Baker Lake Simplicity

I got  out on a weekday evening for the first time this summer and headed to Baker Lake with Dave C.  I haven’t fished much with Dave in the last few years because of family schedules, but he’s the last of my original Michigan fishing buddies, and pretty much always welcome aboard my boats.  (The other original buddies have simply moved away, it’s not like they’ve passed on or anything.)  He was atypically frazzled by the events of the work-day when I picked him up, and his fishing may have suffered from his various distractions, but by the end of the evening things had sorted themselves out; his factories were back in gear, his QA/QC issues were getting worked out, he’d caught a nice bass, and we’d shared a very pleasant evening of bassing on a pretty unique lake.

This was also the first trip of the year for Arracuda.  With a repaired bung hole, a new color Lowrance fish finder, and first-pull starts, it was a success on all fronts.

We were experiencing the leading edge of a strong warm front, and it was fairly hot, hazy and windy from the south.  Recorded water temps were 84 degrees F (decreasing to 82 F over the course of the evening.)  That’s pretty much our local summer max; I don’t recall recording consistently warmer temps in fishable waters before.

One of the beautiful qualities of fishing on Baker Lake is its simplicity.  Ringed by pads and slop, with very distinct drop-offs and basins; all of the bass I’ve ever caught here have come from the slop or the edge.  I suspect I’m overlooking some of the complexities; surely there are bass in the basin or way up in the slop and beyond into the swamp.  But I’ve not figured those out, and so my approach is simplified as I utilize what I know works here.  A frog, a senko, a worm or creature; usually the bass respond to at least one of these.

Having not been to Baker yet this season, and with limited time, I told Dave we’d just fish in areas where I’ve previously caught big fish.  We spent the evening fishing stretches of shoreline and slop where I’ve taken bass over 3 pounds previously.

I took a 1-pound bass up in the slop with a Spro frog pretty quickly.  That, combined with the active frog calls and occasional blow-ups, seduced Dave into using a frog for most of the rest of the evening.  Unfortunately, he never hooked up, but his use of the frog freed me for subsurface exploration.  All of our action until about 9:15 PM came on a simple, Texas-rigged black Powerworm; nothing fantastic, but several bass to barely legal size and two dogfish came aboard.

A puppy of a dogfish

I’d  never before seen a small dogfish in the wild!  From my aquarium experiences back in the 80’s, I know they’re wicked fast growers; and every dogfish I’ve encountered while fishing has been an adult of probably 7 pounds or more.  Tonight's were about 14 and 20 inches long.  They were also unique in that only one other time have I taken multiple dogfish in one trip; and they tripled the dogfish I’ve taken from this lake.  They’re welcome, any time.

As 9 PM approached, with the sun setting, the lake’s activity level perked up a bit and I started alternating a senko in with the worm.  The first legal bass of the evening came aboard, and the rest of our time was spent using these, pretty productively.  Along the edge of the main point separating the lake’s two largest lobes, we noticed that the lake bottom, usually covered with cabbage and milfoil here, was raised to just beneath the lake’s surface, and now covered with Chara and outboard scars.  I don’t really know the source of the gas or lifting force beneath the thick mat of weeds, but I do know that we took several bass, including a pair of solid 2+ pounders on senkos along the edge of this feature in our remaining time.  For all I know, most of the lake’s bass were residing under this raised, yet submerged, mat.  I’ll investigate more on future trips.

Baker Lake Bounty

With enough remaining twilight, we loaded the boat by 10 PM and enjoyed the fireflies on the ride home.