I arrived at the Selfridge area boat ramp on Lake St. Clair at 5 am. I was amazed how many people and boats were already there. It was obvious with the great forecast many were planning on getting in a good day on the water. The first thing on the water that shocked me was the water surface temperature. Anchor Bay is usually the coldest part of the lake on the western side because it has the St. Clair river bringing in all the cold Lake Huron water. Majority of the bay was running 57 to 59 degrees which more than 10 degrees more than normal for this time of year. The shallows blew my mind with a reading of 64 degrees by late afternoon. The lake with these incredible warm temperatures this past week really came up a lot! Snow is expected tomorrow, but let me get back on track with the report.
I was doing a pre-fishing trip before Jim comes over this way to fish in a couple weeks. I wanted to see if Anchor Bay was worth any time for us, or if we should just stay on the mile roads. After this trip, I think we'll stay on the mile roads. It certainly wasn't hot for me in Anchor Bay. I think my best 5 were only around 15 lbs. which is pitiful for St. Clair. Still had some bites and some tugs, but certainly wasn't hot and fantastic in that area. I expected to catch lot in the real shallow warm water, but instead they almost all came in 7 to 9 feet of water. Detroit traffic was a nail biter as usual too. One little side note, there seemed like a 100 people fishing along the shore by the boat ramp. Plenty were bring in bluegills, sunfish and crappie. Looks like that warmer water really brought the pan fish in.
This was our first fishing trip of 2023. Strong winds and storms the day prior led into our bluebird fishing day. Come along to see how we stringed some bites together on a tough fishing condition day. Thanks for being part of our community and stayed tuned for more exclusive content from R & J Bass Fishing. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below and we'll answer them.
I went Wamplers lake in Irish Hills this past Sunday. Let me start by saying what. a circus on the water by the time afternoon rolled around. I had two goals for my fishing for the day. I wanted to catch some bass for a few hours and I also wanted to come home with a mess of bluegill or redear sunfish for dinner. I had a decent few hours bass fishing in the morning catching 7 of them. The bluegill fishing was actually more challenging because trying to find quality fish was a bit difficult. I caught too many to count, but only brought home a dozen that were big enough to filet up. Water temperature was 70 when I got there, and 72 when I left. Water temperature down at 14 feet was also 70 according to my underwater camera. I did use the underwater camera a bit trying to locate some bigger bluegill. Short video of the some of the underwater footage and one bass catch below.
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I don't know how many of you fish inland bodies of water where bluegill/bream are the main forage for bass. We have lot of natural lakes in this general area where being successful at catching bass depends on finding the bluegill. Do you notice the correlation between the two during the year? I had a recent trip on a lower Michigan lake where I ended up finding the bluegill deep because of the heat wave. They were running 15 to 20 feet deep in this clear lake. Once I picked up a drop shot and dropped down I noticed something I hadn't been aware of before. Check out the underwater footage of when the drop shot goes down where the bluegill are.
