Over the course of 5 days, we fished 4 Islands and 60 miles of shoreline were explored. The keys to successful fishing in the great lakes is covering water. What looks like a super juicy bay on google maps might be a total dud, but the only way to find out is to pick the entire bay apart. Other times, it had the right structure but the water temperature was too close to 50 degrees. Some days we wouldn't see a fish or even make a cast for the first 3 hours of the day.
When we did find bass we would find dozens of them. Except for the minnow I snagged, all the bass were large or extra large. The bass were greedy and fearless. A fly that landed within 10' of them was chased down and devoured. They ate divers, popper, streamers and carp flies without hesitation.
The following are some of the photos from the trip
Adam fishing a sandy drop off. The water on the left was about 2' and the darker water on the right is 5'. While bass usually don't prefer sand, they will hang out on a drop off like this.
Great looking shoreline but the water was too cold.
A slightly larger than normal smallmouth bass from the great lakes. This one measured almost 20"
On the left side of this small beach was a warm shallow lagoon that had tons of bass and a few drum.
Small head, big fingers and a big bass, no exaggerations here!
Fish hard, eat well
Who ate who?
Once the water temperatures warmed up, we started to see a lot of carp. There are 2 in this photo to the left of the submerged boulder. Neither were in a good mood.
A carp in the right mood and the biggest of the trip
A smaller carp that ran well into the backing
Chris Ford
July 16, 2022
So when do guide trips start