Our second consecutive 70+ degree day made for some great bass fishing. My son Charlie came out on the water with me for the first time making it a special day for me. I look forward to plenty of trips with him, and hope he enjoys the sport as much as I do.
For this trip I left the fly rods at home thinking it would be easier to manage controlling the boat and posing for pictures with the baby if I wasn’t flinging a huge bass streamer around. It gave me a chance to try out my new Sixgills Fishing spinning reel. If you haven’t heard of Sixgills Fishing I recommend you check them out. They are the same people that make Allen Fly Fishing rods and reels as well as Exterus Brand clothing. This product line is also an instant favorite of mine. They make a full spectrum of baitcasting and spinning rods and reels, but my first item is a Trireme in size 2000. This is their cheapest reel, and a real bargain at $29.95. This is easily the best reel under $50 I have used. They also make a 1000 and 3000 in this series. The 1000 would be a great trout or panfish rod. The 2000 is perfect for bass and pike, and the 3000 would cover most fresh water species. I will add a full review later.
We were fishing a private access lake near Wixom, MI. I like to hit this lake when I have beginners in the boat or if I’m testing out new gear. Thanks to the lack of pressure we usually can put at least a handful of bass in the net fairly quickly. This trip was maybe our best yet. Charlie only let us stay on the water for about 40 minutes before he got cranky, but I still managed to land 7-8 bass in the 12-16 inch range.
Technique was pretty simple as the fish were more than willing to take. I was throwing just a simple baby bass pattern swim bait. We found a shallow gravel/rock bed by a small island. It had some depressions that made for good ambush areas, and then a drop off. The bass seemed to be holding in the depressions where they could wait for food, and they were enjoying the warm sun in this shallower water. Casting as far as I could (to maximize the amount of depressions I was swimming the bait through) and a slow steady retrieve was all it was taking to draw fish. With the relatively cold water it was hard to tell a strike from bumping bottom, but more often than not it was a fish.
And that’s all there was too it! We will be returning to the lake often this summer as a proving ground for some of our streamers, so we will likely have some more in depth posts later on. For now I just wanted to document Charlie’s first trip and post some of his pictures
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