Spent the week with family on St Clair and 6 Mile. Ran into a couple newer members at the launch on Saturday and had a good chat!
I didn't fish for muskies all that much, but the bass fishin was great for the first 4-5 days. A couple 4-5 lb fish in the boat almost daily. We have not had that success for a while, for various reasons, mostly lake association related. We also fed 13 people Walleye and panfish twice, so that's always a bonus.
Weeds looked great, cabbage everywhere and topping out in 4-6', milfoil coming up in deeper places… The celery that often chokes the channel was not present. Not sure if it is a time of year thing, or permanent damage from the weed treatments. Also did not see any signs at launches about weed treatments, so they either happened a while ago, or not yet. The cabbage seemed healthy, so it is possible the procellicor treatment is doing what it claims to do, and not kill the important stuff, or the weather somehow delayed their treatment.
Temps were 78 on day one, and 69-72 by the end of the week. Extreme winds for a couple days, and a bit of rain certainly blended the water pretty well!
Visibility was back to normal, compared to the past few years, with 8-10' being pretty common.
I got out trolling and casting for an hour here and there throughout the week, with no luck, and no follows. I was able to dedicate a morning to fishing muskies with a friend and a brother on Friday. We immediately hit one in a spot I've always liked, but never fished much since it is pretty shallow, small, and surrounded by shallower stuff. It looked like it was in the 40-42 range, and shook off after a minute or two, trying to navigate lillypads. Had one other upper 40's show itself on an old top spot about 10 minutes later, and we continued hitting our best spots trying to contact fish during what seemed to be a window. No luck, as is usual!
After setting up and trolling most of the basin of 6 mile, we spotted a floating fish in a cove, and pulled the lines and went to inspect. The fish was an upper 30's male, gills were still moving. It had a small cut/broken treble in the end of its upper jaw, a hole in the end of the lower jaw, and a large puncture wound between the pectoral fins. We attempted to revive the fish for a few minutes, when I remembered the descender that Will sent me. I figured at least it would be good practice to try the thing out on a real fish, even though the outlook was bleak. I hooked the thing up, sent the fish down slowly, and after a minute or three I felt a kick, pulled the descender out and waited. About 10 minutes later, we hadn't seen anything so we packed up and went in. I didn't get a chance to look very hard the next day to find it, but at least we tried…
Duke post_id=67269 time=1624856360 user_id=46 said:
Nice report all things considered! interesting on that laboring fish, do you think all injuries & trauma were related to a lure/battle?
I'm not sure, honestly… the hole seemed like more damage than a size 4 vmc could do, but then again, the skin/flesh in that area is substantially softer.
<url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
id=100002989387414&set=gm.1408453619509991&source=48&ref=content_filter"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … ent_filter">[Permission to view this media is denied]
id=100002989387414&set=gm.1408453619509991&source=48&ref=content_filter
I haven't had time to figure out posting pics on the forum since some format changes. Basically, it is a heavy wire bent like a '7' or a bottom bouncer shape. Line attaches at the angle, weight (8+ ounces) attaches at the bottom. At the top end of the sever, the wire is bent down and slightly sharpened. The fish is held in the water and the sharpened point poked thru the skin on the bottom jaw. You the slowly lower the fish down, held uoright by the descender. When you get near the bottom, wait till the fish kicks, and pull up. It regulates the swim bladder, and allows the fish to revive.
52
25