FISHING TRIPS 2000
Our first trip of the year was Memorial Day weekend. We went to Lake Erie in hopes to hook into some big smallmouth bass that come in close to the islands around that time of year.  We have never been up to the big lake at this time of the year so we decided to forgo our usual St.Clair trip and try Erie.  Unfortunately the weather turned ugly as soon as we arrived and we didn't get a chance to test the waters.
In June we spent a week up at Lake St. Clair.  The fishing was not as good as it was the year before but nevertheless  it was good by Ohio standards.  The lake level was down from the lack of snow and ice due to a mild winter.
While Tim almost topped his best smallmouth of 5 lb. 13 oz. with a 5 lb. 11 oz. I managed to catch a couple of small muskies.
Tim and Craig made it back up to St. Clair on the July 4th weekend and all in all had a pretty good trip for July . They caught a fair number of smallies especially in "Chimmy" bay. They also went for walleyes with night crawlers and caught 13 in the St. Luke's tower area in 12-14 foot of water. They  caught some big pike in the same area.    They used Erie Deeries with a cast and reel retrieve.
The third week of July we went back up to Lake Erie and stayed in a condo on Kelley's Island.  Tim and I would get out fishing for a few hours each day.  We started out fishing for perch but ran into some walleyes off of the southwestern tip of the island called Carpenters Point.  We used a night crawler harness rig called a Weapon.  We managed to catch a few nice walleyes each trip with an occasional smallmouth and big sheephead and catfish in between.  The weather was great and the fishing spot was close so it turned out to be a very pleasant week.
We made a mini trip up to St. Clair in mid September. The smallies were very slow especially after a major storm came through. We did concentrate on fishing several of Heavy's favorite spots in the Syne and had a lot of success catching largemouth up to 3.5 lbs.
October found us again on Lake St. Clair.  This is the time of  year to catch big smallmouth.  While we did not find the fish schooled we managed to find a small spot in about 10-11 feet a water that held big smallies.  One of our methods of finding fish in this lake is to drift and cast either tube jigs or grubs.  When we catch fish we will throw a marker buoy out and either drift by it again or use the trolling motor to work out the area.  If the spot seems like a potential honey hole we mark the spot with our GPS so that we can find it later on in the day or week.  We marked such a hole as it produce 3.5 lb.+ fish every time we stopped to check it out.
We were after to break Tim's 5 lb. 13oz. record.  On one of our stops Craig hooked and landed a Huge smallmouth that weighed 6 lb. 11 oz.!!! It was 21.5 inches long.  A trophy of a lifetime.  The fish was photographed and then released.