The water has really warmed up here in the middle of the summer. Water temperatures are in the mid 70s most days and with the warmer water temps the bass fishing has really exploded. While the bass fishing continues to improve, the walleye and crappie fishing has fallen right off. The highlight for me this summer has been watching Chase land his first ever big bass! He was so excited! Of course he was dancing in the boat and made sure everyone knew that he caught a bass bigger than his dad that evening. It was so much fun to hang out with him and see him smile while holding his fish! I think this was a good reminder for me of why I fish. Sure, I had hooked a couple of nice 18 inchers that night, but they didn’t bring nearly the satisfaction that watching him land his fish did. Normally Chase isn’t big into fishing for a couple hours, he prefers to fish on the dock with other kids and catch bluegills. But Brock was at church camp and Chase asked me to take him fishing. Said he wanted to try and catch a big bass. So we went. And I’m so glad I did.

The surpise for me this summer with fishing has been the number of big perch being caught. Sure, we occasionally see a 12 or even 13 inch perch landed. I even caught one over 12 inches last fall in Saunders bay while bass fishing. But the numbers of big perch this summer has been astounding!

Along with all the bass, we have had some good sizes for pike caught this summer. While we still have waaaaayyy too many small pike caught, we did have a 39 inch plus pike caught in late June! Check out this photo!

Few fish have as fierce of an initial fight as a large pike. I’m sure Mia will never forget this catch!

The other thing that happened this summer that I feel I need to recap is the May Walleye tournament. This is our third year doing this and every year we’ve had a guest here at Birch Forest take either 2nd or 3rd place. But we’ve never had anyone take first place. Until this year. Ron Smilanich from Kalamazoo Michigan won with a walleye just shy of 27 inches. Check out the pic…