I got the pleasure of hanging out with family and a couple friends on the Chain for a few days.

Temps were 62-66 depending on the lake, etc.

Clarity was about 3-5' on 6 mile the two times I went there, then cleared up as we went down. Up to about 15' on Hanley. Intermediate was pretty stirred up however and was only about 10' instead of the normal 20-ish.

Weeds were still non existent on 6 mile, and thru that channel into the upper end of st clair. Then the normal mix of weeds started appearing. There was a bit of coontail here and there, and watermilfoil was plentiful but, but a lot of it was starting to pull up from the bottom and float around… kind of a pain. Some cabbage, but a lot of it had laid down, and what was up was starting to turn brown.

Weather was unseasonably warm, a bit of a breeze everyday with high skies and sun, until yesterday when it cooled a bit and was cloudy most of the morning.

First night I didn't contact anything…

Second day we put in Ellsworth and fished all the way down to Intermediate, It took about 10-11 hours. A lot of trolling, and a lot of casting. I noticed a slight weather change and thought I needed to get to one of those "spots", so I of course ran to Intermediate, and the spot with the biggest fish in my address book. On the second cast she came out and blasted a pounder, and I set the hooks right thru my drag. I couldn't get the pressure on the fish and she got off about 5-10 seconds later. I really need to do a better job of loosening my drags when done, and checking them while I am fishing, it is the second time I haven't gotten a good hookset on a big fish cuz I'm lazy.

After that we fished our way back north and I had two more contacts, one that hit a a jerk bait just out from the weeds and screamed right thru the bait and out of the water. Was a light colored about 33-36" fish that didn't get hooks but gave us a great aerial show! The other I only saw a bit of, and was sitting in a pile of weeds near a steep drop. I threw a dyin dawg right over the top of it, and about 4' of weeds ascended from the bottom and grabbed the bait. I thought I got a good hook set on that one too [smilie=drinking.gif]

Anyhow, only one or two other contacts the next couple days. A few medium sized pike, and a couple small bass to show for our efforts.

Good trip, pretty awful fishing outside of the first full day.

Also tried some night time trolling for kings in Lake Charlevoix, to no avail other than a decent pike and a walleye. Not sure that population has recovered like some others, or our timing was off again.