Fishing at Little Pine Lake, Barry County, Michigan

• Overview

  Little Pine Lake is one of the Barry County listings for Michigan. Beyond the shoreline you have lake country bush. This is a pocket water of some 20 acres, and every part of it is reachable from the bank. The edge runs 0.9 miles or so, easy to work in an afternoon. For supplies, Hastings is 6.6 miles out. Stony Point lies 6.8 miles off, Nashville another 12 miles. It lies deep inside the county rather than near an edge.

• Where to Fish on Little Pine Lake

  Depth is not on record here, which means reading the ground instead. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. Records held for Barry County cover bluegill, largemouth bass, yellow perch and black crappie. County records show the wider picture rather than this one place. Fish Little Pine Lake to its features, not to its size.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Seasonal averages run from 22°F in January up to 71°F in July. Spring and autumn carry the fishing; summer and winter test it. Look for the thaw near late March; the fishing lifts straight after. The water is typically free of ice between late March and mid December. May into June fishes hardest, and September gives a second good stretch before the lid returns. At Little Pine Lake the season follows that pattern closely.

• Tackle & Baits

  Nothing in our records says who may fish here. Records list it as a natural water body rather than an impoundment. No launch point is recorded nearby, so this is a bank water unless you carry a boat in. Bass water: a Texas-rigged worm near cover, a spinnerbait when you need to cover ground. A landowner's word beats anything printed elsewhere. Where the way in crosses private ground, ask first. Whitefish Lake sits 0.6 miles off and takes the overflow. None of that is settled for Little Pine Lake in what we hold.