St. Clair River Smallmouth Bass Report

Justin Semin and I ventured up north for a NBAA Directors tournaments in Detroit. While up there we wanted to get onto a good smallmouth bite, and that we did. Our original plan was to go out on Lake Erie or St. Clair. While at the NBAA Banquet at Bass Pro Shops Jack Horning the National Director for the NBAA introduced us to Roy Randolph who operates www.fishingpixels.com. Roy told us about a bite on the St. Clair River. He showed us an area to fish and tips on how to catch them.

Sunday morning Justin and I headed to St. Clair Michigan and launched our boat and headed out on the river. Both Justin and I were amazed at the water color up there. I have never seen water that clear and blue before. We headed up the river in the light rain and found the location Roy described to us. We experimented with tubes on jigs that were 3/8oz to 5/8oz and drop shotting Berkley Gulp Gobies. After about 40 minutes Justin yells out “Fish On”. Justin stuck the first bass on a gobie. Justin reeled the bass to the surface when it decided it wasn’t going to give up that easy. It was really cool how you could see the bass fighting down pretty deep in that clear water. Finally, we got the fish in. It was a really nice smallie pushing 4 pounds. It wasn’t too long after that he caught another slightly smaller than his first. Yet again, about 20 minutes later he caught another bass that was almost 18”. It seemed like they were getting smaller with each catch. I switched from the tube to a gobie and finally, I caught my first bass. It was nothing like what Justin had caught. Mine was only about 15”. I caught a couple more that were even smaller.

Around noon the skies cleared off and the sun came out. It seemed like the bite died off as well. We caught a couple more small bass. We took a little break from fishing and looked around the river. Justin noticed a ship wreck on the Navionics GPS map. We went and checked it out with my side imaging. It was pretty cool to see, but it appeared to be sanded in and covered with vegetation so the images weren’t real detailed.

About 3pm we decided to fish the area one last time before heading home. I told Justin we each need on more fish to end the day on. I finally hooked into a good smallie. This bass initially came in pretty easy, but once it saw the surface it dove back down in 30 feet of water. We saw the bass and knew it was big. I didn’t think we would get it in. Every time I thought I was making ground on this bass it decided to peal twice off as much line as I reeled in. We drifted down the river about ¼ mile before we finally got it in. I thought this was one of those 6 pounders Roy told us about. This thing was bigger than any smallmouth I have ever caught. It was pushing 20” and nearly 5 pounds. It didn’t seem real long but was about 4” or so thick. About 20 minutes later Justin hooked into a nice 17” smallie. We each were able to end the day on a good bass after a slow afternoon.
I wish we had more than one free day up there for some fishing. Thanks to Roy and his tips Justin and I had a great time. On the way home we decided an annual trip up north would be on the calendar in the future. We met many of the NBAA Directors and everyone was very nice and more than willing to share tips with us.