Budd Lake Fishing Report 12-31-10

The weather is warm and raining, but the fishing on Budd Lake has been very good today.  Tommy caught a nice 13-inch crappy at 2:30pm in our new spot and the fishing is starting to heat up.  We plan on fishing till dark, so we'll report back later.

-Mark & Tommy

Freighter Stuck In The Detroit River

On Christmas eve a freighter got stuck in one of my fishing holes in the Trenton channel on the Detroit River. She was stuck for a couple days due to the lack of power of the 4 tugs that were pulling their hearts out. Notice the icebergs in the river, not a good time to be in the river.

-Rich (3"-Inch Mag)

Pratt Lake 12-29-10

We headed over to Pratt Lake this afternoon hoping to find blue gills and walleye. We started looking for fish in 14 FOW on the East side of the lake. After drilling lots of holes and moving along the East shore we found a school of small blue gills and saw two nice walleyes in 17 FOW. The fishing action started out good, but all we could hook were small pike. Overall report for us was 8 flags, five undersized pike, and zero walleye.
At 1:00pm we had some guys move up and set tip ups around our fishing area. They reported that they have caught three walleyes on Pratt in the last week and today they ended up with one 25 inch pike and a 21 in walleye at 4:00pm both caught on tip ups.

Ice conditions on Pratt are very good and we found 9-inches of ice everywhere we drilled today.

Good Luck…



Budd Lake 12-28-10

The start of a new season and the anticipation of what is to come kept me focused on 2011 ice fishing season all hunting season. The lakes in our area have been iced over and safe for 2-weeks now, but work and hunting season has kept all of us on land and away from the walleyes.

This afternoon we finally made it out on a short trip to Budd Lake and used the opportunity to check all of my equipment and get things ready to go. We arrived on the lake at noon and headed north to fish in our normal early ice area. Walking to my fishing spot I check the ice in several areas and found a minimum of 8-inches of solid ice, so the Polaris will be pulling the shanty on the next outing. I got to our area and drilled about 30 holes in varies depths before setting up and doing some camera work. We normally find perch, gills, and walleye in about 15 – 17 FOW this time of the year on Budd, but after a lot of looking I was shut out. Giving it a bit more thought I moved in closer to shore and started looking in 4 to 8 FOW and on my second hole I saw a nice walleye on the sand and the next hole had lots of small perch. Not having all day we decided to set the shanty up and then cover 15 to 4 FOW.

We caught two fish on our trip today. First fish of the day was a pike caught on our favorite Budd Lake walleye setup which is a small spoon and a large perch minnow. Second fish of the day was a nice walleye from what I could tell caught on a tip up in 6 FOW on a large perch minnow. I got it to the hole and dropped back in as was pulling it through the hole. We also did a little pan fishing, but didn’t find anything worth keeping today. I added a picture of our fish camera screen and lots of 6 inch blue gills. Early season brings lots of fun and for me personally when I head to Budd Lake I’m looking to hook one of the 12 pound plus walleyes that live their. Budd Lake is a great ice fishing lake because it has tons of food and it’s difficult to fish in the summer do to boat traffic. I have seen several 10-pound walleyes on my camera over the years of fishing Budd. If you don’t believe it look on the 2008 Michigan Master Angler and you will see a 12 pound 38 inch walleye accounted for. If your looking a for limits of eaters head to Houghton Lake, if your looking for a trophy walleye Budd Lake is a good choice.

Good Luck…



Budd Lake Ice Fishing Report Sunday, December 26, 2010

Made it out on the ice today, for the first time this winter. I fished the south side of Budd Lake in 13 to 20 FTW, catching most of my fish in 20 FTW. We caught 20 to 25 small perch and nothing on the tip ups. Most of our fish were caught on jig heads loaded with spikes. We went home with no keepers today, but it was great to be on the ice again.


Posted by Mark McCrary at 4:26 PM

Start of 2010 Ice Fishing Season

Today at lunch one of my employees took this photo of two guys fishing on the Saginaw River here in Bay City.  If you look behind the shanty you can see broken ice from ship travel in the shipping channel.  The Saginaw River is SUPER Dangerous and I would not recommend fishing on it at this time of the year. Up North I've been getting reports of 5 to 7 inches of ice on Budd Lake, Pratt Lake, Houghton Lake, and Five Lakes.  We haven't been out yet because of work and hunting season, but I'm planning on heading out after Christmas and will report back. 

Houghton Lake / Saginaw Bay Reports

Houghton Lake: Fished Houghton Lake on Friday (7-23) and had the pleasure of taking my nephew Nick out for the first time this year.  We headed out of the South DNR boat launch about one mile and setup in 12 FOW trolling the weed edge East and West. We setup with TD7 taildancers and Berkley minnows all down in the 7 foot range. The fishing action was ok and overall we caught 2 keeper walleyes and put back six undersized fish. Closer to dark we moved to sallower water and trolled with trout colored taildancers and trout colored Berkley minnows. The best action was after dark and we caught eight walleyes six of which were keepers.

Saginaw Bay: We launched out of Standish at noon and fished until 7pm. Fishing was slow and the floating weeds made trolling very difficult. We ended up catching two walleyes on purple harnesses in 24 FOW. The highlight of the day was the excitement of my nephew landing his very first catfish, he loved it.

Good luck…..

Houghton Lake / Pratt Lake Reports

Houghton Lake:
We made it out fishing on Wednesday (7-14). Fishing action was slow at best most of the afternoon. We fished the West shore in 9 to 11 FOW and marked lots of fish trolling North to South, but the bite didn’t happen until 9:00pm. Overall we caught and released 5 keeper walleyes. Best action was on black / gold Berkley Minnows trolled down 6 foot.


Pratt Lake:
We fished Pratt Lake Monday (7-19) from 6pm -10pm. At the start of the trip we fished deep 15 – 21 FOW trolling night crawlers at 1.25mph and hooked one 19 inch bass and a small pike. Closer to dark we moved in and fished the center break line / sandbar trolling chartreuse thundersticks at 2mph. We ended up catching one 18 inch walleye and we lost two at the boat. Fishing action on Pratt was good, but boating activity is really high and the 7:30pm no wake law is not followed at all which makes fishing in the dark kind of scary.

Good Luck…

Saginaw Bay Walleye 7/10/10

We fished the Saginaw Bay out of Au Gres on Saturday morning (7/10). The fishing was a bit on the slow side all morning, but we did manage to catch five walleyes and two undersized fish. We setup with harnesses and fished in 35 to 40 FOW all morning. The best action was on purple and white harnesses trolled at 1.2 mph.




Good Luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 6/29/10

I made it out fishing last night with my nephew Chachi and his buddy Angelo. When we got to the lake we were greeted by a strong NW wind and cool temperatures. On my last trip out on Houghton we found a good number of walleyes in the East Bay. This trip we headed out into 15 FOW and marked a lot of suspended fish hanging from 6 to 11 foot. We setup to troll our baits down in the fish zone after 45 minutes of trolling we caught our first fish. The fishing action was steady most of the afternoon with the best action happening from 9:30pm till 10:15pm. Best bait was thunderstick jr. dark colors back 24 foot. Overall we boated 23 walleyes and eight keepers with the best fish being 19-inches.



We have started fishing deeper and we are finding more league fish along with a better daylight bite. The shallow game is not as good as it has been in the last three years. I’m not finding a lot of fish in 4 to 7 FOW and the ones I do find are smaller. I will tell you that I found a school of fish in 15 foot of water on my last three trips and after cleaning the fish I found that they were eating larger then normal minnows. I have a feeling that the weed treating last year on HL has changed the minnow behavior and the walleyes are following the minnows just like they always do.


Good Luck…

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 6-19-10

We haven’t fished Houghton Lake much this month because we have been spending all of our free time finishing up our fields and setting up tree stands in preparation for archery season. I did make it out fishing on Thursday morning (6-10) and ended up catching five undersized walleyes and zero keepers on the North Shore. We headed back up to Houghton Lake on Saturday (6-19) and changed up our fishing plan by heading out into 12 FOW in the East Bay. Fishing action started out slow with three 13-inch walleyes in 2 hours of trolling, but as the sun set we had nonstop action for about 45 minutes and ended up catching 10 walleyes 15 to 16 inches all of which we released back. Best action was on Green and White TD 7 Tail dancers back 65 foot at 1.9mph.  Best bite of the night was at 10:00pm when we had four fish on at one time.

Good Luck…

U.P. Report

Autrain and Forest Lake report. I’m working in the UP this week on a windmill blade install in Ishpeming, so I figured it would be a great chance to fish some of my favorite UP lakes. Well we started out early this morning and arrived in Autrain in the early afternoon to find that the bait shop is out of business and the only boat launch is closed until June 18th. After evaluating the situation we headed south down to Forest Lake with high hopes of jigging up a few walleyes. When I arrived at the lake I was in shock and amazed to find the water level had been dropped by the power company and that the lake was unfishable for my boat. After looking at Forest Lake and remember the old days of walleye fishing up and down the six miles of lake I came to the realization that we have lost a resource forever.




I’ll report tomorrow on a new lake.



Good Luck.

2010 Budd Lake Fishing Derby

Date:

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Time:

6:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Location:

Budd Lake

Details

Catch-and-release fishing tournament. Prizes:

• Largest legal muskie: $1000.
• Largest bass: $250
• 2nd-largest bass: $100
• 3rd-largest bass: $50
• Largest walleye: $250
• 2nd-largest walleye: $100
• 3rd-largest walleye: $50
• Largest string of bass: $250
• 2nd-largest string of bass: $100
• 3rd-largest string of bass: $50
• 3 $20 wild-card prizes

Children's prizes:

• Largest pan fish: $40 + a tackle box
• 2nd-largest pan fish: $20 + a rod and reel
• Largest perch (new category): $10 + a rod and reel

Children are also eligible for the main prizes.
A shuttle bus will be provided from 5am-8am and 1pm-3pm.

Registration

Advanced registration is $20 per adult / $10 per child age 12 or under; registration day of the event is $25 per adult / $15 per child.
For entry registrations, stop by any of the following locations or call the Harrison Chamber of Commerce Office @ 989-539-6011 or 1-877-539-6011

• Harrison Chamber 809 N. First St.
• Ken's Landing Outdoor Sports 704 N. First St.
• Henry's Corner Store 6976 E. Townline Lk Rd.
• KD Quik Stop 235 N Clare Ave
• Trestain's Long Lake Store 8036 N Clare Ave

Budd Lake Walleye Report 6/7/10

Budd Lake continues to produce nice walleyes. We made it out on Budd Lake last night after work to get one more practice in before Saturdays fishing contest. The weather was bit cool and breezy, but the fishing started out very hot when we hooked two 20-inch walleyes in 19 FOW. After releasing the fish and marking the location on the GPS we made a few more passes over the area to get the troll path recorded. We ended up catching two walleyes and three small bass in our two hour practice session on Budd.  And now that we have a few good areas mapped out we are ready to fish the tournament Saturday.




Good Luck…

Hubbard Lake Walleye Report

Had the chance to spend a few days fishing on Hubbard Lake. We got on the lake Monday afternoon and spent a few hours checking out the lake with the sonar. The lake is very deepand  it has lots of defined breaks in depth with minimal weed cover along and very clear water. While scouting the lake we marked lots of suspended fish in 15 to 40 FOW. On the NW shore we found a good supply of bait fish in 5 FOW and lots of scattered fish holding just outside of the drop off suspended in 15 FOW. Overall it’s kind of clear that Hubbard Lake lacks weed cover so the fish use the water column as cover. We caught walleyes in 40 FOW suspended at 15 foot and then moved into 25 FOW and caught more walleyes at 15 foot.

Fishing was great on both days. During the afternoon 12 – 4pm we fished in 40 FOW and targeted suspended fish with TD 7 taildancers 80 foot behind a board. Oddly in two days of fishing all of our walleyes were caught on taildancers TD 7, 8, and deep 20’s. The best colors were blue / silver and perch. In a attempt to test the waters I ran Thunderstick Jrs, Berkley Flicker shad, shad raps, tots, live targets, and about every other stick bait and never had a hit. Monday afternoon we caught 21 walleyes and 14 fish of the fish were 15 inches or better. On Tuesday we caught 34 walleyes 28 over 15 inches the best fish being 21 inches.

We will be heading back to Hubbard Lake in July to do more exploring.
Good Luck..

Budd Lake Walleye Report

We went out last night after work to pre fish Budd Lake and get prepare for the June fishing contest. The plan was to troll 17 to 22 FOW and study the graph looking for fish then setup and jig. Well we got luck 45 minutes into the trip and caught and released a 27-inch walleye in 19 FOW on a Strom Deep Thunderstick. It was a nice surprise and the area also produced two nice bass on our next three trips over the GPS point. Budd Lake is very enjoyable to fish and a great place to practice your structure fishing techniques.