The Outdoorama for 2017 is Here

Xtreme Bass Tackle will be well represented at the Outdoorama this weekend in Novi, Michigan. Check out the new “Froggy” tube, a fresh batch of X-Worms are in,13 ball bearing spinning reels for $49.99, “Eagles” by Red Dirt Spinnerbaits and a $5 and below section that is stocked with great quality poppers, jerkbaits, crankbaits and frogs!

Seminars

It’s a great time to get in the last of the No Secrets on Lake St. Clair seminar series. There are four this weekend: one on Thursday, two on Friday and one on Saturday. Capt. Wayne will discuss the sweeping changes that we have seen on Lake St. Clair over the last couple of years and strategies to deal with them. Follow up later on the NEW website for St. Clair anglers: www.stclairreport.com.

Seminar: Spring Smallmouth, Lake St Clair Friday, April 22 at 6:00pm Capt. Wayne

Head to Sportsmen’s Direct this Friday at 6:00pm for an exclusive seminar on spring smallmouth fishing given by top Lake St. Clair bass fishing author, Wayne Carpenter.

Sportsmen’s Direct 38989 Jefferson Ave, Harrison Charter Township, MI 48045 (586) 741-6052

What will be covered…

• Spring bass location
• Is clean water or stained water best for bass?
• Best bait selection for early season smallmouth
• Online resources to connect you with bass fishing information

CLICK HERE TO PRE-REGISTER FOR THE EVENT

NEW! St Clair Report – Your Fishing News and Information Hot Spot

JUST RELEASED!

St. Clair Report brings you the latest news, articles, videos, tips and information about Lake St. Clair fishing. This roll out in March is just the beginning. Like a great fishing trip, you can come back to this site every day and find newly posted information that can make your Lake St. Clair experience the best that it can be.

Regular Fishing Reports – On site reports from around the Lake plus any other scrap of information that we can dig up to help put you on a great day of fishing!

News – Articles posted regularly to keep you up-to-date with events and people who matter

Links – Updated daily we look for the most interesting content about fishing Lake St. Clair and around the world

Quick access hot links – On the front page you have current weather then links off to the National Weather Service marine forecast, NOAA Satellite, U.S. Corps of Engineers water level data, current buoy water temps and more.

Tools – GPS converter/calculator, coordinates and photos of major landmarks, a launch directory, fishing tips and more.

New and unique content – Articles and videos about the Lake and events brought to you by area experts including Canada fishing professional Bob Mann, St. Clair bass fishing information expert and author Capt. Wayne Carpenter, and more.

Need to locate a tackle shop? – Find it on St Clair Report

Also, get notified of news and information even faster through:

@stclairbass

CLICK HERE TO GO TO ST CLAIR REPORT NOW

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Clair 2016 Water Levels 3 Feet Over 2015

In a month-by-month comparison, January 2016 water level numbers came in three feet above the same period in 2015. Also, the trend line for 2016 is moving up while during the same period last year it was going down.

The water levels for January hold true to the projection given in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers monthly forecast bulletin for Lake St. Clair published today (February 8^th). As of today, the forecast that was made in January showed an increase in the water levels and the report shows that the actual levels matched the projected levels exactly.

Looking forward you can see that it shows a two-foot drop in the water levels over 2015 by July, if you accept the projection for the rest of the year. So a three-foot increase in January may not result in an increase in the water levels during the height of the bass tournament fishing season.

Pre Order Sweet Green™ by Xtreme Bass Tackle

Perhaps it was no surprise to some but the dominant tube bait of 2015, Sweet Green™ sold out at the Ultimate Fishing Show Detroit by 2:16pm on Saturday, January 9^th. The intense bite that the smallmouth delivered on this bait was repeated right before our eyes by angler interest on the show floor.

An emergency order has been placed and now we wait…

The next opportunity to see this bait will be at the Outdoorama on February 25^{th –} 28th then at the Ultimate Sports Show in Grand Rapids on March 17^th– 20th.

We are taking advance orders and offering FREE SHIPPING on orders of 50 or more. If you would like to purchase an advance pack of 50 or 100 Sweet Green™ before they sell out again, click on one of the links below. (the shipping will be refunded after the purchase)

I want to order an advance 50 pack of Sweet Green with FREE shipping

(shipping will be refunded after the purchase)

I want to order an advance 100 pack of Sweet Green with FREE shipping

(shipping will be refunded after the purchase)

The estimated time of delivery is March 12^th. We will notify you of the progress as theis bait is being custom made, and delivered.

COMPLIMENTARY PASS TO GET INTO THE OUTDOORS SHOW

If you would like to purchase the bait at the Outdoorama or the Ultimate Sports Show Grand Rapids please email us at combatfishingguy@gmail.com and we will send you a complimentary pass to get in the show.

Lake St. Clair Smallmouth Bass Summer 2014

August 28, 2014

The bigger bite seems to be picking up this week and it should continue to strengthen into September. A lot of the bites are “swimming pickups” which makes setting the hook difficult. One thing to help with that is to put a little pressure on the bass by lifting the rod tip, then set the hook.

Topwater continues to rock along channel edges. Mark Hill picked a nice four pound smallie up at one of our first stops this morning. Later I picked up a decent three pound plus in 17 feet then we finished in the Lake in eleven feet and picked up one at four. On a research day like this we don’t work the areas hard but catch a couple to gauge the bite.

August 22, 2014

It hasn’t been a hot year so a full summer smallmouth bass pattern has yet to develop. We see a glimmer of it in the St. Clair River, the Channels, the staging areas in front of the Channels and in the Lake. I suppose we could call it the “cool summer pattern.”

What’s frigid about it is the way bite patterns come and go. We can get the bass going on a bait presentation in certain areas on one day and the next it’s like they were never there. Deep lake patterns seem to be the most consistent and a lot of the weights in tournaments have come from these areas.

St. Clair Goby NFT™ drop-shot tube by Xtreme Bass Tackle™

One consistent bait has been St. Clair Goby NFT™ by Xtreme Bass Tackle™. It doesn’t matter if you throw it in a drop-shot tube, a 4 inch tube or a 5 inch tube…this bait is hot! Since the development of this bait based directly on the change in the color of gobies in Lake St. Clair this bait has been a strong producer but never quite like this. The best smallmouth of the day came on the five inch tube that was thrown after a hit-and-miss on the drop-shot tube. With the drop-shot tube still in the water it picked up another smallmouth and I had to ask for help to bring in the “double.”

The quality of bass has been good. We are catching more keepers than short smallmouth and most of the bass have been 2 1/2 to 3 pounds. Getting the bigger bass is the product of a lot of hard work and covering water be it in the shallows or on deep drifts. In the river hitting multiple spots to find the best bite has been effective.

You can get Xtreme Bass Tackle products now at:
Sportsmen’s Direct, 36072 Jefferson Ave Harrison Twp, MI 48045
Phone: 586-741-6052
Hours: 6am – 6pm Daily,
adjusted seasonally
(Click here to see announcement of the Grand Opening of XBT products at Sportmen’s Direct)

St. Clair Goby NFT drop-shot tube caught this 3 1/2 pound smallmouth out in the deep water

This smallmouth at four pounds or better was caught on a 5″ St. Clair Goby NFT™

Lake St. Clair – Those Other Fish (Multi-species #2)

May 20th, 2010

Andy Nester of Fenton, MI get\’s one that\’s a fish of a lifetime

Last Saturday also brought on a huge influx of those other fish that had no clue we were just fishing for bass.  It’s a good thing too!  Some anglers caught the fish of a lifetime and it just goes to show how diverse a fishery that Lake St. Clair really is.  That wasn’t the only one caught off of that boat Saturday.  A second musky was caught and released and the day had plenty of bass to keep it interesting in between.

Matt Bird has a lifetime of fishing experience behind him and appreciates a quality catch like this

After doing a fair share of pike fishing over the years lifting one out of the water by hand became something I was used to. Still, those toothy critters deserve some respect. It’s kinda like a backlash on a bait casting reel. I’ll make 200 casts then on cast 201 my concentration will lapse for a split second then the next thing you know I’m picking at the mono (or flouro, or braid) to get the loops out of the backlash. Well, picking up a pike or a musky can be the same kind of skill. No matter how many times you do it there isn’t much room for error as you can see in the last picture. In this case it isn’t my thumb but the thumb of one of our intrepid duo above. The last time this happened to me was when I was holding the musky under the gill area and it thrashed. I never lost control of the fish but its teeth grazed my thumb and that’s all it took to cut through the skin.

In spite of the dangers catching these freshwater barracuda is still amazing, but there’s more… Check out the photos from the DK Open on Saturday and you will see a couple more musky and a drum:

DK Open on Great Lakes Bass

(c) 2010 Wayne Carpenter

Lake St. Clair – Those Other Fish (multi-species #3)

This pike was caught in the South Channel

Another South Channel monster

We were getting a good supply of three pound smallies today but then ran in to a couple of fish that didn’t know that we were bass fishing. The first was a 38″ pikc caught on a 4″ St Clair Crayfish tube. It was a good fight that lasted long enough that we thought it might be a musky. The next cast I switched over to a 4″ Xtreme Bass Tackle Alewife tube and hooked up with this channel cat that went clearly over 20 pounds. This fight lasted for at least 15 minutes and we couldn’t quite tell what kind of fish it was. In this case I was using a spincast rod that was freshly spooled up with a monofilament that I was trying; Berkley Solutions 10 pound test. I have to say that the line held up perfectly. It was the first channel cat that I have caught on Lake St. Clair. It was a very good day!

Call in to WJOB 1230 AM (Indiana) for Wayne Carpenter on Lake St. Clair 6:30pm

That’s right!  Tonight on WJOB at 6:30pm (7:30pm est) I will be talking Lake St. Clair and smallmouth bass fishing tactics on the “Stray Casts” radio show.  Call in your questions at (219) 845-1100.  You can stream the broadcast at this website: http://www.wjob1230.com/

Click here to go to the WJOB website then click on the “Listen Now” button

Lake St. Clair Smallmouth Bite on the Increase

There is little doubt that the bite has picked up on Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River.  More and more we are seeing smallies chasing our hooked smallie up to the boat to try to take the bait away from it.  Down deep, the bass are coming back for a second or a third try after a missed hookset.  These are good days and a lot of fun.

One of the key reasons for the uptick in the bite is the shift in feeding habits from mayflies to baitfish.  Bass are coughing up baitfish on the way to the boat and on the boat.  We are seeing bass busting minnows on the surface, casting to them and catching them.  An unusual number of white bass schools on bass spots are another indicator that baitfish are present.

Marked Maps™ customers will find a record number of spots covered in Marked Maps Live!™ this week!

Don’t miss the Lake St. Clair Fishing Show this week (it should be posted by Saturday morning).  We cover “how to make small adjustments to get the big bite” and more!