Cold Water Variety Pack
Early spring offers the biggest variety of fishing that west Michigan has to offer. I was slow to embrace this when I first moved over here and I regret that immensely. While I've still got a soft spot for cold water bass, I've done it so many times that I get more excited about exploring new species and bite opportunities.
While the Lake Michigan lake trout thing was fun, I got to make the trip I've really wanted to this year. The weather lined up and my buddy Drew who likes to explore just as much as I do were going to head north. I got up at 3:30 in the morning to get the journey started. We had several hours to waffle on what exactly we were going to do. We were going to face some logistic issues with the multiple boat ramps we were going to use.
There was the question of do we just go drop the hammer on Cisco and trout or do we try hard to catch some open water burbot. The burbot was a big unknown for us but honestly even one would have made my trip. We encountered some slick roads on the last leg of our trip but made it there safely.
We were a little unprepared for the launching conditions but made it work. Snow shovels, salt, and even a box of spoons got left behind. Very out of character for both of us but as long as one of us had a spoon and blade bait box we were good. The next challenge was the lake skimming all around us. It was beautiful so it didn't really matter but we sure struggled for a bit.
We were marking plenty of burbs but the jig and minnow combo that has been productive before was not making them commit. We took way too long to drop a spoon but once we did it was game on. We'd missed our opportunity at the best concentration of burbs but at least we were catching them now. I was pretty excited to have not only checked an open water burbot off my list but the resulting burbot cook off that was about to go down. Tail sections get fried and back straps get boiled and then served with cocktail sauce, butter, and Old Bay in my house. I think we’ve got things dialed in now if things align for another trip in the future.
We did go dabble in the Cisco and trout too. It wasn't on fire for us like we hoped but we did ok. Just means we'll need to take another trip back and spend more time with those species.
There's also a lot going on close to home and close to shore. This seems to be one of the most widespread spring coho bites in a long time. Usually they are still mostly down south in lake Michigan but it has been good all the way to Muskegon this year. Browns seem to have made a resurgence too. Coho, Lakers, browns, and walleyes are all available casting on the piers right now. Orange/gold P-Line Pro Steel spoons were working good on the ho’s last week. The trolling bite is also going and I might dabble in a little bit more of that this year. ClearH2O Tackle just outfitted a good buddy with all the stuff to make that happen and I hope to spend some time on Trevor’s dads salmon boat too.
I’m not sure what’s next for me as I’ve had some boat issues that have prevented me from doing any bass fishing. I’m really excited about dialing in my MEGA Live this year. I think I can accomplish some things as I get more comfortable with it. I did get to see how everything functioned after the latest update for just a minute and all looked good (and better) on my SOLIX unit. Hopefully we can get everything fixed up soon and back on the water experimenting. I know by that time all the best fishing will be over with and they’ll be biting everywhere. The good news about that is the girls are all excited to go and I’m really looking forward to making that happen.