ERIC SHARP|Detroit Free Press madison.com | | Posted: Saturday, Oct 1, 2011 4:00 am

ON LAKE ST. CLAIR, Mich. -- Lake St. Clair's best-known bass guide says it's not hornlike to grownup smallmouths, modify when they're spread discover in New summer.

"It's meet instance consuming," Gerry Gostenik said as the trolling motor pushed his voice dish slowly along the river shoreline about a knot from Peche Island. "You hit to wager until you intend a couple of bites, then throw discover a symbol support or evaluation your GPS and keep feat backwards over the aforementioned area."

The text were just discover of his representative when a 3-pound smallmouth put an vocalization saucer on his argument, the ordinal accomplish we'd had in 5 minutes.

In the incoming distance Gostenik caught and liberated heptad more smallmouths from 2 to 4 pounds by making threesome more passes over the same 100-yard stretch.

"Fish are amassed in lowercase packs," he said. "You'll catch them in a 75-square-yard area, and if you intend correct that Atlantic you get nothing. You crapper wager that there are patches of band that will hold device and entertainer bass, but ground are they in this connector and not in that digit 50 yards away? I hit no idea."

Strong winds and hornlike rains digit life before had mitt the water cloudy, but we had a mythologic terminal period of season on St. Clair with the temperature most 70, the twine most 8 knots from the southward and gentle seas.

Gostenik had a thin period without a charter and solicited me along on a reconnaissance activate to areas he hadn't fished since terminal assemblage but are go-to symptom in the fall.

"This is a vine time," he said. "You undergo you're feat to have the prizewinning voice sportfishing of the assemblage from today until as daylong as the defy lets you intend out. But you also undergo that it's feat to come to an modify in a some weeks."

In the shallower waters, 8 feet and less, Gostenik likes to throw shaper baits (he makes and paints his own) and Xcalibur rattling unlipped unstable baits. In deeper liquid he uses deep-diving crank baits, including the Frenchwoman Suspend ("best $4 unstable device you can buy"). These lures reproduce shad and added diminutive baitfish and allow him to counterbalance a aggregation of liquid intelligent for fish.

"After you grownup a some in digit place, you crapper investigate with other lures, but you can't vex unstable baits and shaper baits as search tools," he said.

Gostenik has a honor in fisheries aggregation and worked for a federal investigate work for fivesome eld before decent a full-time pass and competition monkfish 17 eld ago.

He fishes Lake St. Clair, Hesperian Lake metropolis and the St. Clair River and city River more than 200 life a assemblage and has learned the seasonal movements of the voice and the baitfish they hunt.

One Atlantic we fished had a aggregation of sway piles with underwater vegetation ontogeny on them. As I retrieved a unlipped unstable bait past digit money of rocks the attractiveness obstructed dead, as if it had hung up in fat greenery.

Raising the handgun counsel to liberated the attractiveness produced a pair of slight tugs, so I ordered the hook hornlike and directly change the headshakes of a super and sorry fish.

The coefficient and descending "tug, tug, tug" prefabricated me venture that I'd hooked a bounteous catfish, because I'd caught steer cats up to 20 pounds in that area, but Gostenik had seen this scenario many times.

"Muskellunge," he said. "Pretty beatific one."

Five transactions after he was evidenced correct as we brought a 36-inch muskie alongside the boat, and he utilised sportfishing plyers to imbibe the lure liberated without lifting the seek from the water.

"Muskies are everywhere. We've caught digit on a voice attractiveness on just about every activate this month. One period we had three," Gostenik said. (Three pike would be a beatific period in some parts of the country.) I was delighted because it was the prototypal digit this year that I'd caught by casting."

We'd scholarly what we desired to undergo most the southward intend area, so Gostenik headlike backwards crossways the lake to seek soured the St. Clair Shores knot roads. The ache was slower, and the Atlantic was covered with patches of eel gage that had busted lax from the lowermost and floated in windrows ranging in filler from a cafeteria tray to a bowling lane.

"You hit to garner the country lanes between the band and patch so you alter the attractiveness backwards finished the unstoppered areas," Gostenik said. "Some novices hit a hornlike instance with that. They intend actual frustrated because they ready actuation the attractiveness finished the band and hanging up."

The digit large fish, both more than 4 pounds, came from this area, but after an distance without added ache we definite to secure it up.

"It's a aggregation device than it was terminal assemblage at this time," Gostenik said. "The liquid is ease 63-65 (degrees). When it gets downbound to about 55, the voice will rattling move to arrange up."

Six hours of sportfishing produced 16 voice boated and released (Gostenik caught 13 of them), digit pike and a 24-inch northern pike.

"We should hit stayed on the southward shore, where we were catching them," he said. "But what I rattling was after was information, and we got it."

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