Grizld Outdoors

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional opener of bass season in Michigan. This covers both largemouth and smallmouth bass. Growing up, the outdoor magazines I read would always be loaded with articles on fishing for largemouth bass while smallmouth always seemed to get a much smaller billing. As a result of this, and my extremely limited exposure to waters that held smallmouth, it wasn't until I met my wife that I learned the bronzeback is at least equal in every measure to it's bucketmouthed kin, and even superior in some aspects.  Before I met Annie, I had only ever caught two smallmouth bass. Both were well under Michigan's 14 inch legal minimum, and from a dock on a dam backwater. My father-in-law introduced me to fishing skinny water in some of Lake Michigan's smaller bays in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Wearing waders and working the edges of reeds in as little as two feet of water, the aggressive fish respond equally well to a white twisty tail grub or a nigh...

 I think the reason I enjoy pike fishing so much is that the fish leaves no doubt about what is happening when it hits your lure. You're realing in and WHAM, you've got a fight on your hands. Granted, the excessive aggresiveness can result in some misses, but by and large, the fish does the work and hooks itself. You just have to get it to the boat and in a net before its heavy headshakes manage to dislodge the hook. This is less of an issue with treble hooks but it does happen.  I first came to love pike on a trip to Lake Nipigon, Ontario. Located 40 miles north of the upper tip of Lake Superior, the bays and rivers of the lake are loaded with walley and pike, while the main lake is a fantastic Lake Trout fishery. We were staying in a cabin on Orient Bay and one could stand on the dock, casting the classic red and white Daredevl lures (or the cheap imitation from Wal-Mart), and catch pike all day. The old man that managed the campground we stayed at took the time to teach us ...