I am planning visit my Son in the Kalamazoo are next week. I am dragging my Boat up there and would like to know if anyone can give me a tip as to where I can get in some Great Largemouth Bass Fishing??? I am willing to drive a bit if necessary to catch some nice size Bass? Can anyone give me some ideas???
 Thank you in advance!!!
  Hicksie

thicksie, i used to live in the area, but now i live in ohio. there are allot of good bass lakes in the area and most of them have boat access.

i'll start out with gull lake because i grew up on that lake. it has a great fishery, both large and smallmouths, northern pike, trout and is a great panfish lake. boat access is on the north end.
sugarloaf lake is in the portage area of kalamazoo and is in a small chain of lakes, all have largemouths.
sherman lake is near gull lake is known for big bass.


the best thing to do is to either get or check on line on lakes in the area. 1 of the best places in the kalamazoo area to get good info on the local lakes is the DNR sportscenter on m-43 going towards south haven......your son will know where it is....oh ya this shop was started by kevin vandanm and his older brother randy

Thanks Mr Bill,
 I appreciate the tips, I only have a couple of days there, and that does not leave much time for  guess work. I also reside in Ohio, Columbus to be exact "GO BUCKS!!!" being from Mich. that may not be your cry, but Bass lovers have no boundries!! Thanks again!

   Hicksie

yer welcome hicksie, then i would go to gull lake and look for the smallies or even some pike. start by getting a map of the lake and studying it.
this time of the year i would start by going along the east side of the lake and working the sharp breaks around that shore line. this will be the area that most of the smallies will be working. look for the breaks that have allot of gravel on them. the large mouths will be on the breaks that are covered with weeds and so will the pike.
the west side of the lake has the same type of breaks that are just as good to fish but are a bet harder to find on yer 1st trip to the lake without studying things before hand.
on the southend of the lake there is a big island and working the points of the sand bars ahumpnd breaks around that you should be able to pick up bass and panfish. to the southeast corner from the big island-- the area that i grow up in-- there is the area we call the conference point, the pike should be stacking up off the main weed line on the outside edges. the shore line from the conference point to the south bay-- we call that area creasent beach-- the smallmouths should be feeding on minnows along the 8-12ft flat there.

there are 3 areas with sunkin islands that come close to shore and they all should be having fish start stacking up on them. these islands can be very hard to find or miss. 1st. 1 is along creastent beach just before you go into the south bays and we call this 1 sunken island. fish the main breaks dropping into deep water off the point and going into the cove between the south bays and the island.....smallies feed around the gravely breaks and big pike cruise the deeper edges-- my personal best pike was taken just off this place.
2nd island, we call it grassy island-- even thou it no longer has the tall reeds and wild rice growing on it... but the smallies still are chasing crayfish and minnows on and around this.
the 3rd island is out in the middle of the lake in 70 plus feet of water straight out from the country club and we call this area the hogs back. it has 2 humps that come up close to the surface. 1 hump comes to about 18 ft of the surface and the other is about 20 with a trough that is 40ft between them. this area. this area will have about every kind of fish that swims in this lake. during the early fall i have taken pike, bass, perch, gills, trout--both lakers and rainbows.
and if you would like to try for the trout i would suggest either very early in the morning or late at nite and stay close to the north end and fish in the deep holes 30 to 40 ft. down. around holloween the lakers show up very close to shore to go through the motion of spawning.

hope i shed some lite on this lake for ya and you have a safe trip and good luck fishing

Thanks again, sounds like you have spent lot's of time on this lake!

i grow-up fishing it

also i would like to add a tip that has been working the last couple of years out on this lake

dropshot rig the berkely gulp smelt in the 3 or 4 inch size. last summer the big smallies and the pike torethese things up off the hogs back area of the lake. last winter i went out and landed a bunch of pike throu the ice with this rig on gull lake.
the reason why this does work is the smelt are in the lake and they came back[about 3yrs ago] after a big die offin the late 80's early 90's. these fish average 5 to 8 inches but there are some that push the 12 inch mark.