SPI High School - Muskegon Lake
I’ve always wanted to captain a boat for one of the May high school events on Muskegon Lake. However May is almost never good for me. Usually we are gone for our anniversary around when that tournament happens. This year we were around so I was going to get my first taste of tournament activity this year even though I wasn’t doing the fishing.
I’d be driving Trevor and Noah around for the day. We didn’t get any practice in other than I hopped in the boat with my buddies Dave and Kyle for a couple hours one day earlier in the week. Trevor has fished out there with me this time of year before and I pretty much knew the areas we were going to target. I actually fish WMB Monday nights with Trevor so it was going to be a great opportunity for him to run the boat for a whole day.
The tournament was going to be 4.5 hours and the weather was going to make it challenging to catch them in that short of time. 36 degree temps at launch meant the bite wasn’t really going to get going until the end of the tournament. We knew things could be really tough for a while, so every fish they could catch before 10:30-11:00 was going to be critical. Our plan was mostly to smallmouth fish, at least for the bigger bites. Largemouth fishing wasn’t out of the question but it was going to be for limit fillers and not kickers. Noah hasn’t caught a smallmouth since he was 11 but he caught on really quick. He got the first bite of the day on a Googan Baits Saucy swimmer and I could see it clicked right then.
The first fish was just a 1.89 pounder but it was a start, as getting 5 so they could settle in was going to be critical. The plan was to spend a couple hours in this area with high hopes of a couple bigs and a limit. Things went dead pretty fast however and you could tell things weren’t right. They caught 6 or 7 short fish and a monster pike at 11.39 pounds. We really thought that would hold up for critter pot but a bigger drum was weighed in during the last hour of the day. They did end up catching a solid fish in the couple hours we spent there at 2.73 pounds. It was time to make a move and go fish some stuff that might have some more active fish. The other area we had high hopes for still needed time to heat up. On the next stop they caught a 2.91 largemouth and things were looking up. Unfortunately they could not get another bite out of that area. It was definitely on the list of things to check before weigh in if we had time. They hit up a couple of similar spots we hadn’t planned on fishing with no luck.
They went to the big fish area next but after fishing around for a while it was apparent that these fish were not going to bite. We talked about what to do next and came up with some options. Go back and fish stuff that had worked, go try some shallow largemouth stuff and look for beds, or go back out in the wind and run some new water in search of the right ones. Without hesitation they both agreed they wanted to run new water and try and find some fish feeding in the wind. It would end up being the right call.
We pulled up on the first spot and once they got a cast on the juice it was game on. They put a 3.52 smallie and a 1.80 largemouth in the boat on consecutive casts. The very next cast was another big smallie bite but unfortunately that one didn’t make it into the boat. The good news was that we had a limit and that there were similar places to catch more on. The next place kicked out a 2.44 largemouth but the best was yet to come. The next stop yielded a 3.24, a small keeper we didn’t weigh, and then a 3.88. It was a lot of excitement in a short amount of time and it was fun to watch. We only had time to hit one more spot that didn’t produce anything and then took our time getting back to the weigh in. You know because Muskegon Lake was rough and cold. I’m beginning to believe there won’t be any pleasant weather for fishing this spring.
SPI who was putting on the tournament was keeping an updated leaderboard on Facebook every hour. The previous update had the top team with 13 and change so they were feeling good about their chances to win. However we had made all of our big moves in the last hour and it was likely some other teams did too. There was no question with the temps that the bite would be improving all day. However they seemed to be the only ones still targeting smallmouth at this point so that made me feel a little better about their chances.
At the end of the day they ended up with 16.28 pounds and took home the win by a couple pounds. The bonus is they got to experience all the ups and downs of a day of tournament fishing. It was also a good reminder for myself at just how fast things can happen. You can go from zero to hero really fast in fishing!