I have some guests that absolutely tore up the smallmouth bass on Big Bay de Noc a couple days ago. They took a picture of every bass that was at least keeper size and guess what....they now have 140 pictures of smallmouth bass on their camera. They caught many in the 4 pound range! I'll try and get some more info from Steve and add to this, but I'm pretty sure his father-in-law said they were fishing the rocky shoals in the center of the bay. Spinnerbaits as well as tubes caught fish.
Kevin, We sure did get into them in the Big Bay. We launched out of Garden. I fished on the 2nd and hammered them in the Bay itself fishing in 8 foot of water with a Rapala DT 6 in Fire Tiger. We went back again on the 5th and did okay, but not as good as the 2nd. Any crankbait in fire tiger worked. On the 7th we went back again and fished some rock piles I found while motoring around. If there was sand and rocks there was smallies. We used a zoom finesse worm on a drop shot rig. The fishing was so good we ended up using 4 bags of the worms. It didnt matter what color. I have spent the last 2 days combing every bait shop and store in the area looking for some more, but no luck. We fished walleyes yesterday and today, but could only manage a few undersized fish. So guess what back to Garden Bay in the morning for us.nI will come by and let you know how we do.