Lake Mitchell Walleye Fishing

West Shore Walleye

Had a fun morning fishing Lake Mitchell.  Mark and I started fishing at 4am on the East shoreline in 5  to 6 FOW.  On our first pass we hooked a nice bass and one undersized walleye both on Rapala rap shads.  At light the wind picked up out of the West, so we moved over to troll with the wind on the Sough shore.  Fishing action was slow along the weed edges and we only hooked one walleye and a few pike.  At 9am we moved to the West and fished in 4 to 6 FOW in the weeds and hooked a walleye and a nice sunfish on Rapala Taildancers.  Later in the morning we fished in 12 to 14 FOW on the North side of the lake and hooked one undersized walleye on a high line (6 foot down) and a nice bass closer to bottom.  Fished the deeper water for 2 hours with limited action.   Perch and trout colors were our most productive patterns in shallow water trolled at 1.7 to 2 mph.  Overall we hooked four walleyes, lots of bass, sunfish, and a few legal pike.  Water temperature was 66 F and should be on the rise this weekend.  Good Luck.....

Nice Sunfish on a Taildancer

4:30am Bass East Shore 5 FOW

Early Morning South Shore Under Size Walleye 6 FOW

Lake Mitchell Walleye

Shallow water trolling path

Mark and I made an early morning trip up to Lake Mitchell to try out the night bite.  We got on the lake at 3:00am and setup to troll shallow  Our first stop was the South shore in 4 to 6 FOW.  The first hour of the morning we trolled stick baits high above the shallows without much luck.  On our second pass heading East we changed over to deeper divers and bumped them on along the sand bottom.  Our first walleye of the morning came at 4:15am out of 3.5 foot of water on new UV thunderstick.  We marked the spot and continued to expand our troll around the area and ended up hooking seven walleyes all 15 to 16 inches.  At light the walleye bite ended and the bass bite turned on.  We hooked a lot of nice smallmouth and a few pike as we worked our way around the lake looking for new walleye areas.  At 10am we headed over to Lake Cadillac to explore and found some nice looking walleye waters on the East side of the lake that we are going to checkout on our next trip.  Overall fishing action was very good early in shallow.  We hooked nine sunfish while trolling in shallow, so pan fishing on the beds should be good right now.  Fishing pressure was concentrated directly in front of the boat launch with most boats fishing in 12 to 14 FOW using slip bobbers. 

Good Luck...

Rapala Rap Shad 5 FOW

First fish of the morning.

5am South Shore Smallmouth

Lake Mitchell

7.5 FOW first walleyes of the day 4:15pm. 

Finally made it up to Lake Mitchell to try out the walleye action.  We started off slow scouting the lake with the map and structure scan looking for fishing areas.  The plan was to map out some shallow areas for night trolling and then visit some of the deeper structure and check for fish with the structure scan.  We mapped out our night trolling area on the NW shore in 4 to 8 FOW first.  Lots of weeds and open pockets made the location idea for our trolling setup.  After studying the shallows we were ready to start fishing some of the deeper structures.  At 2:00pm we found some fish hanging a foot off the bottom in 12 FOW on the West side of the lake.  The wind had picked up so we anchored on the fish and tried our best to make them bite.  We found several spots along the west side of the lake that had fish holding in 10 to 14 FOW but we never hooked anything.  At 4pm we were scanning along the South side of the lake trying to get a break from the wind when we marked a pod of bait fish with bigger fish following them.  We made a quick map of the area and then setup to troll.  On our first run through the area we had a double and hooked to 19 inch walleyes on thundersticks run down to 6 foot.  Thinking we had found our limit area we fished the spot and hooked bass, pike, and one undersized walleye.  On our last troll over the area Mark hooked a very large pike that ended up stealing our white thunderstick.  Ready for a break from the wind we headed into the launch at 7pm and cooked dinner.  At 8:30pm the wind died off and we headed West for the night troll.  We caught lots pike early and then the action shut down at 10:30pm.   Continuing on we kept expanding our trolling area as we learned the shoreline.  The best night bite took place between 12am and 1:30am.  We hooked seven undersized walleyes and lots of bass in 4 to 7 FOW on the West shore.  The best night fishing cranks were black / silver original floating Rapalas and wonder bread colored bombers all back 50 to 60 foot.  Overall, we had a great trip and a wonderful day of fishing.  Few notables from the trip: we only hooked fish on larger cranks and when we cleaned the walleyes we found the were eating 3 to 4 inch perch.  The water was stained making for good shallow water daylight trolling.  We didn't have any luck using slow presentations with live bait or cranks on this trip.

Small walleye 5 FOW at 1am.

Lake Mitchell

Good Luck....

Houghton Lake Report



Mark North Shore Walleye. 7 FOW

South Shore Lunch Grilled Mule Deer 

Justin with his first walleye. South Shore 4 FOW

We made a trip up to Houghton Lake on Friday morning to scout out some new walleye fishing areas.  We started fishing at 9am on the South shore to see if we could hook a few walleyes before heading around the lake.  The South Shore action was slow and we weren't finding any fish in the normal 6 FOW areas.  We changed up our setup and ran into the thick weed cover with shallow running cranks.  After a lot of line cleaning and some work we hooked two walleyes and a few pike.  Overall on both trips to the south shore the walleye have been hanging in the weeds which is not the norm for this time of the year.  After lunch we headed across the lake to explore the North Shore.  The fishing action didn't get much better, but we did catch fish around weed structures in most areas we focused on.  At 6pm the wind picked up and we moved over to try fishing in by Harvey's Marina.  When we arrived we found five other boats fishing in close to shore in the weeds.  We setup and made a troll along the  9 FOW mark where the weeds were manageable.  The weather conditions were better, but we did not hook a fish in the area and didn't see any of the other fishermen do any better. 

Overall fishing was slow in the 57 degree water.  Our best bite was on black / silver shad raps, x-raps, and TD 7 tail dancers.  We didn't hook any fish in open water on this trip.  Best action was trolling close or in  weed clumps in 4 to 8 FOW.  We hooked six keepers, four undersized, and lost a few at the boat.  Next Friday we are planning to fish Lake Cadillac.

Good Luck....

Eight Point Lake

My fishing partner Tracker

Eight Point Lake South Shore

Fished Eight Point Lake Wednesday afternoon.  This was the first time I have been on the lake since the DNR put in the new public boat launch and it's a nice one.  I spent a lot of time using my side scan reviewing the lake early.  I found two areas that where holding fish and looked like my kind of fishing spots.  The first area was on a flat on the South East side of the lake in 8 to 11 FOW.   I setup trolling rigs to run down to the fish at 7 foot and trolled the flat without any success.  After an hour of trolling I setup on the fish and did some rip jigging with gulp and again couldn't buy a bite.  Closer to dark I moved up the North shore and fished off of a 5 foot shelf that dropped out into 12 foot.  This area had several fish hanging in 8 FOW,  but like the last spot I couldn't buy a bite.  Back in 2006 we fished Eight Point three times and caught walleye each trip, so I'm hoping that with a little work I can figure out the bite again.  Overall, no fish caught, the water temp was 57 F and I was the only boat on the lake last night.  The lake is looking good and the DNR walleye stocking should make for some fun walleye fishing.

Good Luck...