June 30, 2019 - Fishing Report - Pilgrim Village Fishing

Hank Potter caught this Big Largemouth off the end of the canal on the Lake Cadillac side. 19 1/2″, 2.97lb.

Summer has finnally arrived! With the daytime temps in the 80’s it will be best to start hitting the water early before it gets too hot or wait until evening when it starts cooling back down. The heat is starting to push the fish into deeper water, however a few gills are still being caught guarding beds near the shallows yet. The Bluegills and Sunfish that have finished up spawning have retreated to the deeper weed beds, look for them in 8-12 foot of water. Using a slip bobber is the best way to reach them at those depths.

Crappie have been pretty hit and miss. Lots of anglers are marking them but they don’t always want to cooperate. Minnows are still the best way to catch them. On Lake Cadillac they have been finding them suspended in about half way down in 14-20 ft. of water but on Lake Mitchell some anglers have been catching them in as shallow as 8 ft.

Most of the Walleye we’re hearing about are coming from trolling or drifting along the deeper weed edges with crawler harnesses. Some anglers have also found success trolling deep diving minnow baits like Deep Thundersticks in some of the 20-25 ft. water on the East side of Lake Cadillac.

Bass fishing is still good however most of them are pretty skinny after spawning. With the warmer water temperatures top water fishing is becoming more productive. Frogs, Poppers, Spooks, Buzzbaits and Whopper Ploppers have all been working pretty good and it makes for more exciting strikes when a fish blows up your bait on the surface. The trusty wacky worm is still working as well.

We’re starting to hear more good reports of the summer run Skamania all the way up to Tippy Dam on the Manistee River. For those that aren’t familiar, Skamania are a strain of Rainbow Trout/Steelhead that move up the river during the summer months they tend to have a more torpedo shaped body.

More nice fish keep coming in for the 2019 8th Annual Free Summer Fishing Contest. We have new leaders for Largemouth Bass, Bluegill and Crappie. Remember this contest ends on September 10, and the fish can come from any lake in Michigan so there is still plenty of time to catch the big one.