Spent the last couple of days at Lakeside Gardens Resort on St Mary's Lake. Fishing was good, (not great) however it was my first trip there so I am still learning the lay of the land.
After a long sunny summer, there is a lot of weed in anything less than 20 feet of depth and you will spend quite a bit of time getting weed off your lure. You can troll or fish deeper, but for me I didn't catch anything in deep water though I did talk to one guy who had a couple trolling a willow leaf in 50 feet of water.
There we plenty of big perch to be had as long as you didn't mind catching lots of small perch in between the big ones. The perch are greedy so they go after anything: spoons, worms etc. When things got quiet I would anchor the boat and drop a line over the side into about 15ft of water. Found shrimp to be best, given you will miss strikes and lose bait regularly, you can rebait and it's in the water quickly. Caught a couple of bass on shrimp but nothing too big. If you have kids or just want a bit of Fun I would recommend anchoring just off the island and then reel them in, every seventh or eighth hookup will be a big one. Also the big ones tend to be nearer the edges of the weeds where the water transitions to about twenty feet or more.
The trout fishing was a little slow. Caught most of mine trolling a willow leaf close in down the shoreline on the north east side. The water line changes from about thirty feet to ten and I caught quite a few there. Also hooked up the occasional perch here (usually when I got too close to shore) and a couple of decent bass.
The bass fishing was best in the evening. Anchored off the island and landed four bass and two decent sized trout using one of those small spoon/worm jigs. Also landed a couple of bass just in front of the cabins drifting down the lake casting as the sun sets.
The guy a couple of doors down landed a few big trout using a pink roosters tail fished on the far bank across from the cabins. I saw him catch a couple at noon , including a nice three and a half pounder.
Lots of fish in this lake and I'd recommend the trip. There are some very big fish that you can see cruising around but they are hard to catch because of the volume of small fish. That said I feel heading up Merritt way will produce a better trout fishing experience but the fact that you will never be skunked (perch) and the fun of also going after bass makes this really worthwhile. Next time I might try earlier in the season.