Getting to Sawyer Harbor on a good day is a piece of cake. (If I had to guess I'd say it's 2-3 miles from the shipping canal.) But on a day with 4-5 footers blowing straight into your face, I promise you, it will make you pucker up tight. Especially for guys like us who don't spend a lot of time on Great Lakes waters. Once we got there it didn't take long to start putting fish in the boat. Kevin hooked up first on the Flash Mob Jr. Not long after, I boated one on a spinnerbait. For the next four hours we worked a portion of flat that had weed clumps scattered throughout it. Those fish were definitely relating to the weeds. Any time you pulled your bait through a clump you'd get bit. The wave action had really dirtied the water up, but it didn't seem to bother the fish. We probably caught 30-40 fish from that particular area and we weren't the only the boat there. The size didn't match what I caught the previous day, but that was to be expected as the majority of these fish were post-spawn. Not catching the same weight really didn't bother me. It was a blast having jacked-up smallmouth crushing a spinnerbait. It's been a while since I've had that happen. The umbrella rig was by far the best producer though. Kevin put on a clinic with that thing and caught more and bigger fish than I did on the spinnerbait. I threw it a little bit, but I get bored chucking that thing out there.
At a little after noon the wind began to settle a bit and it looked like we'd have a chance to fish the Sturgeon Bay flats. We made our way across the bay and set up on a rock ridge that had some bedding fish up on top. Kevin picked up the A-rig and I picked up the jerkbait again. I didn't get three jerks in and I was hooked up. Soon after the fish was able to shake the hooks and was off. I immediately fired the bait back out there and jerked twice and I was hooked up again. This time with a fish close to 3 pounds. I was able to cull with this fish and with the quick action, thought I'd be able to cull out my entire bag. That didn't happen, but we did pick up a handful more as we worked that area. With about a half hour remaining the wind really laid down and we were able to look at some on beds. It was difficult to see the fish and how they were relating to our baits, but we did put a hook in a few.
At the scales I managed a measly 13.5 pounds while Kevin weighed in over 15.75lbs. Neither weight was enough to make the top five on this day.
Top Five Finishers
1. Jamie Nichols 19.06lbs
2. Andy Smith 17.67lbs
3. Ryan Geister 17.07lbs
4. Kyle Schauf 15.92lbs
5. Dave Snyder 15.85lbs
Big bass honors went to Kevin Herlitzke with a personal best 5.17 pound smallie.
My closing thoughts on Sturgeon Bay are that it's an amazing fishery. The long growing seasons we've had the past few years, coupled with the population explosion of the goby have created one of the best smallmouth fisheries in the country. I don't know if the weights will continue to rise like they have the past few years, but if they do the next world record smallie will likely come from the Bay of Green Bay. This I do know, I will be spending the first few weeks of the fishing season next year looking for one of those 8 lb giants.
Striped bass fishing is a great challenge to the new fisherman or the experienced angler. What are the secrets to striped bass fishing?. Maybe its not as hard as you think.
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