Lake St. Clair Big Stack - Practice
I have 2 major questions after my practice on Lake St. Clair. 1 – what the heck does the bottom look like on Lake St Clair? I have never been able to see it anywhere on the lake in any of my trips there. It is always dirty! 2 – where on earth are all these people going on their big boats and what can they possibly be driving to all day. I can’t imagine it is all that fun driving everywhere at 20 miles an hour throwing a giant wake? I saw “boaters” do some crazy things at the mouth of the Clinton river.
While I didn’t have a great practice it was a lot of fun for me to see what the lake is all about. My previous trips had all been spring time or as a non boater in BFL’s while I was in high school. Spring time is just catching sure it is fun but honestly it is not all that interesting. Fishing would involve work this time around and I’d never been very far off the bank there.
I stayed at my in laws which was about 15 minutes from the Selfridge launch so I planned to start there with the calm forecast. Huge thanks to my in laws for letting me stay all week. I had a great time and it was much more comfortable than my tent experience at Saginaw Bay. As for the fishing it took me a minute cruising the flats to stumble into a few. I had no real idea of what it all looked like or what to look for especially with the dirty water from the previous weeks storm. I really wanted to fish some current oriented stuff but I was concerned with the dirty water I would be fishing over fish.
I probably had 16-17 pounds on day one of practice and a couple areas that were holding some fish. I did lose 1 big and had another one follow my bait so it was nice knowing I was around a couple of the right ones. Lots of work to do yet and I planned on focusing on current the next day. Some magnums showed themselves first thing and it felt great to get my hands on some of the right ones. The only problem is there were lots of boats around that general area but I guess that also meant there was a lot of fish. I spent time in the channels the rest of the day and never got around the right size despite trying deep and shallow. It is overwhelming how much water there is to fish in the rivers and I never got the right bite to steer me in the right direction. Back out to the lake I went to recheck a couple things and try and expand on areas. I confirmed some more of the right ones on my area in Anchor Bay and was feeling decent about catching a good bag. I knew I needed more though and decided to spend the last morning down towards the Detroit River and Mile Roads. There was so much great looking stuff down there but I just couldn’t get anything going. I caught a couple but that was it. I really struggled to get anything going on rock at all. I’m not sure if they just weren’t using it much or if I was doing it wrong.
After 4 hours or so I knew I needed to pull the plug and try and find something else between the South Channel and Anchor Bay. I did find one more area with 1 over 4 and another quick bite. It was rocking pretty good with all the boat wake and some decent wind. Moving around and fishing was a little difficult but it was certainly worth trailering up to Harley and expanding my practice up there.
At the end of the day I knew I wasn’t on the winning fish but I thought I could certainly get to my goal of catching 20 pounds if things went right. Regardless of how it turned out I worked really hard and put some long days in during practice so I could feel good about that. Plus, I know at some point I will be back on St. Clair for a tournament and knowing my way around will help a bunch. My game plan was simple spend 4 hours where the magnums were and hopefully get at least 3 of them. If I still needed some I was really confident I could get some 4s off my area in Anchor Bay. It was going to be interesting to see how the day would unfold.