Sessions Lake in Ionia County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Sessions Lake is one of the Ionia County waters in Michigan. The bank gives way to mixed forest. Surface area is around 134 acres, which gives you real water without needing a boat. The bank runs about 2.2 miles all the way round, so one visit can cover most of it. Start from Ionia, 4.3 miles down the road. Grand Rapids sits 27 miles out, and it is the nearest city worth the name. It lies deep inside the county rather than near an edge.

• Where to Fish on Sessions 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 Ionia County cover rainbow darter, bluegill, largemouth bass and johnny darter. Those are county-wide records, so not every one of them will be in this water. On Sessions Lake the first feature you find is usually worth a session.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Average temperature peaks around 71°F in July and bottoms out near 22°F in January. Winter shuts the surface down for months. Break-up comes around early April, and the run that follows is short and strong. On the long-run averages the water opens up around early April and starts locking again about mid December. The strongest runs come at either end of the open season. Sessions Lake runs to that rhythm year in and year out.

• Tackle & Baits

  The rules here are undocumented as far as public sources go. No dam controls it, and the level follows the season. There is a mapped slipway roughly half a mile away. A car park sits roughly half a mile away. There is a pier recorded roughly half a mile away. There are picnic tables half a mile away. Facilities include toilets around half a mile from here. A phone call first saves an afternoon. For a change of water, Fisher Lake is 1.7 miles distant. Check the current arrangement for Sessions Lake.