So it's been a while since my last post. I apologize for that, but the last couple weeks have been extremely busy. During Memorial Day week I went to Open Bay Lodge in Ontario on our annual family fishing trip followed by three days of work and then right back on the road to Sturgeon Bay for a two-day club tournament. I'll get back to the Open Bay trip later this week, but today I'll fill you in our River Road trip to Sturgeon Bay.
If you've never been to Sturgeon Bay, it's a trip you have to make if you're a serious smallmouth fisherman. I've never been to a place more loaded with 4-5 pound fish and it has the ability to kick out true monsters. You have a legitimate chance of catching smallies over 7 pounds. Earlier this spring during the annual Sturgeon Bay spring open, two fish over 8 lbs were weighed in with many fish over 6 pounds weighed. Big bass honors were taken home with a fish weighing 8.45 pounds pictured right. WOW!!!!! While we didn't bring in any giants of that magnitude, one member of our club did manage to catch two fish right near that 6 pound mark.
The Sturgeon Bay area of the bay of Green Bay is an interesting fishery in the spring. From my experience there over the last three years, I've come to the conclusion that there are three different spawning periods that occur there, four if you count the Lake Michigan side. The first areas to fire up in the spring are the areas in and around Sturgeon Bay, including Little Sturgeon, Riley's, and Sand bays as well as Sturgeon Bay itself. The water warms in these areas the earliest and seems to kick out the biggest pre-spawn bags. Once these fish start to spawn, however, your best bet is to begin moving north from Sturgeon Bay. That's not to say that you won't catch a ton of fish around Sturgeon Bay, but once the spawn starts it's much more difficult to find and catch the giants. As you move north you'll find colder water and more fish in that pre-spawn mode. Areas to check out here are the points that extend out into the bay of Green Bay along the Door County peninsula, as well as, the bays including Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Eagle Bay and Sister Bay among others. These waters I would put into the second wave of spawning activitiy. As these areas start the spawn, it's time to move out into the Bay of Green Bay itself, looking for humps and island that will still have cooler water and the last of the spawning waves.
On the weekend of June 1st and 2nd our club planned a two-day outing that launched from Sturgeon Bay. Having just returned from our trip to Canada it was time for me to get some work done and I didn't get any time to practice. I drew Torry Rhoades as a partner for the first of our two tournaments and he was able to practice the weekend prior. His plan was to spend a day north and I had him check some water that I had done well on in the past. There were fish on the chew up there but he didn't catch any monsters. He also reported back that he hadn't seen any bedding activitiy going on up there yet. That was the key in my mind. No beds means pre-spawn fish. Just what I was looking for. As the tournament edged closer some other guys from our club began heading up and reports started trickling back about all the beds in the southern bays and reports of some guys having 100 fish days which was another plus because I knew that they would have a hard time leaving all those bedding fish to look for bigger ones. Who could blame them? 100 fish days? Geez. As we showed up the night before the tournament the dock talk going around was that they weren't catching any big fish north. Of course this was dock talk, but we're a pretty open club when it comes to information sharing. Even so, I thought there might be some sandbagging going on and with the reports that I was hearing I thought that the northern stuff should be ready to explode. Luckily, I had drawn Torry and he was eager and willing to make the run north.
Tournament day greeted us with light winds which is a God-send when you're traveling 30 miles through the Bay of Green Bay. The trip was a breeze except for the fact that I managed to get a jerkbait hooked into my rain suit within the first three minutes. When we arrived we pulled up on the main point leading into one of the bays. Water temp was in the low 50's which means perfect jerkbait temps. It didn't take long and Torry was hooked up with a nice 4+lb fish. Then another. And another. During this time I caught two small keepers. It was one of those times where you knew it was pointless to put them in the box, but I did just in case. From there we began working down the flat in about 6 ft of water. We continued to catch fish but there weren't any big ones coming aboard. From there we moved out to the second break and focused on area in about ten feet of water with a mixture of sand and rock. These areas I had done well on in the past, but Torry hadn't checked them so I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't take long and I was able to put one in the boat around five pounds. That was really all we needed to see so we spent the next 5 hours working this area. By 12:30 both Torry and myself had the weight that we would end the day with. I was unable to make a cull after 10:30. At 12:30 we decided to run off shore to check some water out there. We found a bunch of fish but neither of us were able to upgrade our catch.
Our primary techniques for the day consisted of jerkbaiting with a little umbrella rig action to mix it up a little bit. I was able to land a few on the A-rig but none that I eventually weighed. The jerkbait carried all the weight for both Torry and myself. When it was all said and done our boat brought in 10 fish for over 46 lbs with the top six finishers all catching bags over 20lbs.
Top Five Finishers
1. Nathan Ranallo 24lbs 3oz
2. Ben Potaracke 23lbs 4oz
3. Torry Rhoades 22lbs 2oz
4. Jim Tomsovich 21lbs 9oz
5. Dave Snyder 20lbs 5oz
Big Fish honors went to Ben Potoracke with a 6lb 1oz brute.
The strangest thing about fishing the Bay of Greenbay is that even with over 24lbs of smallmouth in the box, I never felt comfortable with my weight. Any other place I've fished I wouldn't have questioned having enough to win, but I know what that place can produce having gotten my butt whipped in the Open over the past few years. Our Day Two tournament would be a different story as the weather was about to take a change for the worse. I'll tell you more about it my next post.
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