Lake St. Clair 04-15-23

I arrived at the Selfridge area boat ramp on Lake St. Clair at 5 am. I was amazed how many people and boats were already there. It was obvious with the great forecast many were planning on getting in a good day on the water. The first thing on the water that shocked me was the water surface temperature. Anchor Bay is usually the coldest part of the lake on the western side because it has the St. Clair river bringing in all the cold Lake Huron water. Majority of the bay was running 57 to 59 degrees which more than 10 degrees more than normal for this time of year. The shallows blew my mind with a reading of 64 degrees by late afternoon. The lake with these incredible warm temperatures this past week really came up a lot! Snow is expected tomorrow, but let me get back on track with the report.

I was doing a pre-fishing trip before Jim comes over this way to fish in a couple weeks. I wanted to see if Anchor Bay was worth any time for us, or if we should just stay on the mile roads. After this trip, I think we'll stay on the mile roads. It certainly wasn't hot for me in Anchor Bay. I think my best 5 were only around 15 lbs. which is pitiful for St. Clair. Still had some bites and some tugs, but certainly wasn't hot and fantastic in that area. I expected to catch lot in the real shallow warm water, but instead they almost all came in 7 to 9 feet of water. Detroit traffic was a nail biter as usual too. One little side note, there seemed like a 100 people fishing along the shore by the boat ramp. Plenty were bring in bluegills, sunfish and crappie. Looks like that warmer water really brought the pan fish in.