7-3-09 Kent Lake, MI (w/ Bender)

[BigBassin144]

Don't have time for a full report, so here's a sumarised (hopefully) version.

Up at 4:30. Left the house a little after 5:00. Got to Kent Lake around 6:30 and Bender was just parking his truck. We had to drive back to the office to get a permit for the day before we could launch out boat. Probably around 7:00 before we were on our way. We followed Bender (we could actually keep up with the 10mph speed limit, lol) to the first spot.

Wind was blowing hard making boat control hard, especially for me not being too good at the trolling motor yet. I starting with a white spinnerbait around some weeds and stumps. My dad started with a bandit 100 and caught a decent sized sunfish, lol. I switched to a white swimjig, and got a nice hit while it was sinking. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention, so I missed my first ever jig fish.

Not too much longer and Bender had the first bass of the day on a jig. An average sized fish. I switched to a black and blue jig and kept throwing. After a while, Bender's friend showed up and he went to pick him up at the dock. They got back to spot and after a while, we decided to try another area, a little more sheltered from the wind.

We got down there and we threw everything from jigs, to shaky heads, to the dropshot, tubes, crankbaits, spinnerbait, and couldn't buy a bite. The wind wasn't too much better so we moved to a cove that actually was a bit more sheltered, but not much, lol.

Bender's friend caught a small one on a wacky rig. We continued to fish wacky rigs, jigs, spinnerbaits, frogs, shaky heads to no avail. My dad got a nice hit on a jig and missed it. After a while, Bender goes to the other side of the cove and we start working towards each other. I switched to a pegged 1/2oz tungsten sinker and a T-rigged Rage Tail craw (thanks Kevin for the trick with the BPS bobber stops to peg the weight, it worked great). I pitched it to a mat of floating algae. It sank about 6 inches and wham! I set the hook and practically flung a little dink over the boat, lol. He was small, but very healthy looking and chunky.

We meet up with Bender, they only got one little one too, so we head over to another spot and fish just about everything. This time, I even try a Fluke on a weighted hook. Still nothing. We move out to some stumps in a bit deeper water and after fishing a while, my dad hooks an average one on a jig. We fish some more and move to another spot.

We fished wacky rigs, jigs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, poppers, T-rigged worms, a fluke, I even tied on a rattlin' Rogue and still no bites. After more nothing, we decide to move to our first spot and take our chances in the wind. We get over there and are facing 1' waves. I've got the TM on high and barely making any headway. My dad hooks into another fish on a bandit 100, and lands a nice sized crappie.

We fished there till about 4:30 and we headed in and prepared for the hour drive home. I don't know how long Bender stayed out after we left or if he did any good.

Bad news was the fishing wasn't very good, and it was very windy. Good news was, everyone had at least one bass, but I don't think anyone had more than 2 or 3... Nothing was even picture worthy, so no pictures

We still had a great time, and it was good to meet another member of the board.

Thanks for showing us around and helping (or trying to help) us catch some fish Bender.

BB