Lake Pokegama Grand Rapids

Hey fellas,
I am heading with the GF to Pokegama for the first time this weekend. I am looking to find a few eyes and potentially hit bass lake for pan fish. I can see the obvious structure in the lake and assume many permanents will be on the main spots. I am looking for any ideas on really any areas of the lake to target, even just a bay area or anything more specific than the lakes name itself! I have minimal walleye experience and zero pokegama experience so any ideas or past visit stories are welcome!

Pokeg is a tricky lake to fish, I have had success all over the lake, but struck out in the same scenarios/locations other days. I like to start out of tioga beach, some close structure, nice channel there as well. Kings landing is close by as well. It can be a timing thing as this is one of those lakes where you may get a ten minute window at dusk, but the lake has some monsters in it no doubt.

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Caught nothing but 3″ perch all day for 3 days. We moved around but there was no sign of a single sun fish or crappies. Even in the spots we were referred to. The sleeper we stayed was the worst ever. I can catch better fish in the metro then pokegama. It was the worst experience and will never recommend that place we stay to anyone.

I’ve fished it a few times, once this year. Kent mentions the perch, yes, there are tons of small perch in that lake. I’ve had success with walleyes if I could get away from the perch. I’m sure eyes could be had with the perch present, but they just made me upset.

The lake is extremely intimidating when looking at a map. This makes it tricky as there are so many places for the fish to hang out at. Fish generally cruise the lake instead of resorting to the same spot everyday. My avatar picture was actually taken off Tioga this year…Good luck, you’ll have to let us know how you do!

I launched from the south east boat launch Mishawaka? Headed out, only a 5 minutes run or so to a steep inside turn. Found about 2.3 million Perch in the 3-5″ range…. I did hook into a large pike in 28FOW that somehow got off. The saving grace was a fat 16″ eye I picked up on an 1/8 oz green UV vmc tingler spoon with a minnow head. 13FOW 10 minutes after sunset. I now understand why people complain about the small perch!!! I can imagine the eyes are well fed in this lake, and the one I caught showed it. I’ll see how tomorrow AM goes.

Also I am assuming it was a pike I lost. I was jigging away from 2 small perch and a large mark came in about 2ft above me so 5ft off bottom, came in and didn’t take much to hit it, it felt like a walleye hit but when I set the hook I felt a ton of weight, folding my TUCR precision to full bend. The fish seemed to come with me straight up, just weight no fight for about 10ft then it came unbuttoned out of nowhere even though the Hooksett felt perfect. When the mark came in the 2 Perch retreated to the bottom. Tons of fun even though I missed the fish.

I found the other 5 million Perch this AM, and a 6″ largemouth bass! Oh well, at least I caught 1 pokegama eye.