More of that Grand River Grind
The hype leading up to this one was that the bite was brutally tough. There were 2 big tournaments the weekend before and the weights were less than impressive. Trevor had fished both of them and confirmed the fishing was going to be brutal. Add in all of that pressure and we have the recipe for a fun Saturday.
Normally I’ve got a practice blog to accompany a D&R tournament. However, we had salmon in and we weren’t in any danger of winning the points. We tried to practice in multiple boats but it was short lived. An hour into it and I was on my way out to the GH channel to see about some kings. The bass tackle was put away and the jigging rods were out. The fish were in but they were positioned weird and very negative. I knew we could get them in Muskegon so we put the boats on the trailer and headed north. It ended up being a good decision because we got some kings and saved ourselves some frustration on the river.
It was going to be an interesting one with no real plan and all the chaos going on at the river. There was a big kayak tournament and some other bass tournament going on. Add in more pleasure boats than I’ve ever seen and we were in for a show. Our goal was simply to catch a limit and go from there. That meant we were heading to Spring Lake. Not really the place you want to be but with the shad having the river fishing tough it was a good call. To complicate it a little more, we were going to stay away from anything we thought our good friends Dave and Kyle might fish. They were leading AOY so we didn’t want to get in their way at all.
We were boat 37 and weren’t going to drive by anything good to start the day. We got a high percentage community hole to start on. When that didn’t produce a single keeper I was a little concerned for how the day was going to go. The next couple spots were also high percentage and also produced no bites. That was some deep isolated stuff and we felt really good about at least getting keepers there. Next we went to a familiar area where we would be mixing up finesse fishing with throwing frogs and chatterbaits. On the way in I noticed a clean hard spot on the Humminbird MEGA side imaging and dropped a waypoint on it. It had some marks on the SI that looked very bassy and maybe we could get a few bites on it the next time we drove by.
Kayaks in the way everywhere is what we found next. Everything also seemed abnormally dead. It just had this feeling like we needed to get out of here and find some life. We stopped at the hard spot on the way out and picked up keeper number 1. Not a big one but it is always fun to find something random and then have it pay off. It might have been worth revisiting later in the day but we never did. I know I’ll be spending some time there trying to unlock it in the future. Next up was a spot that has been awesome the last few years but is devoid of life this season. It has a few good things nearby and was worth a stop.
We pulled up a little short and caught a keeper off a dock pole instantly. A couple minutes later and we swung on another. This one felt a little different and then revealed it was one of the right ones. Unlike other tournaments this season this one made it to the boat. Having a heavy 3 on the Grand early in the day always take a little pressure off. We would catch one more there and then confirm that my favorite spot on Spring Lake still sucks. So maybe it shouldn’t be my favorite spot anymore? After we caught those 3 we put it in overdrive looking for similar stuff. We got to fish a few things but mostly just found boats upon boats. We weren’t getting in on anything and the last action we got was a catfish on a chatterbait. At least it is obvious instantly when a cat or a drum smashes a chatterbait, there was no real excitement followed by disappointment. Trevor did have one area that he really thought it was going to go down at. Unfortunately, some conditions had changed and it was devoid of life today. They are probably all over it again now! It seemed like we were stuck on 4 for an eternity and every bite was a non keeper.
We had to get a limit before we tried anything like going to the river for a kicker. We fished some more high percentage stuff with nothing to show and then did some exploring. We had a couple smack at a chatterbait and maybe we should have pressed that a little harder or tried to find a way to get bit on something else there. There were some docks that we hadn’t seen anyone on and I know I’ve never fished there and I don’t think Trevor has much either. We got number 5 and then culled a few times in short order! We didn’t have any line burners but we definitely had 3 that needed to go. 1 more solid bite would make a big difference for us. After junking around some more, we felt that the river was the place to try. We timed it right on one area and they were coming up on shad. They were the right ones and one took a swipe but didn’t hook up. That fish would have made a huge difference.
We tried another shad spot and had another one take a swipe at a frog. A quick flip in there produced a bite but there was no hook up and that would be the only opportunity. We were sticking close to Spring Lake in case we wanted to return. Trying to run a bunch of stuff on the river can really be a time wasting rabbit hole to go down. We felt it might be easier to try and cull up in Spring Lake. We already had our “kicker” for the day and 1 or 2 other above average fish would surely get us paid.
It was more of the same. Small fish, small keepers, and unbearable boat traffic. With an hour left we sent another hail Mary to the river. Hoping we could just trick one fish into biting. We found another spot full of the them blowing up on shad in the grass. Could we get a bite in the 35 minutes we fished for them? Absolutely not! There are few things more frustrating then watching quality fish eating all around and not being able to trick one of them. It’s not the first time I’ve seen them so fixated on those little shad that they are virtually impossible to catch. At least with all of my weak tricks anyway.
It was disappointing never making another cull but the weights were even worse than we assumed. We were in flight 2 so we weighed in about halfway through. You can imagine our surprise when our 3.87 was holding the spot for 2nd big bass. I was also hopeful we could hang on for a check with our 12.26. Another 3 pounder or even another tiny cull would have made a big difference. Our big fish held on to second big bass and we squeaked in a check in 13th place. We were definitely happy about all of that, especially with the tough bite and the fun of salmon jigging instead of practice.
Time for some more salmon jigging and hopefully a little September waterfowl hunting. I may work in a little bass fishing too but it will mostly be prepping for the Detroit River Big Stack and the D&R Classic on Houghton Lake. I think I might actually have a pre practice day of graphing in me for that one. I know what I’m looking for after my last trip there and I’m excited about having another shot at that place.