Well it looks like I'm vacationing on the west side of the state next summer. Are any of the lakes between Holland and Muskegon producing any muskies yet? I seen some positive reports from spring lake. I plan on mainly fishing smallmouth, perch and walleye, But would like to hunt some muskies. Anyone try pigeon or mona?
Macatawa is pretty decent with chance at a little bigger fish than the others, but it is mainly a trolling game.
Pigeon has intrigued me and it is small and could easily be fished in a day, however I haven't touched it.
The Grand/Spring Lake has tons of good looking water…. but contact per hour has been very low thus far.
Mona would probably be pretty good for contact per hour, but smaller fish…. at least that is my speculation as I don't have the experience there to verify.
Hope this helps.
I've yet to see a fish on Mona in several trips. Pigeon won't have anything until the populations are so high that fish are just naturally moving to that lake since it isn't being stocked.
Mac you can't even see a bucktail coming back to the boat really for most of the year because it is so dirty. It fluctuates, but usually isn't great.
Mayhem, your report on Muskegon Lake peaked my curiosity. How big were the two you caught? I intend to fish there a lot more next year. I used to fish Muskegon a lot in the 80's & 90's. I would agree it's one of the best pike and smallmouth bass lakes and assume, at some point in the near future, it will be a trophy musky lake. Thanks for any info you can pass on. And I would also confirm I've made zero musky contacts on Mona in about 10 trips over two seasons.
Charlie
They were smaller fish, no measurement just shook them off boatside, Both around 28-30". I did have one follow and flare off at the boat that was in the 36-38" class. Muskegon lake is becoming my home lake now that I live so close, I'm always game to fish so give me a shout if in the area.
On a side note I saw a pic of well built upper 30s caught by the lake mac pier heads this week.
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