Mbirdsley

I really wish Michigan would institute a slot limit for bass. A lot of the lakes that I fish in Central and Mid- Michigan are inundated with 12-17 inch bass. I'd much rather have a small to medium size fish of given species to eat rather than the bigger specimens. This includes panfish. Problem is though is that most people in this state chase walleye, salmon, and trout. Which are better eating. I would like to see all tournaments go away from dragging fish to a weigh Ins. Eventually the non- fishing public will force the issue through state legislation.

I prefer catalogs. My BPS catalog came in the mail today. For some reason it is easier for me to find things. This is my favorite time of the year as it is when all of the lure building/rod building catalogs start coming in. I also find cool stuff when I’m just flipping through when I’m bored. when I’m on the net I kinda just look for what ever specific thing I’m looking for. The lure parts one came in 1st of the year. Lure parts web site is atrocious so the catalog is very welcomed. Usually Barlow’s won’t be far behind. Sometimes there is just something very impersonal about staring at screen all day.

#1 summer craw which, I believe is watermelon or GP on top and chartreuse on the bottom of the bait. Michigan bass will hammer summer craw from 55 degrees to 80 degrees water. I usually use it with a googan Bandito bug. However, I have used it with other MFG's creature baits and stick baits. #2 Yum's GB Hayes which, is smoke clear and purple flake. Absolutely a killer in gin clear water where visibility could be 20ft+. Yum has started to offer it in other plastics but, I found out about it from the Yum Spine Craw. #3 Yum's watermelon pearl laminate. Favorite bait to use with is the 6 inch yum dinger T-rigged. It does work well as a lizard and other creature bait color as well. #4 GP and blue flake. the farther you get into summer and the farther north you go in the state. Craw fish will take on a blue hue to them. Especially in clear Northern Michigan lakes

i’ve narrowed it down to 2 differnt craw trailers that I use on a jig. if i want some action on the back of a jig ill use yum spine craw. if i want less action ill use a strike king rage menace. I threw a chigger craw for a long time but, the spine craw has replaced it. The spine craw can be used t-rigged.

First things first. I am a conservationists first, Bass fishermen 2nd. Fishing for bass is fun. We grew up hunting fishing, and being in the out doors . This new age of anglers ( not just picking in the younger anglers) and tournament angler have it flipped with being a bass fishermen 1st and a conservationist 2nd. Respect the resource and the resource will take care of you for the now and future generations. 2-3 years ago I was starting to get into watching tournaments and wanting to participate in them. Now the more I watch the tournaments and just kinda see the direction everything is going the more I kinda just get turned off by them. The majority of the major tournaments are a money grab for the tournament owners and the resource be darned. Tournaments have their place but, they need to do better in the future of protecting the resource. Even just as businesses decision to ensure more bass. Probably the biggest reason for my self that I fish for bass. Bass are a hardy fish and take well to being caught and released. Yeah, if you fish long enough you’re going to accidentally kill one. My wife isn’t a big fish eater so there is no point in filling my freezer of fish we are not going to eat. I grew up fishing salmon and trout on lake michigan. We fish for those by trolling which, is a total meat game. Typical both species will fight to the death. Having a good release after dragging them at 2.5 mph just isn’t going to happen. Even fishing for brook trout in a small stream it is only 50/50 if the brook trout survive’s the fight. off my soap box

Cheating is not the right phrase. However, with the type of prizes and winnings on the line it’s definitely fraud and at the very least it is poaching. There is definitely a pattern developing with him and it is never his fault. It is always some one else’s fault or thing. It must be ego because, anytime a high profile fisherman or hunter gets caught doing somthing unethical or illegal. They can never say “i knew better but, did it any way. it’s my fault i’m sorry”. Him saying that would go farther than trying to explain the situation and talk his way out of it.

yeah, i generally use them in 8-25 ft in the spring as the fish are coming up. that is what’s nice and annoying about LC. they have a ton of variations for 1 style of bait. mine are not the skeet reese lv-500’s . I actually didn’t know that about the different sounds. I knew there was a skeet reese version but, didn’t know what made it different.

IMHO the people that stress and promote speed cranking are generally fishing for the biggest bass in the lake and are ok with sometimes going hours or days with out a bite. i don’t have that kind of time or patience so i don’t speed crank. I consider my self a decent crank fisherman. I also believe, if your going to speed crank you have to commit to it 100% and that’s just how you crank fish or you don’t do it at all.

the Lv-500 was designed to be hopped/ripped off of the bottom like a jig. They work very well for that designed purpose. I have caught a bass, walleye and pike working them like that in michigan. They work fine on a straight retrieve but, being worked like a jig is what they were designed to do. the LV-500 also has a deeper rattle sound. it is not as high pitched as the orginal rat-l trap, booyah, or strike king ( not one knocker ), and cotton cordell version. I would rather use the ones mentioned above in a straight retrieve as a opposed to the lv-500

thanks. its not done yet. hopefully this winter i’ll get it finished up. its basically done but, i had some epoxy do some weird stuff around the rod info sticker. so i need to sand it down and apply more epoxy. than its done. the wife and I had twins in june ( i also have a 7 year old) . I’ve been bass fishing 1 time since june 24th. hopefully next spring i’ll get to try it out.

once i’m hooked up on a fish my success rate is around 98%. I may loose 1-2 fish a year while fishing offset worm hooks or ewg’s. generally speaking the 2 fish that i do loose will be smallies when they start to jump. i’m 6ft4 260 lbs and i don’t really employ a hard hookset most of the time. usually it’s just quick set up and the fish is on. punching i do tend to crack them a little harder.

nice. thats the same blank i’m using. it will also be a spinner bait and chatter bait rod. this is the second mb 843 that i’ve built. the first one i use as a light jig/ t-rig rod.

probably a spro rk crawler 55 in either a green color, sparkle shad or goby

what blank did you use ? that is what the blank on the post above is going to be primarily for along, with chatter baits.

it probably dosent matter 80% of the time or to averages sized fish Matte colors are going to matter more up here in the great lakes where it is gin clear and can see the bottom in 20-25 ft of water. big small mouth have gotten that big for a reason and not falling for everything that looks like food. some bait fish are shiny but, everything else that they eat are rather dull colored. some days it going to matters other days it doesn’t.

no problem. i was kind of figuring most people didn’t have lower lakers in their local fishing hole

probably the last fishing trip for a while. went out of lee street on the saginaw river in down town saginaw. The river has been busy with Freighter traffic lately. I was t sure where i was going up river or down bound but, after checking AIS boat nerd site. The 670 ft M/V Saginaw was unloading stone at the Old GM dock. which, is basically as far up river river as they can get before the shipping channel ends. Where the saginaw was docked is roughly 15-18 miles from the mouth of the river and the saginaw bay. after passing the M/v saginaw and catching a nice walleye on a lbs 1.5 square bill. the saginaw blew her whistle made the turn and started her journey back to the saginaw bay and lake huron. it took her almost 3 hours to reach the mouth/bay. I did manage to catch another 3 lbs bass on a black and blue spine craw. good day to end on for a while.

i fished stained water quite a bit. It’s a huge river system that is always has a lot of sentiment due to field run off year round. So black cranks will always work regardless of sky being cloudy or sunny. there are shad in the system and sexy shad will work almost all the time in sunny conditions. Silver will also work as most minnows are silvery color. Silver, chrome, silver and black sunny days work very well. On cloudy days black obviously works very well and so does chartreuse and blue back. those are the 4 main colors i throw on the Saginaw river system and i catch my share of fish.

finally making some head way. I messed around with epoxying the butt wrap and the wrap between the sk2 split grip for 2 weeks. No matter what I did. I kept getting fish eyes. At first i thought there was contamination on the blank. so i sanded the blank down and re-epoxy. still was getting fish eyes, re-sand and than get fish eyes again etc etc. finally i narrowed it down to either old pro kote which, was 1 1/2 yrs old or I had contaminated the pro kote in the bottle some how. So i bought some new pro kote and the wrap finish came out great finally !!!. from now on id i have guide epoxy over a year ill just throw it out. everything on the handle is expoxied up and drying right now ill start wrapping this weekend.

so possibly my last far away trip for a while ( maybe rest of the summer i dunno) untill at least end of july due to my twins being born. fished clear lake in ogemaw county.l which is northern michigan. I had 4 hrs of drive time ( 2 hrs each) and fished for 8 hrs. clear lake is a fairly deep, medium sized lake and ultra clear lake which, on a good day we can see down 20 ft. I wanted to catch atleast one day of the spawn. Im not big on bed fishing but, i guess i just like to see them on their beds for whatever reason. I was the only one fishing on the lake. literally had the lake to my self except a couple of pontoons. glad i’m missing the madness this weekend doe to memorial day. which, luckily i saw both large mouth and smallies on beds. the couple of large mouths that i saw were completely locked down on beds and which, i didnt mess with the large mouth. the small mouth were on beds but, weren’t lock down. most were doing wide orbits around the center of the nest. most of them ran away from any lure. except the first smallie which , crushed a spine craw in gp hayes. I didn’t mess around with the bedding fish too much. I caught that one and than had another get off. All my fish either came on a yum GP hayes spine craw t-rigged with 1/8 weight or a shakey head with 5 inch smoke purple berkley fatty bottom hopper on a shakey head ( first shakey head bass ). So the smallies are either just starting to spawn or it’s about over i couldn’t really tell. most of the smallies that i caught were roaming around across the lake from the beds in 6-8 ft of water. the large mouth all came in shallower water except the big one. I caught my first 3 lbs large mouth of the year which, weighs 3.26 lbs. caught him on the spine craw at the end of a blow down. that was one hardest fighting bass i’ve caught. He actually took a lot on line out. i’ve had 5 lbers that didn’t fight as hard. also, caught a couple cool shots of a loon swimming under water right next to the boat. that loon was in 8 ft of water and swam right over the small mouth nests. still need to get the hang of drop shotting. great day yo be on the water in northern michigan. it was good to be “ Up North “

i may need to get some thinner diameter flouro. right now i’m going 20 lbs hi-viz power pro to a 8lbs flouro leader which, is berkley 100 % flouro. i think the line diameter of berkley flouro line is larger than most other brands. see how it goes tommrow ill. e fishing for smallies in a really clear lake. i think i need to run a longer leader.

i like the mayor a lot. it has a very tight wobbling tail. it will probably be replacing all of the other paddle tails in my lure box eventually as attrition wipes out my kietechs. I have some of the meds but havnt used them yet

apparently i’m the only person in michigan ( maybe the upper midwest )who doesn’t drop shot. last time i was out on the saginaw bay i played around with it. i have making and setting up the rig down. I guess where im confused is all i am supposed to do is cast it out and slowly drag it back to the boat? or if i can see a rock, fish or other structure just cast the rig near it and let it do its thing? is it strictly a clear water technique or will it work it stands to muddy water ? last week i had my leader around 12 inches for the sinker to hook. so far i have berkley flat worm in green pumpkin water melon and some net bait Jr crush in goby color, along with some 4 and 5 inch robo worms ( i’ve had for ever). is there any other must have plastics for the rig? right now i’m using a 6ft 1/4-5/8 rainshadow Rx6 medium (rod acts more like a M/L ) that I built this winter for vertical jigging walleye. ppp

i forgot about bandits those work too

to me there 2 separate baits. the XD has a bit wider wobble than the DT. Both are goods baits the XD i’d work on flats. while the DT comes through boulders and brush better. Strike king has very good shad pattern for murkier lakes where the DT is more for clearer lakes with better natural paint jobs