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.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report "Fishing in the Rain" Friday May 21st

Walleyes in the Rain

I got the chance to fish Houghton Lake on Friday the 21st and Saturday the 22nd of May with my Brother Dennis.  We haven't been fishing together very much lately due to my work and activities downstate, but we planned for a couple weeks to fish on the 21st.  Knowing Michigan and how quickly the weather changes, we agreed that we would fish unless the conditions looked unsafe.

When Friday finally arrived, the weather was very still and the clouds were showing rain was not far off, however after checking with NOAA it appeared we would only have showers.  We NEVER fish during any electrical storms.... That is a no brainer.

We left the south boat launch at 8:15 PM to take a shot at the "Nite Bite".  Dennis has been doing very well this year on many spots but he had one in particular in mind for the night to get his brother into some fish.

We had flat water and the Tracker Tundra pulled into the spot in less than 5 minutes.

We dropped the trolling motor and began putting the rods out at about 8:30 pm.  We had a fish on immediately as we didn't even get all the rods set ( Running 6 lines - No Boards or Birds ) and it was a nice 16 inch walleye.  That was a pretty good indication of how the night would proceed.

We got that fish in the live well and two more rods went off... we caught 8 more small fish all about 14 to 14 1/2  inches.

We continued to work the area and began to produce some bigger fish.

We were done fishing and had the boat on the trailer by 10:30 PM.

THE FINAL COUNT was 42 Walleyes in the Net of which we kept a limit of 15 fish and the average fish was 17 inches.  We didn't get any big Hogs, but the ones we got tasted GREAT!  We had a HHS Team Fish Fry Saturday Afternoon at the Ranch.   

Best of Luck!
Douglas Resseguie
www.hothuntingspots.com

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 5/18/10

We had an opportunity to get out fishing on Houghton Lake last night (5/18). The fishing was a bit slow on the north shore, but we managed to catch one keeper and 7 undersized walleye. After spending 2-hours on the north shore we headed over to the South shore and trolled along the shore by the Heights Marina until 9:30pm. The action was also slow but we had a good bite right at dark and picked up two keepers and five undersized fish. Water temperatures are still all over the place making fishing difficult on HL. I found 57 degree water on the North shore and 63.5 degree water on the South West shore last night, hopefully the weather conditions will stabilize soon.

I added two pictures the view of the Crawford County fire from Houghton Lake.

Good Luck......

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 5/12 - 5/15

There are benefits to being late for work like bumping into your all time favorite walleye fishermen at the gas station. This morning I had the pleasure shaking hands with Gary Parsons and checking out his boat while pumping gas. I must say wow, it was awesome to finally meet the guy I have read about and studied from for years, it made my day. Ok, now on to the Houghton Lake Walleye report for the last week.

Last Tuesday the fishing action took a turn for the worst when the water temperature dropped 10 degrees overnight on shallow Houghton Lake. I made it out fishing on Wednesday and caught six walleyes on the South Shore and really didn’t notice a major change in bite.

Friday we stared out of the South lunch at 7:50am and didn’t catch a keeper walleye until 9:40am. The morning action was super slow the wind was terrible and after changing up a few times we hit a spot in 6 FOW just west of the Limberlost that ended up producing eight walleyes by the end of the day. Saturday we headed out at 9:00am and did some exploring around the lake. We setup on the North shore in 7 FOW and picked up three walleye the best on being 18.5 inches. After marking a few areas we headed to the East Bay where we trolled the East shore and ended up catching seven walleye two of which were keepers. Fishing friends Jeff and Tom were out on HL Saturday and reported 3 keepers after fishing all day.

Overall the weather and the extreme 10 degree drop in water temperature made catching Houghton Lake walleye a bit difficult last week. I’ll be out fishing on Wednesday and will report back.

Good Luck….

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 5-7-10

We got out and fished Friday morning and caught six walleye between 8:00am – 9:45am. The trip started out 150 yards from the South launch in 7 FOW. We trolled with the wind and ended up with 2 fish by 8:30am. Keeping on our scouting plan we moved over to the North shore and fished in 7 FOW and picked up 3 fish trolling with the wind. To avoid the east wind we moved in closer to shore and caught two more fish in 5 FOW on the sand and then at 9:45am it was like someone hit a kill switch and turned off the fish. The weather ended up getting the best of us and my digital camera, so we ended up calling it a day at 1:00pm.




I’ll post the fish pictures when I recover my SD chip.



Good Luck….

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 5-5-10

I must admit trolling crank baits is my favorite way to fish for walleye on Houghton Lake. But the one thing I have not become these days is close minded to other forms of walleye fishing. Last night I had the pleasure of fishing with two gentlemen who regularly fish Houghton Lake using a technique that they call Rip-Jigging. To summarize the setup you rig a 3/8 oz or heavier flat style jig head with a minnow body imitator, we used Berkley Gulp shad. To swim the bait you use a sharp rip movement back 6 to 12 inches every 5 seconds or so while keeping your rod parallel to the water. The advantage to this method is that you can work the bait over the weeds as the boat moves along with the wind. While the setup is similar to vertical jig fishing the focus is to swim the bait where as standard vertical jigging tends to promote bouncing the bait off bottom 12 to 18 inches. This method of jig fishing is very enjoyable, easy to do and well suited for Houghton Lake style fishing.
Last nights fishing report was not so hot. We started out fishing on the West shore in 7 FOW focusing on the break areas. The wind was bad and at times we were drifting at 2.4 mph which made for fast fishing. We fished hard and covered a lot of areas, but the net result was one small walleye after two hours of fishing. With the jig bite slowing we changed gears and moved to the South shore to troll and get a break from the wind. The slow bite continued on the South shore and after much effort we called it a night at 11:45pm. Overall we caught six walleyes one of which was a keeper and one nice 13.25-inch crappy. I had a great time and I learned a bit about rip-jigging, which I will use a lot on my trip to Forest Lake this summer.
I’ll be out Friday morning and if the weather holds I’ll be on the North Shore looking for walleyes.



Good Luck……

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 5-1-10

A busy weekend and bad weather conditions kept us on shore most of the weekend. I did manage to get out and fish on Saturday afternoon. We headed over to the North Shore at 12:00pm and attempted to troll, but got shutdown by wind. We then moved over to the South shore and fished just east of the Limberlost. The wind made it hard to troll the shoreline, so we setup our troll with the wind working shallow to deep (5ft to 11ft).

The bite was slow at best and our normal trolling setup wasn’t getting down to the fish. I changed over to TD 7 taildancers back 65 ft and Storm Thundersticks back 30 ft and trolled them at 2.25mph when we hit 8 FOW. We worked this method for about 2 hours and finally gave up to the wind at 4:30pm. Overall we caught five keeper walleye, lost one, and threw back two undersized fish.

Good Luck…..