August 20-26 Arbutus Lake

[BenLubbs]

Stayed with the family at Mac Landing on Arbutus Lake, which is about 6 miles south of Traverse City. The lake is actually a chain of 5 lakes connected by shallow channels. The lakes are nice for fishing because, even though there are quite a few cottages, there are very few boats, and most of them are fishing boats or pontoons. The lakes have a lot of smallmouth and largemouth bass, pike, bluegill, perch, and i'm sure there are walleye, though I've never caught one.

We did fairly well for the week, getting out throughout the day most days. Didn't catch any sizable bass, with the biggest at 16 inches. Crankbaits and spinners around weed beds were best.

My brother got the biggest pike of the week at over 30 inches. We also caught a few smaller ones. Cranks and spinners around weeds and dropoff were the ticket here.

We also did some bluegill fishing. Caught a lot of 8-9 inchers, and a lot more of smaller. We were using dropper rigs with leaf worms with the dropper 2 ft above the weight. We were fishing anywhere from 15 to 25 ft on the drop offs.

It was a great week and a I'll post a few pictures later.