Fall Smallmouth Bass Trip

This year is the first time we took a fall Michigan trip for smallies and only 4 of use went. On our normal spring trip in early June, up to 13 may go. The third week of September we headed toward Michigan for 4 days of fishing. Because of the time of year and not knowing what kind of weather we could expect I took an assortment of clothing from t-shirts and shorts to heavy sweatshirts to insulated overhauls. In the spring it was easy to find smallies in shallow water around any kind of cover. If it was a bright shiny day you would always find smallmouth bass around the docks or any rock that gave any shade at all. The fishing tackle we used in the spring was tubes and top water which always seemed to work. I even started to use a 3 inch stick bait that was very successful.

Dan, my fishing buddy, and I arrived at 2:00 P.M. that day and ready to fish. My brother and another friend would not arrive until later that night. The fall was a little different than what I was accustom to; the fish were not shallow as you would think. We started out about 50 yards off the bank but instead of casting toward the bank we cast into deeper water around 10 feet with the boat sitting in about 5 feet. We never catch many Walleyes, but by casting in the deeper water within 30 minutes of fishing we had several smallies and two Walleyes, one a keeper. Because I was catching some good numbers of smallies in the spring with the 3 inch stick bait, I tried it the afternoon we arrived and still landed a good number of fish. I changed over to a popper later that evening when the fog moved in. And I do mean fog; we were worried about finding our cabin so we stayed close to the bank and a short distance from the cabin. By using poppers we landed a number of larger bass.

The next day we had to search for rocky areas in deeper water to find fish. I was using the 3 inch stick bait, but it just was not working for me, I was not getting the number of bites I thought I should get so I went back to using a tube (I switch between grey and puke colors). Several days we had to fight against white caps, the wind was trying to make it difficult for us to fish. I was thinking how I was glad I decided to increase the size of my trolling motor and added a battery switch earlier this year. But we did figure out a pattern and ended up catching a lot of fish. I landed a 19 inch smallie and one of our friends landed a 20 ¾ inch monster smallie. A Picture is worth a 1000 words (check it out below). I cannot wait until next spring to give it another try. Every fishing trip is a little different. Trying some new bait and tackling a few different techniques, that’s what keeps me going back.