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.