With more than 7500 inland lakes in Michigan, a bass fisherman could spend a lifetime sampling new waters. Yet that figure only includes lakes five acres or larger in size. There are thousands more lakes and ponds too small to be accounted for, some unnamed, many occupied by largemouth bass that may never see an artificial lure.

In some parts of the state small lakes are scattered about as if they'd been broadcast like seeds. Most were gouged out by glaciers 10,000 years ago, left to be filled by melting ice and ground water. Many are inaccessible by road and may only be known to local residents. An angler willing to do a little prospecting can often find hidden bonanzas among the hills.

When I find a promising area I like to set up camp in a centrally located state forest campground, then make forays until I locate several ponds with bass populations. Regional DNR offices can help you determine if specific lakes have bass in them, but don't be surprised if few people know anything about the smallest lakes. There are too many of them, first of all, and DNR biologists usually concentrate their research on larger, more accessible waters. Most of the smaller lakes have never been studied.

In southern Michigan, where small lakes are abundant and highly productive, you can begin a search for overlooked small lakes by first concentrating on counties loaded with large lakes. Oakland County comes to mind. The Pontiac area is surrounded by one of the heaviest concentrations of lakes in Michigan. Not surprisingly, some of those lakes are the state's most frequently fished waters, but they're also highly productive bass fisheries capable of handling lots of pressure. Scattered among those large, well-known lakes and reservoirs are hundreds of potholes, ponds, and tiny lakes. The majority are on private land and may be jealously guarded, though landowners approached with courtesy will often grant permission to fish the old farm pond or backcountry lake on their property. Other good lakes can be found in wildlife preserves like the Highland and Holly Recreation Areas.

The Upper Peninsula has hundreds, probably thousands of fine, remote lakes and ponds, some inhabited by brook trout, others by bass. The problem in the U.P., with its short summers and slow growth rate of fish, is that heavy fishing can quickly ruin a good pond. Some DNR biologists in the Upper Peninsula refuse to tell visiting anglers where they can find small bass lakes, for fear that a few weeks of limit-catches will decimate the breeding stock of mature bass. It's a justified fear, and more and more U.P. bass anglers are adopting catch-and-release policies.

The northern Lower Peninsula is probably the best and most overlooked region of the state to find good bass fishing in small lakes. Abundant state land and large numbers of lakes combine to make it a great place to prospect. Some good lakes are overlooked simply because they're located in the shadow of famous waters like Houghton Lake, Black Lake, or the Au Sable River. Others find safety in numbers, lost among so many lakes that few people get around to fishing them at all. Still others are simply too difficult for the average angler to reach.

Once you pinpoint a few lakes, it's important to determine whether they're deep enough to support fish. In Michigan and other northern states, winter ice and snow can be so heavy that sunlight is prevented from reaching the water, ending the photosynthesis that produces the lake's oxygen supply. The resulting "winter kill" is fairly common on lakes and ponds less than 15 or 20 feet deep. While few small lakes have been charted for depth, one dependable way to estimate whether they're deep enough to survive winter ice cover is to study the surrounding terrain. Generally, steep hills near shore mean steep dropoffs and deep water; marshy, flat shores usually surround shallow water.

After you've identified likely water, the fun begins. If you have to hike to the lake it's wise to plan a day trip with the same care you'd give to a week-long expedition in Canada. Try to fit everything you need--tackle, rods, food, drinking water--into a backpack so you can carry it in one trip. If the hike is lengthy or in remote country, be sure to include a map of the area and a compass. And, of course, it's always a good idea to carry matches and pocket knife in case you need to build a fire, and to let someone know where you will be and when you plan to return home.

Occasionally a remote lake can be fished from shore, either casting from open banks and beaches, or wading on firm bottom. More often, however, woods and swamps crowd the shoreline, and the bottom is composed of soft muck and silt accumulated from centuries' worth of decaying vegetation. In most cases a canoe or inflatable raft is necessary to fish effectively. Some fishermen have been experimenting with inflatable belly-boats and have reported good success. I prefer canoes, partly because they're more comfortable than rafts, primarily because they're much easier to navigate and allow a more thorough exploration of a lake than almost any other craft you can carry into the backcountry.

It isn't necessary to lug an entire tackle chest with you. I prefer to keep a small, handy box of lures separate from my main tackle boxes, one large enough to carry a fairly good selection of lures, hooks, sinkers, and spare line, but small enough to fit easily into a backpack or creel. Some of the new-age tackle making such a commotion on larger lakes and impoundments seems wasted on the unsophisticated bass of the backcountry. Standard lures like Rapalas, Creek Chubs, Jitterbugs are usually effective. Small jigs with twister-tails can also be deadly, and are convenient because they're inexpensive and take up little space. My box also includes a few spinners and buzzbaits, some plastic worms, a couple deep-diving crankbaits, and a few weedless spoons.

Fly fishing with big deerhair poppers and the small cork poppers or foam spiders that work so well on bluegills can be very effective on pond bass. A small popper cast to the edges of cover can sometimes draw a strike when a larger lure would be ignored.

Small waters warm fast, which means early-season fishing on backcountry ponds can be the most productive of the year. In those waters bass have usually finished spawning by the opening of the season, and can often be found prowling the shallows in search of easy meals. Likewise, later in the season, when shallow water action is just heating up on large lakes, the bass may have already moved to deeper, cooler water in ponds and small lakes. They'll still hit surface and shallow-running lures, but more consistently in the evenings and early mornings.

It's tempting to think that big fish require big water, but plenty of eye-raising bass are caught from small lakes in Michigan. In fact, almost one-third of the biggest bass caught in the state in the last few years--fish of 6 to 9 pounds--came from waters so small they're not listed in directories of Michigan lakes. Most of those bass came from the warmer waters of southern Michigan, where growth rates are fastest, but a considerable number came from the northern Lower Peninsula, and a few notable fish came from the U.P.

Not that every backcountry lake holds trophies. You may have to be satisfied with two-pounders in many waters, and sometimes have to work hard to find even those. But there are consolations, not the least of which is the sensation of fishing alone, in remote country, on a lake most people don't know about and fewer bother to visit. Catching bass in such places seems almost a bonus.