Door County Smallies
Water Surface = 69 degrees
12 to 24 FOW
Scattered rocks on sand flats
I was up to Door County for a camping trip with a few friends and family for Friday through Monday. This traditional trip we do is always complimented with taking advantage of the awesome smallie fishery throughout all the bays and points in Door County. We concentrated on the Sister Bay area, though what we did could be duplicated almost anywhere.
From years of fishing that area, I have compiled a pretty good list of GPS cords of many rock piles along the sand flats. Having kids with me that don’t quite understand fishing structure, its much less complicated to have them fishing the flats.
Two rigs produced very well for all the kids I was able to get out over the extended weekend. Rattle Trap and Carolina rig with a goby colored tube. The rattle traps enabled us to cover a lot of water quickly as we moved from rock pile to rock pile. One observation I noticed was the relationship of size versus location. On the rock piles, there were mostly 1 to 2# smallies with a rare toad being caught. However, along the sand flats, we caught 2# to 4# that were very spread out. On occasion, we would have the 3 or 4 smallies chasing a crank bait, but this trip that was rare.
The smallies were hitting the traditional colored tubes, but more of a soft thump and hold on to it. When I changed over to some of the tubes I used last fall in Lake Erie, I was very surprised in the reaction bites. 2# smallies were just crushing the purple/gold tubes in a manor I thought the kids would get a rod yanked out of their hands. Even a few of the adults I had out never experienced the thrill of having smallies crush a bait so aggressively and immediately sky rocket for an aerial show.
Monday morning before leaving for home, I had to get out for a little “ME” time. Paid off very well. Instead of looking for numbers, I was looking for one isolated pig. I hit an area I have called the turtle shells. In about 28 fow, there are a series of humps shaped like turtle shells rising up about 3 to 4 feet. I ran across these with the Hum-bird on a split screen of sonar and the side scan. This was only the second time I have been here with a side-scan so I spent more than enough time playing instead of fishing. These a are a few observations I made that I thought was very worth while to share.
Sheepshead would school up like over-grown crappies and would be off to the sides of balls of minnows. – Caught on anything plastic that looked like a minow
Walleyes were laying on the shaded sides of the structure. Caught on smoke/glitter mullets.
Smallies were on the top of the structure showing up at about a foot off the bottom. When bait fish were present, I marked a few fish scattered and suspended, with the rest of them well below the main ball of bait. Caught mostly on pearl/salt-pepper mullets and Culprit Gobies.
I’m waiting on a few of the pics to be emailed to me. I haven’t had a chance to replace my camera yet….but when I get them, I’ll update this.
