My wife and I spent a long weekend in Michigan to celebrate our fifth anniversary. I had to include some fishing on the trip, so I booked an outing with Captain Chris of Northern Adventures Fishing. We went out on the Grand Traverse Bay Tuesday morning. It was somewhat of a tough bite, but we were able to get some fish in the boat. My wife and I both caught some nice smallies...





Here is some video of our trip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J1zwxMOf7s

Love those smallies! And that area up there is really nice. Congrats.

Sweet !

We knocked the tar out of the smallies last weekend also on the Elk, Skegemog, Torch lake chain a few miles east of Traverse bay. Biggest I caught was 20", I'd guess about 4#. Be back up there in a couple weeks.

Where we were staying was right on the northwest end of Elk Lake, Spencer Bay I believe it is called.

Very nice...congrats to you and Mama!!

As al lindner would say......nice "brownies"!!

Sure Goosepond, know right where you were at. That's about a half hour boat ride from my place on Skegemog.

Beautiful clear blue water there isn't it?

Great smallmouth fishing in that entire lake chain, as well as other species. I'm more of a panfish addict. We whacked the big bluegill and rock bass pretty hard, and picked up a few incidental smallmouth.

The kind of quiet big thing on Traverse Bay is the summer fly fishing for carp. But, you guys can catch smallies and panfish here! You got to go after the browns and rainbows in the rivers up there. I keep looking for a reasonable place on the river outside of Baldwin but they are not easy to come by.

nice video!

All catch and release up there?

Chevy, it is God's will that ALL smallmouth be released or mere humans risk spending an eternity in he!! For those who risk challenging God's will, they must never tell!

Unless through confession and are a convert

Confession should only be acknowledged after many, many hours of community service!

lol

Great color on those fish too!

Thanks, everyone.

The water was incredibly clear. I was amazed as we were able to easily see ten to fifteen feet down.

All fishing done with Captain Chris, smallmouth-wise, is catch and release.

I live withing walking distance of the best smallmouth stream in our state and feel the same way.

I caught a very nice smallmouth yesterday morning, it was admired then promptly released to fight another day.

I'm not opposed to keeping the occasional smallmouth for table fare. A couple of those 14 to 15 inchers, but turn loose the big breeders.

The bass boat guys pound our lake when the smallies are spawning, catching them with big tackle and big hooks off the nest, then releasing them. I always find a bunch of dead floaters in the following days. Just because they are released, doesn't mean they will live. They need to be handled gently.