Cooler temperatures just couldn’t slow down the bite with the “main body” spawn in full swing. We are enjoying those active days on Lake St. Clair that bring in folks from all over the country. The type of fishing where both anglers in the boat are catching and as they put the boat on the trailer to leave that day, they both know that they are leaving biting fish.
One day on the boat with Capt. Mike McGrane was one of those days. We spent our time south of Lake St. Clair Metropark and found steady numbers of spawning smallmouth, with an occasional largemouth mixed in. Capt. Mike was the host on this trip. He picked apart the structure with deadly efficiency while working the bass at a variety of depths. As a guest on his boat, I spent the balance of my time rotating through colors and presentations, trying to gauge the bite. Even though Capt. Mike was hooking up with twice as many bass as I was, I managed to pick up this 4 lb. 15 oz. smallmouth at the end of the day. The second bass is Capt. Mike’s. We ended the day with a double!
The next trip out was with my friend, Rick Glanz. For years we have been making trips out to the Lake but this one will be one that won’t be forgotten. It started off with a fast biting school of largemouth that had taken up around a rock pile. They bit everything we threw but the 5″ Canadian Mist X-worm had Rick dialed in on the best of them. The picture of Rick here just shows one of the average largemouth but we got a look at the real monster (4 lbs or better) as it got off, right at the boat. They were hitting topwater too! Once the school of largemouth moved off the spot I caught a couple of smallmouth then the rock bass started blasting the topwater bait…really!
We hit a few more spots with mixed results then at the end of our day, about one in the afternoon, things got interesting. We were floating in six feet of crystal clear water with smallmouth cruising all around our boat. I’ve been in this situation many times before and the bass are normally skittish. Today, they were curious! So curious that it wasn’t a matter of “if” the smallmouth were going to hit, it was a matter of “when.”
Rick was hooking up with the Canadian Mist drop-shot tube. Many times, all he had to do was drop it straight down off the boat then watch the smallies come up to it, check it out, then take it in. At first I was throwing a 4″ St. Clair Goby NFT tube on an 1/8 oz. tube jig and getting smallies to hit as the bait was on its way to the bottom, or on the bottom. Around the boat, there were active, post-spawn smallies busting the surface from time-to-time. I had to trolling motor up to some of them but it was worth it. On casting to surface activity, I was three smallies on five tries.
Even though we were doubling up and having fun, I couldn’t resist changing up one more time. Because these bass were so curious, it seemed like a perfect time to bring out…the “Whopper Popper.”
Now Rick isn’t the first person to comment on my unlikely chances for success by bringing a bobber to a smallmouth fight, but the first cast quickly settled that issue. By putting a Canadian Mist drop-shot tube (with a ball jig and a 2/0 hook inserted halfway into it) into play, I proceeded to rack up more doubles with Rick. It was a fast and furious finish to a day that neither of us will ever forget.
TECHNICAL SPECS
The mayfly hatches have started, but not all species are the same color or generate the same bite. Prior to launching, we found these mayflies on shore. They look more black than anything else and they are small. About 1/2 the size of the mayfly species that seems to generate the best bite. Keep your eye out for the larger ones that tend to shade toward a cream color in the belly and if you look closely, they have a chartreuse stripe on their wings. When you see those, the mayfly bite is on! BTW – Did I mention that Xtreme Bass Tackle has a tube design based on several of the most productive species of mayfly? It’s called, Mayfly…
Click here to read a blog on how to fish the “Mayfly” tube
You can order Xtreme Bass Tackle baits at www.xtremebasstackle.com or call TOLL FREE at (877) 485-2223
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Tags: fishing hot spots, lake st. clair, lake st. clair fishing report, smallmouth bass, tube baits, xtreme bass tackle
Capt. Wayne Carpenter's Bass to the Future 
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