Baybum

Tough going out there for sure. Tooled around solo close to the shipping channel all over the place from 1:00pm until 4:30pm and got 3 eyes with 2 definitely short and one too close(I generally don't carry measurement out there), along with 7 assorted farm animals. Its like bath water out there....between the Inner Plug and a mile north of #'s 1&2 I didn't get a temp below 76.5 and in 18.9 W of the Inner it was 79.9. I'm gonna hit her hard Thurs through Sat next week and fish the Au Gres/Simms Whitney Fireman's Tourney because that is my alltime favorite but the inner is a dead sea. My strategy is #1...find and mark some nice weedbeds to cast to some nice gators kinda close to Au Gres or #2....run over to Grindstone where they are killing them right now. Either way it'll be tough if its rough. Based upon what I caught in Saginaw this winter which was prolly the best ice season I've ever had and what I caught in April early season the fishery is way far from dead, just a really warm year for once. Also saw a lot of healthy lookin mini gators chasin my tubes and hiding under docks and boats on the Tib when I was bass fishin in May and June. Gotta go deep or find em' hiding in the shade I think??

Indy I was out Tuesday and they are biting real light right now for some reason. Not typical at all for Mid May. Caught about 17 with 12 keepers and went through about 4 dozen crawlers. Brand new harnesses with brand new trebles. Fished about the same area you're describing.

Oh yea you can head up the Cass a little ways still. And I doubt all if any of those boats dissappearing south launched at the Cass on M-13. Oh and Gander has nice minnows in.

Schultz, the last 3 times I have been out we have picked up perch while trolling spoon flasher harnesses directly out from the end of the shipping channel, not even a mile. The area has been very small and it's been almost predictable when we make our passes that we'll get at least a couple right when we line up between the last 2 channel markers(1+2, the outer plug). I have been tempted to try drifting perch rigs there myself until I hit a school then anchor but haven't for 2 reasons: 1) It's hard as heck to quit walleye fishing, I mean this is the good old days right now and 2) With all the walleyes in that area it might be hard to keep your bait down long enough for the perch schools to find it, you might just catch a ton of sub-legal walters. One of these days I'm gonna give it a try tho, and thats where I'll be startin.

We actually started on Saturday with 2 rigs with the copper/gold Baitfish blades, as they have been our best producers for.....like 2 years now, but for some reason Saturday they just didn't click. We threw down 1 purple Tommy Harris blade rig for the heckuvit a couple hours in and like 4 of our next 5 fish came on it. Needless to say we switched 2 more over and got 2 of our 3 better fish on it as well. Our other good blades were a "Spiderman"(Tommy Harris blue/red/silver(Spiderman colors)), and a chartreuse Baitfish(been good all year). Saturday I fried my CD player somehow(shockproof my ars), broke the windshield and my aerator for the well won't work either now for some reason. It seems like for every trip out there this year I gotta do about 2 hours of repair work and spend $50-$100 to replace equipment. Last time out a battery strapdown ripped, both poles of the battery slid into a metal plate in the back and the thing literally exploded, luckily it was in a closed spot. I either gotta start taking it easier or buy a bigger boat.

It's on fire right now. Must of caught around 100 fish in 2 trips this last week pre-fishing for and fishing Labadie. Got a few with some size too, more on Thursday than Saturday of course. Fishing way deeper than you tho Schultz, 19-24 FOW northeast of the inner plug. Same colors are hot out there tho!! I might give your spot a try this week, a heckuva lot easier on gas that's for sure. Don't ask about the tourney, for some reason I thought my 19' aluminum with an 85 HP could run 10 miles in 45 minutes in 4-6 footers. Yeah....got back to LBM 30 minutes late:(.

I'll be out just not totally sure where yet. More than likely gonna launch from BC tho, gonna be a zoo.

I actually, no BS, had 6 or 7 Bald Eagles in a tree at one time when I was fishing just downstream from Center St. Not that they listened but I told em to shut up a couple times because their chatting was ruining a quiet weekday morning....I see em all the time in that area, both mature and immature birds. Always stunning!! The top of the foodchain is always most affected by contamination as many toxins bioaccumulate up through the food chain. The toxins persist in fatty tissues thus the top predators consuming all the other critters' fatty tissues get the highest concentrations. Bald Eagles making this huge comeback in the watershed speaks volumes for how much it has improved.

That is very cool. I also noticed today that when you look up the Inner Bay forecast it now lists it as "For Waters Within 5 Nautical Miles of Shore," and this is on the old bookmark. Now, if you go to this address http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=GRR&map.x=324&map.y=52 There is a map where you can click on anywhere on a map of the Bay(or the whole Great Lakes I'd assume) and it will give you a pinpoint marine forecast for that section of water. Capt. Dan I think this is something like the sectionalized marine forecasting for the Bay you have suggested before. This is such a vast improvement, we need to spread the word on this one.