Lake St. Clair, literally on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, has been famous for its rich fish food environment, huge smallmouth bass and Great Lakes muskellunge for decades. Being a longtime ambassador for Scientific Anglers (SA), which is located in Midland, MI, I’ve been aware of St. Clair but wetting a line there never quite came to fruition. With Granny and I on this ten day road trip to fetch the freebee Clacka from a buddy in PA, we had to pass through the vicinity. There was no way we weren’t fishing the mighty lake this time.
What further made todays fishing trip on St. Clair happen was that fellow SA Ambassador, Capt. Eric Grajewski (Musk-E Fly Fishing Adventures), was available to take us. Eric has a lifetime of experience on St. Clair and is an expert on fly fishing for musky. We weren’t going to miss this opportunity for anything especially with the chance to soak in some new musky knowledge.
Weeks ago Eric offered to let us use his Loomis 10-weights for the musky and his 7’s for the smallies so I didn’t pack any of my own musky tackle other than my giant musky fly from Jilian Beattie. That gave us more room in the Ruby Van for this long drive. I also knew that we’d be 100% set up correctly. Granny and I had to drive from Sandusky, OH this morning so we didn’t launch Erics boat until around 9:30 am.
It doesn’t matter that you’re on one of the best musky fisheries of all, there’s still a ton of fishless casting to be done. Repetitive blind casting to be exact. While casts don’t need to be 90-foot-long hero casts, you need to get your oversized fly out there. Erics preferred line for today was the SA Sonar Musky to take the fly down a few feet and then have it rise up to the boat at the end of the presentation. The figure-8 is essential in any musky fishing situation but executing it here is imperative.
Conditions weren’t optimal – as is often the case when I show up. Despite June being one of the best months, the weather today was calm and hot. I mean like 84° hot and the breeze only ranged from 3-6 mph. This meant letting your fly get a little bit deeper and some very slow drifts where we didn’t even need to put out the windsock. Nevertheless, the musky were there. Granny missed a fish at the boat and we had several others follow on our first drift.
These muskies are genetically unique to the Great Lakes. They are a subspecies (E. m. masquinongy). One of the distinguishing characteristics obvious to the eye when you catch one is their body color and patterns. These fish are often more spotted than our ones up in northern Wisconsin.
During our first hour we made three drifts and raised six muskies. Granny had the blow up on her fly but her other two weren’t that interested. Sometimes no matter how hard they hit, you miss them. I had three follow Jilian’s massive fly and it looked like one took a nip at it but I had nothing to show. Eric suggested downsizing to one of his favorites. Obviously I was all about it and soon after I had another fish ease his way to the boat behind my fly.
In Erics years of experience here, most of these muskies don’t eat your fly during the retrieve. Almost all follow it to the boat and attack during the figure-8. Again, this is why it’s critical you do this slick little maneuver correctly. I went over it several times with Eric when we got on the boat and in the case of this fish, it paid off. This 39-incher devoured the fly during the first turn of my figure-8 going away from the boat. When the fish is going away is best as it increases the chances of sticking the hook. There are few things in fly fishing more exciting than watching a nearly 40-inch fish crush a fly with your leader in the rod!
That would be the only musky we’d convert during our first few hours of fishing. After laboring in the hot sun into midafternoon, Eric had us spice things up with some bass fishing. He had a spot where a few days ago he found schools of white bass. It didn’t take Granny long to bury a white Murdich Minnow into the lips of one.
White bass are overlooked by fly anglers. While the warmwater fish (Order an autographed copy of my WW book here) are gaining love from hardcore trout anglers, the passion usually goes to the smallies, carp, pike and muskies. I’ll tell you right now, members of the Temperate Bass family are fun too. The white bass we caught today fought hard and are as sharp looking as any prized game fish.
Then there’s the smallmouth bass. St. Clair is famous for the size of the smallies it houses. Heaps of baitfish and ginormous insect hatches including a variety of mayflies like I showed in the first picture of this blog against the restroom walls, grow these fish. All this being said, the three we caught today were hefty, but we have plenty this size and bigger in our neck of the woods. Honestly, our smallie fishing is the best.
Eric kept us on the bass through the heat of the afternoon. It was a wise choice. First of all, the musky fishing typically slows down during midday, but also we needed to keep our arms fresh. Casting big flies on a 10-weight has its time limit. We needed our arms in shape for the evening fishing. We caught a heap of white bass, several smallies and I scraped out this one little walleye.
Time flies when you’re having good fishing and before we knew it Eric had Granny and I back in the musky spot where we saw many earlier in the day. Eric’s had great success during the evening so we were amped up and feeling confident. I had the energy to launch Jilian’s gigantic fly for another hour (I raised one more fish) and then another two hours’ worth of mixed patterns Eric prefers. I put the torque on my torn-up shoulders and tendinitis ridden elbows. I’m certain my “big fish first” attitude will take me down someday but not today.
Granny worked hard for a huge St. Clair musky nearly till the bitter end. Normally after eight hours on the water she’s done. But Eric kept us out late and kept on us to keep working. He dropped the “50 incher” line on us several times – monster size musky he’s caught many of. Eric mentioned it often enough that Granny was ending every presentation with some of the best figure-8’s even Eric has ever seen!
But when 8 pm rolled around, Granny set the rod down and cracked open the last Leiny Summer Shanty from the cooler. Eric encouraged me to forget about shoulder and elbow pain and keep going. Then he grabbed a rod as well. We both worked hard chucking and ducking for another hour. But catching a second musky for the day wasn’t to be. That’s musky fishing.
It has been an absolutely fabulous day of fishing on one of the world’s most iconic warmwater game fish lakes in North America. I’ve always wanted to feel the line spray from Lake St. Clair. And better than that, actually get ahold of a Great Lakes musky. And boom – technically, a new species for the list. The unfathomable 500 is coming fast!
We didn’t get back to Eric’s until almost 10 pm. Man I cherish the longest days of the year. Eric offered us a guestroom but Granny and I love sleeping in the Ruby Van. Being we’re towing a boat with busted trailer lights; we opted not to drive far and find a sweet campsite. Instead we are a mile from Eric’s tucked in behind some sort of company jobsite. It works. Tomorrow we’ll begin our long drive home. This has been a spectacularly fun and productive little voyage in the Ruby Van!
What a gorgeous fish!!