Think Detroit for the Ultimate Combo Fishing Trip
Looking for the ultimate spring weekend trip – one that’s easy to get to, likely to produce loads of fish and not terribly expensive?
Think Detroit. It’s a trip I took with a group of my lady anglers a couple of years back. We caught a lot of fish, ate like royalty, and even took some fillets home.
Almost a decade ago, Pete covered a BASS Open at Lake St. Clair and had a block of free time between blastoff and weigh in. Thankfully, he can’t sit still and is a lure junkie, so he went to the “Michigan Musky Shop” (which no longer exists) to see if they had any lures that would work for an upcoming trip for peacock bass. I don’t know if he found anything for Brazil, but the shop’s owner convinced him that we should try fishing for musky. He strongly recommended Spencer Berman of Spencer’s Angling Adventures. Pete put that information in his back pocket because he wasn’t really interested at first, but after friends traveled to Canada and raved about musky fishing, we figured we better knock it off our bucket list. Muskies are known as the fish of 10,000 casts. There’s not necessarily a lot of action, so as we fished Lake St. Clair with Spencer and several of his associate guides we had a lot of time to talk about other fishing trips. Spencer mentioned one of his really fun and special trips is a smallmouth bass and walleye combo trip. Lots of action, two species, and you head in for lunch to eat your morning walleye, then go back out for smallies.
Ding, Ding, Ding! Seemed like a perfect girls trip.
It didn’t take much to wrangle up the ladies and off we went to Lake St. Clair, Michigan for “Fish Camp 2019.” Now we need to find time to get back (and WE WILL go back), but in the meantime, here are seven reasons you need to take a spring combo trip to the Motor City.
It’s easy and inexpensive to get to there. With 13 airlines flying to and from the Detroit Metro Airport you shouldn’t have an issue getting a flight at convenient times. It’s best to get in the night before your trip, get a day or day and a half of fishing, and you can be home for work the following morning.
It’s international! Looking for your first international trip? This may not be Australia or Argentina, but for most of us Canada is still a foreign country. Don’t forget to bring your passport.
You can bring your friends. Walleye boats are a little bigger than bass boats and will handle up to four people (not including the guide), which makes the daily rate very reasonable.
You get to eat what you catch. Sindbad’s restaurant located at the marina will prepare your fresh catch in a variety of ways for a remarkably low price. With a 5 fish limit, per person, in Michigan (and 6 in Ontario). bring a cooler and what you don’t eat bring home and fill your freezer.
The bite is fast and furious. Walleye are a challenging and finicky fish to catch but once figure them out you can catch one after the other.
It’s a world renowned fishery. St. Clair hosts many tournaments for a reason. It’s fertile and loaded with big smallmouths feeding on gobies and crawfish.
The guides are a blast. Spencer has put together an awesome team of captains, including Eddie Pascua, Alec Pascua and Jason and Mathew Quintano. It’s like fishing with your brothers.
This combo trip is a most popular option for late April to early June. Depending on your dates make sure you bring your warm weather wear. All fish cleaning for walleye is included in the price.
Downtown Detroit isn’t far from the airport or the marina and offers great dining plus fun and inexpensive places to stay.
All in all, it’s a no brainer -- contact Spencer and get on the calendar.
