Sanford Lake was a success, sort of !

[The Whale]

Hit Sanford Lake today, Sunday. At the Park (launch) on the southern end at 7:00am and went at it alone. (One thing I'll say is that they're proud of their launch - $8.00 for truck/boat !)

Couldn't get a map this am as the bait shop in Sanford (first time on this lake) was out so went scouting. Remembered some tips from the site so hit the riprap near the dam to see what was up. A lot of smaller smallies (8" - 12"), ventured a bit to the east side of the dam and got into some decent 'gills along the weed edges/humps along with some more smallies.

Ended up over by (under) the US10 bridge, took one small Walleye ( 12") on a harness. Lots of bottom contour, small weed clumps, depth changes galore in this water. Never did go up north past the bridge this trip. Next time for sure though, there are plenty of fish in this water without a doubt. Put in a crawler, instant gill or smallie, never did find the "big ones" though.

Will keep looking. Water temp. was reading surface 70 - 73. Clarity was three feet.


Whale :D

[grizzly]

Hey whale, i think the county is trying to get an early retirement down there at the park. It's a little rediculous to pay that to launch. Next time call erskine marine and see what they get for a launch. Good job on the smallies. Next time out look for the walleyes on the 7 to 8 foot flats, drifting crawlers and leeches usually works well, and dont overlook white twisters on a light jig. Its usually about this time of the year that byte picks up. Glad to hear you got into some fish. I bet the traffic was busy on the lake over the weekend.

Grizzly.

[holzy]

Erskine is $5 for a lauch and gets you down the lake a bit more. The boat traffic this weekend was pretty normal for a nice weekend (extremely busy!!).

Whale - try getting on the lake during the week when the water isn't turned up so bad. Yesterday morning, even after sitting all night, the water was pretty stirred up from the traffic on Saturday. This is not uncommon for a weekend on Sanford Lake though. When I pulled out of Erskine's marina yesterday, I felt like I was on the on-ramp of an x-way and had to merge with traffic:)

[hoffie1]

grizzly-nice report! I think i will give the eye fishing a try on the lake.Any part of the lake to try first? Never fished sanford before.
hoffie

[The Whale]

Thanks for the tips there grizzly and holzy ! Definitely going to hit it during the week. Only 20 minutes from my house to the lake. Another ten to launch/park, and I'm at it.

Hey holzy, if I'm coming up Meridian from Merrill, how do I get to Erskine ?, any time limits on their launching facilities that you know of ?

Thanks again for the advice.


Whale :cool:

[holzy]

Whale

Coming from Merril, go past Meridian H.S. heading north on M-30 and take a left about 1 mile past the school at Lakeside Market. Erskine will be about 2 miles down on your left, you can't miss it. I think the hours are 7 am to 10 pm or so. Some of the best walleye fishing is right out from Erskine along where the weed line drops off into the river channel. Also, like Grizz said, the US 10 bridge is a gread spot to verticle jig. I haven't tried the white twisters but I have done well on short shanked Lindy jigs with a minnow and a stinger hook in the tail of the minnow due to the light bites. We picked up a couple trolling tots in 12 - 14 fow around the weed edges. You might pick up some pike and musky doing that though.

Good luck!1

[WALLEYE MIKE]

I'll be up there on Aug. 9,10,11. My brother-in-law lives just north of the campgrounds. Maybe we'll see some of you out there. We caught a few walleyes jigging in the river channel by the campgrounds last year.

[jnb]

Erskine's has 24 hr access. There is a drop box for launching after the store is closed.

[holzy]

Your right, I was having a brain fart and thinking of the beach launch. My bad