Saginaw Bay - Big Stack

I don’t really know where to begin on this Saginaw Bay trip. It was an adventure for sure and a whole lot of fun. Practice was going to get started for me on Thursday but I decided to get an early start and make the drive Wednesday night.

The big question was do I set the tent up or not. There was the possibility of storms but I decided that I didn’t want to deal with it the next day. I set up and hunkered down on my cot for the night. Things didn’t get interesting until sometime around 4:30 or 5. Pouring rain and a lot of lighting but everything was staying dry, however it was impossible to sleep through that. It wasn’t windy so I had that going for me at least. That all changed in the blink of an eye and that first gust blew the side of my tent in and dislodged my rain fly. I the “roof” of my tent is all screen so now it was just pouring in on me and all of my stuff. I pushed the wall back out and scrambled outside to try and get the rain fly back on. Luckily there was enough lightning I could see things pretty well in the dark. I was as wet as if I just jumped in the lake at this point and spent the next 20 minutes trying to hold my tent together.

Once it got light it was time to assess the mess, get some dry clothes on, and set things up to dry throughout the day. I was wide awake at this point and despite the spots of standing water still left in the tent it was time to head to the lake. I headed to Bay Port which was the launch site for the tournament. I figured I would poke my nose out in the bay for a bit and then I’d go largemouth fishing. With the wind during practice and the forecast for the tournament I was committing to green bass. There did end up being a couple calm windows over the next couple days but they weren’t long enough to get me out of the swamp.

I decided there probably wasn’t enough to go around in Bay Port and if it was rough during the tournament I wasn’t going around the islands. I needed to find a way through blind pass before I worried too much about fishing. It was going to be a looooong process of slow driving with some fishing mixed in. There was vegetation everywhere so I was keeping it simple with my bait choices. I had frogs, flipping sticks, and swim jigs out.

Navigation was definitely interesting there were a couple “boat lanes” about the width of a boat, some open areas, and some areas of emergent vegetation. The boat lanes and whatnot would at least put you on a path. But picking a path through the emergent vegetation took a couple different tries. Come tournament day it was just going to be hang on and cross your fingers that there was nothing hard around. Out in the open water it was just as terrifying as there were rock piles and a hard sand bottom. I made it through the week without hitting anything and I am very thankful for that!

 As far as the fishing it didn’t take long to figure out what I was looking for as my first Saginaw Bay bass was a 4+ pounder. I found the next thing that fit the mold and shook off a 5 and caught another decent one. I kept trying different things but mid-morning through the first day I knew what to avoid and what to investigate. The remainder of practice was about the most fun I’ve ever had. This place was absolutely full of aggressive and quality fish. I don’t know if I’d swim in the water or put any of my limbs in the water. They were so aggressive you might get bit! However it was windy again and I came back to my tent on it’s side with all of my stuff laying in the standing water that was still in the tent. It was all too much fun to let that get me down though.

The next couple days of fishing were pretty similar and I felt pretty good I could catch a good bag on tournament day. It was weird knowing I wouldn’t have a chance to win because if guys could get to their smallmouth it was game over for me. I did think I could catch enough to get paid though. I figured a bad day would put me around 17-18, an average day 18-19, and a good day 20-21. I never really had the giant bites to do any better than that but I had enough heavy 3 to low 4 pound bites to know I was around them. My plan was to fish from Bayport to Sebawaing. I felt it was easier to get a crap ton of bites in Bayport but I had bigger ones in Sebawaing. One big question mark I had was which bait do I throw? In practice all I ever used were baits that were colors and shapes that I didn’t really like. I hadn’t narrowed down anything that they preferred but I guess it probably never really mattered. I didn’t have a great number but I did have a game plan mapped out in my head for the tournament but would the wind hold off?

Unfortunately it didn’t and it was the 2nd tournament I’ve practiced for this season that’s been cancelled. Bay Port was a really good launch location however the wind direction really made it challenging. I think any other direction would have made it possible to fish but blowing right into the bay was not a good thing. After it was cancelled I certainly wasn’t going right home. I had some fishing to do from a much calmer ramp. I wasn’t going to be directly on my big fish areas but I wanted to at least see what it would have been like. It didn’t start out great as that wind direction had really changed some things. However I made some adjustments and started catching the right ones. I can only imagine the mess I’d have made if I started running the best stuff but I figured I’d stay close and get out of there with my boat in one piece. Looking back I’m really glad I went out despite the tournament being cancelled. It was another one of those reminders that things are always changing and that you have to adjust to changing conditions. Even when you think you have it all figured out mother nature will throw a curve ball and change the fish. If you don’t change with them you are going to be left behind.

I’d have liked to have seen how the actual event would have played out. It would have been really interesting to see what the smallmouth guys would have come in with and how many healthy sacks of largemouth would have been weighed in. It honestly was the most fun I’ve ever had practicing for a tournament and I think I’ll take a few days next year just to go fishing there. During practice one day I didn’t see another human for the first 7 hours and the fishing was spectacular. I could get used to that sort of thing and I’m thankful I had a tournament that forced me to go and enjoy another one of Michigan’s special fisheries.

Since it was cancelled and I’ve only fished 2 big tournaments this year I think I’ll hop into the Muskegon HOTD this weekend. I don’t really know what to expect from Muskegon Lake this weekend but in a day out there I might stumble onto something that will help me for D&R in a couple weeks. I’ve had some good events on Muskegon when going in with no plan too so it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.