Black Lake 6/14 to 6/20

[bridget]

We wanted to share our week at Black Lake.

 

6/14 Saturday

 

Launched at the State Launch and headed to McClears. White Caps on the lake. It's interesting to launch a relatively fairly large boat by Black Lake standards (18.5) with the water level. down, and the wind up. Bring a long rope or have someone in the boat to motor out.

 

After dinner out on Saturday the lake laid down and the rain stopped so we went out by Tin Island with some left over worms and jig heads. Was out for about an hour and half before the bait ran out and sun went down; the fishing was constant action. The two of us kept about 60 fish, mainly bluegill and perch. Fished in about 12 FOW.

 

Sunday we went out stocked with minnows and set up in the same area just a little deeper (15 FOW). Action was a little slower, but this time many more crappie, and also landed (after a battle) a nice northern pike. Fished Raspberry Island as well and did better on crappie there. Ended up with 40-50 keepers.

 

For the rest of week, fished solo for the most part, mornings and afternoon, and focused more on the crappies off Raspberry in anywhere from 10 to 19 FOW. Fishing shallower caught more perch and bluegill, deeper crappie.Lost count on the number of crappie caught, several doubles on the dual crappie/perch rigs. Crappie at Black Lake have to be 9". As has been the case in the two years I've fished there, the majority of crappie are from 8.5 to 9 ". Not many smaller, and it's typically 3 or 4 throw backs for a keeper, and maybe 1 out of 10 is a nice slab.

 

Relative to Perch, 5 out of 10 are not worth keeping. Maybe one out 10 is what I would consider to be a nice one. 2 out of 3 Bluegills were decent.

 

Caught and released 3 nice Large Mouth Bass.

 

We fish mainly for Trout and Salmon on LO and the FL. I like the change of pace however and relaxation of going out on Black Lake and the constant action on the good eating pan fish. I don't think there was a 5 minute period at any time I didn't have a bite or fish on.

 

Only negative, if you call it that, I would say was the amount of bait I went through, weeding through the small fish. I would buy 5 to 8 perch minnows on each outing and fish until I ran out of bait. Most of the full time guys at McClears fish strictly with plastic, but for us short timers it's hard to resist the constant action of live bait. I did dangle out a jig every now and them and caught fish, but most of time couldn't keep up with it with the constant action on the bait.

 

If you want action,diversity, and to fill your freezer I would highly recommend giving Black Lake a try. We are going up again in early August, which I'm sure will bring the algae bloom, but based on last year, still a lot of action. May try night fishing with lights for crappie and maybe some night walleye trolling???????????