methods as well as hooking them parallel and perpendicular. Also tried them weighted and weightless. All methods were texas rigged, obviously. I tried these lures in a lake and in a river, where I know fish are. Was catching the fish on my spinnerbaits on the same days in the same spots. Anyone else tried these? What might i be doing wrong?

What a great story, just goes to tell you that the DNR in our state care about more than just finding poachers. http://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/3-year-old-amber-rose-smith-missing

Interesting. In the spinners I lost today was a while spinner that was a double blade. One of the blades however was painted to look like a minnow as well with an eye the same color as the eye on the spinner and with a white body. It was probably the coolest spinner i've ever had, cause some nice fish on it. The only luck i've had with it though was on a slow retreive.

That's what I tried because that's what I was always taught, however what I believe happened was when I pulled up to attempt to take the lure over the logs the hook got stuck in it. Also, I was taught that fishing spinnerbaits slowly and on the bottom is the best way for smallies.

3 of the 6 were wal-mart spinners that I just bought, but still annoying when you have to cut the day short because nothing else is working

What a horrible day and I need to vent. Started the day with six spinner baits, including the three I posted on here the other day. I ended my fishing day with zero. First spinner bait was lost to a pike who cut through my line and got away with it. The next 5 were lost on logs/rocks on the bottom of the river in a span of about 45 minutes.. I dont know how that happens, I thought Spinnerbaits were suppossed to prevent this from happening. What a nightmare.

As you see in the pictures, the trailers that came with the spinners are about 6 inches long. How would I add a trailer hook to the end of those?

thanks for the advice, exactly what i was looking for.

Picked these up at Wal-Mart, would you guys use the trailors on them or no? I've never used a trailor on a spinner before.

May be a stupid question but I want to know, I've never used a slip bobber..what is it?

I have a few like those and attempted to use those, but they still got stuck, everything did even texas rigged weightless senkos.

Went to fish the Thornapple River today (best smallie fishing in the state) and i found the bottom to be extremely rocky. Everything was getting stuck. You couldn't move your lure near the bottom of the river without it getting stuck. Lost 3 lures and was extremely annoyed even when I did not lose lures. Got stuck having to move my spinner way too fast and could not even use fake crawlers texas rigged because those would get stuck as well. Any advice for fishing a river like this? The current was too fast to try anything top water.

Okay Michigan people I need some help. Went out to the thornapple river today and fished at this small park. Caught one largemouth but the bottom was way too rocky and EVERYTHING kept getting stuck. Anyone know some decent spots to hit from the bank along the thornapple? Thanks.

That might be the smartest thing i've ever seen.

Dang kiddo, i've seen some big salmon pulled out of the grand this season but nothing that big!

Thanks for the responses/advice guys. I just needed to vent, and good to hear what you guys had to say about it

Jeremy Wade did a Rivermonsters episode on these guys.