Long Lake, Scotts/Kalamazoo Michigan

[thatjohnkid]

Anyone have any experience fishing on Long Lake?

I'm going to be there this weekend with my girl and her parents. Her grandparents live on the lake and have a pontoon and a paddle boat. So I'm gonna bring a few rods and see if I can catch some fish. Looking for pretty much any type of species, just wondering what I'll find there.

Thanks

[thatjohnkid]

So I'm guessing no one has fished it? I'm pretty sure its a private lake with houses all around it. Oh well I'll just hope for something. I'll let everyone know how we do if I get out there to fish.

[thatjohnkid]

I did find some info on the DNR's website.

http://www.michigandnr.com/PUBLICATIONS/PDFS/ifr/ifrlibra/status/waterbody/00-12.htm

Looks to be a lot of gills, perch and crappies. I only have one UL with 4lb test on it and the rest of the rods I have are M power with 10lb clear Yo-Zuri Hybrid. Are my other rods going to be over kill? I have some 4lb Mono that I could use as a leader, would that be a better idea?

Also any tips on bait? I'm looking to catch a couple dinners worth of fish between my girl and I.

Thanks

[thatjohnkid]

We went out Friday night just for a quick stroll around the lake and I made a few casts with a senko but no dice.

Well I did some fishing yesterday from their boat dock. I was going over panfish with red worms under a bobber. I caught probably about 40 fish, one every 3-4 minutes it seemed. Majority were pumpkin's, then bluegills then a few perch. I only got 3 pumpkins and one bluegill that were worth keeping. So I put them in a 5 gallon bucket with a air pump. I didn't get anything more at the end of the day, so I just put them back and they swam right away. Their neighboor was coming in from fishing when I went out there and he had caught about 40 or so aswell and they kept about 20 for fry'in up.

I did have a huge catfish swim underneath my feet from under the dock into the weeds to my right. It had to be atleast 18". Wish I could have gotten into him :D

But other than that we had a blast out their and I'll have to go back soon.

[Bowslayer]

I'm a little late in seeing this! Long is a pretty good fishing lake, I can catch fish in there everytime i go. Not necessarily the biggest fish, but the south end is loaded with largemouth. The north end past the sand bar has some pike and a lot of panfish. There's also a few large weed beds on the east and south end that produce a variety of fish. Next time you go, PM me.

[thatjohnkid]

Bowslayer I'll for sure do that, I saw a lot of people fishing out there, some had some nice boats. Of course there was a bunch of jet skis and other boats driving all crazy though.

Here is a pumpkin that I caught. I think it was full of eggs. I snapped these pictures real quick and got her back into the water. Looked like she swallowed a golf ball.

http://www.johndeszell.com/images/HPIM0925.jpg

http://www.johndeszell.com/images/HPIM0926.jpg

Shouldn't they have been done spawning months ago?

[Bowslayer]

Yup, they spawned a long time ago. It probably has a belly full of crayfish or something. That's a decent sized fish for Long. I've found that if you are gill fishing out there in the summer, go deep and use crickets. There are also some nice sized crappies in there as well.

[thatjohnkid]

Ahh ok, I was all confused. I caught about 5 that size, the rest were dinks. I had problems with them swallowing the hooks pretty bad and I was using #6 hooks. I had 3 not make it after I released them, even though I got the hooks out pretty quick.