Walleye Fishing Improving

We got out and fished on Houghton Lake Friday (5/18) & Sunday (5/20) and did very well. We caught a total of sixteen keeper walleyes on our two evenings of fishing and had six that were undersized. Most of the fish were 16" - 18" with the two largest fish being 22".Friday evening we had a gusty west wind and 62F water temps. We started fishing in 7FOW off of the light house point trolling East to West 1.75mph. We didn't have our third pole set when we picked up our first walleye on a red and white 3" bomber set back 65 foot. The walleye bite started at 7:00pm and stayed good as long as we worked the east side of the point inside 7FOW. I'm thinking the walleyes were on the point letting the wind blow the bait fish in for an easy afternoon dinner. We were also fishing after a cold front and we found our smaller baits to be the most active. We caught walleyes on small trout colored tail dancers, wonder bread color 3" bombers and red and white 3" bombers. I experimented with other baits but could only produced small pike and rock bass.Sunday started out warm with no wind, but by 7:00pm we had a strong east wind that was giving us a fun ride. We worked 11FOW out in front of the Comfort Inn and did not pickup one fish. We moved back in to our GPS marks from Friday and started picking up walleyes again on 3" red and white bombers. We fished the point for two hours before giving up at dark when the wave action had beat us down. The next fishing report will not be until June 1st because our fishing team will be up in Curtis this week to fish the big man, South man, Autrain, and Forest Lake. This is our annual start to the UP. I'll report back with the fishing action and GPS points on the lakes that produce.

Have fun fishing...

Baits That Are Catching Walleye This Week

We are starting to catch walleyes now that we have located them.

Rapala tail dancers small 2'-4' deep runners in 6.5 FOW and when we are out in 10 FOW we use the medium tail dancers that run at 8' deep. All of our trolling rods are setup with 8 lb test mono.

During the day blue / white and black / gray are working well. One hour before dark and after we are using the trout color. You will notice some of the hooks are red. We are experimenting with new hooks and only change to them after the standard hooks are destroyed by pike.

Bomber Long A minnows. We use 3" baits that dive 3' -4' when we fish in 6- 7 FOW and the walleyes are on top of the weed cover. I like to use the larger 4" minnows 2' -3' divers in the early part of the season when the fish are in shallow and feeding on larger prey. These baits make a lot of noise and have worked well for us on Houghton Lake over the years.

Typically white / red out produces all colors, but this year the 3" wonder bread color and the 4" trout color are on fire. Blue with the clear body is also a standard producer, but this year its been 100% pike pounder.
Also wanted to add a photo of the variety of Bomber Long A 4" minnows we use on Houghton Lake early in the year. We change our storage containers to the individual holders and it's working great. Quick changes are faster and no more tangled hooks. Plus if you have an empty slot you know your missing a bait.

For jigging this year and in the past 3" Berkly Gulp minnow have worked very good. When I jig for walleyes I use Berkly Gulp about eighty percent of the time. This stuff really works
well. Sometimes when the fish are slower I cut the tail off and use the
body with a leech. It seems to work. I prefer the metallic jig heads over the painted and set my weight as light as I can.

Walleyes Are Back

We found the walleyes!

My brother and I made it out fishing Sunday evening (5-13) and ended up catching nine walleyes (15" - 22") from 8:00pm - 10:45pm. We launched out of the west DNR landing and headed east to fish 7.5 FOW. Weather conditions were good with a steady South wind and 64F water temps.

We started out jigging leeches and 3" Berkly Gulp then changed over to dragging spinner rigs with night crawlers and only picked up a few pike. We changed our location and moved off of the south point and again fished 7 to 8 FOW. The steady south wind allowed us to drift along the 4 to 7 foot break and keep our baits in front of the fish but we couldn't get a bite.

Our original plan was to work small baits with a very slow presentation. We used this plan because of the cold front that moved in on Saturday night and we figured the fish would be less responsive to fast moving big baits. After working our setups for over 2 hours with no walleye activity we change over to trolling.
We setup using 3" wonder bread color bombers 2-3' deep and the smallest size trout colored tail dancers 3-4' deep on 8 lb test all back 65'. Our troll plan was to work from 8 to 6.5 FOW at 1.7mph. Before I could get the third rod set we had a pike on the line and as we were landing it our second rod went off. The walleye bite started at around 8pm and was steady until 10:45pm. All of our walleyes were caught in a 100 yard area in 7 FOW directly off of the point. We landed five fish that were under 15 inches and one perch.

I did fish Saturday afternoon for about five hours and ended up landing one 18" walleye in 5 FOW West of the Elks club. The fishing was very rough with a strong NE wind. Over all this year the fishing on the south shore along the Elks to the light house has been very slow for us.

I will be fishing Houghton on Thursday and Saturday this week and trying out my new 9.9 pro kicker....

Good luck.

Walleye Still Missing

The walleyes are still hard to find on Houghton Lake. I fished Thursday (5-10) from 5:00pm until 10:30pm and once again caught numerous small pike and no walleyes. Two other fishing teams I talked to had the same results.

Fishing conditions were good yesterday with 63F water temperatures and a light West wind. I started out by working the East bay for a few hours in 7 to 11 FOW and then moved to the South shore and fished from the Elks west. We trolled and jigged without a walleye, but the small pike action is out of control and I would say we were catching a pike every ten minutes.

I was surprised by the number of fishing boats on the south end last night, I would say their were at least 25 boats working from the Elks to the West. One notable was the fact that around 8:30pm only three boats were still fishing which leads me to believe that the walleye fishing is slow for everyone.


I'm heading back up to Houghton this afternoon and I'm going out of the West launch to try some areas that we normally fish in the later part of the summer.

Walleyes Hard To Find

The early May Houghton Lake Walleyes have been putting up a good defence against every fishing trick I have. I made it out fishing Friday evening (5-4) with two of my friends and once again had the pleasure of dealing with a gusty NE wind. Once we made it out of the South boat launch we headed directly to the East bay to avoid and started jigging the front weed bed directly north of the Pressure Crack Bar. Right off the bat we were hooking pike as normal, but we were picking up some legal sized fish with one being 27".

We continued to work from 8 - 12 FOW and found a majority of our fish were in 10 FOW suspended one foot off of the bottom. After two hours of pike jigging and mapping out the structure we setup to troll. I setup four rods, two with Rapala tail dancers 8' running depth and two with varying lures. After two hours of trolling we landed seventeen disaster pike (line tangles) and no walleyes. The pike were killing any lure with blue and our favorite Blue Diamond tail dancer was the best producer for pike action.

I'm heading back up to Houghton Lake on Thursday and I'm heading to the East bay to continue to work the weeds in 10 FOW. I'm hoping for a normal day with no wind...

Good luck.

No Walleyes YET!

Got out and fished Houghton Lake Thursday evening and had another Pike Fishing Festival, we ended up landing twenty four pike in three hours. We had a strong NE wind which made jigging impossible, so we ended up trolling. Over the course of the evening we fished the North shore by the airport and then when the wind calmed down we trolled the South shore weed bed across from the elks with no luck. This was our third time out on Houghton Lake this year without catching a walleye.

I'm heading back up to Houghton Lake this afternoon with more ideas and areas to try.

GO Fish.