With November being one of my favorite months to fish, spent 3 days over the past two weeks playing inside the harbors. Also put in some time on the Rock chasing marble eyes and the obligatory afternoon chasing skis on Pewaukee. but this post is about Lake MI.
What I would call a near-perfect afternoon happened on Wednesday two weeks ago, not because of a fast and furious bite, but because of my company. My oldest son, visiting us with his family on post-deployment leave, and my youngest son, spent the afternoon together chasing browns in the harbors. It’s been a long time since the 3 of us have been on a boat together, and the emails I sent the oldest while in Iraq, with pics of his younger brother holding eyes and browns, whet his desire to get out there with us. While the mid-November day was relatively mild, the breezy SE winds put a chill on us that Dad was prepared for, but the stubborn boys didn’t believe me that more layers would be needed as we left the comforts of our shielded, sunny yard. So they were more than ready to jump into the truck after landing the boat just after dark…will they ever learn to listen to Dad?? 
We threw plastics all over the place with only a few lazy Brown follows and nips,and a couple lost fish, but none boated. The oldest got this pike and a smallie, though, and I got another smallie, both in an area where I had not caught them before, and both about 15 inches long. But the 3 dudes getting out together doing guy stuff, leaving the 6 wives/daughters behind to shop, made up for the slow bite, and we all made the proverbial last cast (about 10 of them 
) as the day came to a close in the dark, within eye-shot of the landing, anticipating that next tug on the line.
Went back last Friday and again yesterday joined by various fishing buddies, to see if we could get more smallie action and to target browns,, and did pretty well in both categories. Water temps were still in the 46 to 49 degree range thoughout the harbor areas. Spent about 5 hours on each afternoon into the dark, pitching into the rock breakwalls and boat slip areas. Boated 4 browns and 5 smallies on Friday, and 7 browns and 8 smallies yesterday, pretty much all on the Gulp 5 inch jerk shads, with 1/8 to 3/16 oz. jigs. No huge browns, with all in the 3 lb to 9 lb. range. Most of the smallies were in the 17 to 19 inch range, but did have a nice fat 20 incher in the mix, plus the behemoth 21 incher shown, which is the largest smallie I’ve ever seen. Have had some longer than 21 come to the boat over the years, but never one this girthy and fat.
So hoping the weather holds off for a while yet, as have a buddy visiting next week from NC, who wants to get back out on the big Pond for some late fall Brown action we’d enjoy when he lived here. We’ll see…anything from here on out is a bonus.
Great looking fish also. 
Might have to pm you next fall for harbor water temps. Need to have them temps. 
