2008 Houghton Lake Walleye Opener

Fishing action was excellent on the first day of walleye season. Despite the cold windy weather the walleyes were in full gear and our morning of fishing was action packed.

We started out the trolling our normal early season walleye area running 3" bombers (red/white) (blue/clear) 55 to 60 foot back and number 5 Tail Dancers (black/silver) (blue/silver) 35 foot back. We fished 4 to 6 FOW all morning and ended up landing six fish one of which had a DNR jaw tag. All of the walleyes we caught looked great and were 17 to 22 inches long a great sign for Houghton Lake.

Water temperatures started out at 54.3 degrees F and slowly dropped all day long. The cold SW wind chilled down the walleye fishing by dark and dropped the water temperatures to 52 by 8:45pm.

Our other fishing team members had a great day too. The total walleye count for the opener was 17 legal walleyes and one 14-incher. I have to also comment on the large number of small northern pike that we boated. In our boat trolling six rods we landed 64 pike, 12 bass, and 12 walleyes which made the bad fishing weather a great time.

We will be out fishing HL on Thursday (5-1), Friday (5-2), and Saturday(5-3). I'll report back soon.