Saginaw River Walleye Report 1-21-09

Fished the Saginaw River this afternoon from 3:30pm to 6:45 pm directly out in front of the Boy's Club in 16 FOW.

The walleye bite was slow and soft tonight, but I landed three keeper walleyes along with many dropped at the hole fish. I re-rigged my jigging setup last night to help detect the soft river walleye bite. My new setup is 6 pound test on a very sensitive with excellent backbone jigging rod. The river bite is lite and if you don't have a jigging method in place you will miss a ton of the light bites.

With the weather holding in the teens the river should be a great fishing location for the next two weeks. We will be fishing Houghton Lake on Friday afternoon and will report back. Good luck and be safe on the river.....

Saginaw River Walleye Report 1-20-09

Fished the Saginaw River this afternoon from 3:30pm - 6:00pm and iced five keeper walleyes and eighteen undersized fish between the three of us.

We fished a half mile South of the Boy's Club in 15 FOW. Best action was on Blue & White Jigging Rapalas and White Do-Jiggers all tipped with minnow heads.

Ice condition are good in most areas, but use caution. We fished on six inches of ice, but found spots as thin as three inches.

Tip-Up Setup

Over the years we've tried all kinds of Tip-Up combinations when targeting walleyes. Here is one combinations that works well for us.

First thing we do is to install a in line bobber stop with a foam bobber in front of the barrel swivel that connects your main line to your mono leader. The bobber is used to mark your bait depth once its established and then keep re baiting after a strike easy and repeatable.

The next thing we do is to attach five feet of 8-pound P-Line from the main line to the start of a flasher or spoon. To keep the line in good condition I use barrel swivels on both ends of the flasher. Lastly attach a seven inches leader of 6-pound vanish for the bottom of the flash to the treble hook.

**If you are targeting pike you will need to change the 6-pound vanish leader to steel wire or 8-pound P-Line.**

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 1-16-09

Fridays Fishing trip to Houghton Lake was cold and windy with temperatures around zero all day. The good news is that the cold weather is building ice, we had 16-inches today.

We started out scouting for walleyes in the east bay about a half mile from Harvey's Marina. The area looks good, but we couldn't find any fish or thick weed cover. After an hour of scouting we packed up and headed west to fish a few of our walleye spots.

We ended up fishing in nine FOW about 1.25 miles directly out of Zephyr Trail. Fishing was on and off all day. Total fishing we picked up three walleyes that were 12 to 14, five pike, and only one keeper walleye at 5:22pm. The best colors today were white and gold tipped with a gray.

Saturday is the start of Tip-Up-Town, so I'll definitely be fishing somewhere on the North side of the lake to avoid all of the sled traffic.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report January 9th & 10th

Fished Houghton Lake on Friday (1-9) and Saturday (1-10) and caught a total of seven keeper walleyes, fifteen pike, and six nice perch. We fished the north shore about one mile out directly off of the end of Flint Road. We setup in 9 FOW and worked the weed clumps and open areas around the weed bed. The best fishing was from 1:30pm till dark. This year we have had great luck jigging with buckshot rattle spoons and Do-jigger spoons is white or purple all tipped with a whole gray minnow.

Fishermen on the ice reported to us that walleye fishing is very good right now in the East Bay straight out of Harvey’s Marina. We will check it out this week.

Fishing Report 1-5-09

Budd Lake: Finding lots of small perch and bluegills, but no big ones after five trips on the lake. We fished Budd on Sunday (1-4) for six hours to get 40 good sized bluegills. Best fish were found directly in front of the state park in 21 FOW.

Pratt Lake: Fished Pratt on Saturday (1-3) and only caught one 14-inch walleye. Spotted numerous good size pike on our fish cam in 15 FOW off of the drop off on the South end of the lake.

Higgins Lake: Team member fished Higgins Lake on Sunday (1-4) and picked up 20 good perch and several large pike. The best pike was 35-inches caught on a tip-up in 25 FOW.

Good Luck and be safe on the ice.

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