Houghton Lake 2/22/13




Mark with his first tip up walleye of 2013

Friday afternoon Mark, Matt, and I  fished the West side of Houghton Lake.  We headed out of the West boat launch about 2 miles and started looking for fish in 11 FOW.  After an hour of drilling we found a good weed area and setup.  Fishing action was good from 3:30pm to 7pm.  We caught two walleyes and lots of small pike on tip up rigs set 18 inches of bottom.  Jigging was also working well and we hooked two walleye and lost a few on buck shot spoons with whole minnows.  Overall we caught two keeper walleyes, two throw backs, five perch and a lot of small pike.

Good luck...




Small walleye buck shot spoon / minnow.  11 FOW




Perch on Tip up 11 FOW

Budd Lake Fishing Report 2/24/13:

Four of us fished the Frost Bite Open fishing tournament on Sunday from 8am-2pm.  The weather was great, but the fishing action was super slow.  Thirty plus teams entered and the winning fish was a 5.08 lb pike caught by Mike Meir.




Mark and Chachi Budd Lake

Houghton Lake 6/29/11

12 3/4 - inch Perch hooked on a TD 7 Taildancer in 9 FOW

My nephew and I headed up to Houghton Lake yesterday at 7:30pm to try out the night bite. On our last trip to Houghton Lake we found a good concentration of walleyes holding in an area of scattered weeds in 9 to 11 FOW.   We headed back to the same spot to work on developing a trolling path around the weeds.  When building a trolling path I change the track color on my GPS when I arrive at the location so I can clearly see where my boat has been.  Then we drive the boat East and West over the area and then North and South to basically build a grid of the area we want to target.  While we are making the grid we mark weed structures that would cause trolling issues with GPS points.  Next, I change the track color and start trolling.  When we find bad spots trolling we mark them with GPS points.  After a few hours of driving the area the map starts to show a clear path around the weeds and at that point I go back and save a course.  It's a fair amount of work to develop trolling paths, but it pays off.

The fishing action was very slow for the most part.  We worked on  our trolling path during the daylight and hooked two bass, one pike, and a nice 12 3/4 - inch perch.  At dark we headed in close to the west shore and trolled in the dark without any luck at all.  The water temperature last night held at 67 F on both sides of the lake.  I suspect that the cold front and quick water cool down helped slow down the walleye bite yesterday. 

Good Luck...

Winter Walleye Fishing Area

Were heading out on Houghton Lake on Friday morning to fish some new areas.  If you are looking for an area to find a few walleyes you may want to try this area.  Good Luck..

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 9/18 & 9/19

Fished Houghton Lake Friday morning by myself and got my one man limit by 11:00am fishing on the North Shore in 7 FOW.  Went back out on Saturday evening and boated four keepers and sixteen walleyes all between twelve to forteen inches on the North Shore 6 to 8 FOW.  Best action was on black and silver TD 5 tail dancers and shadraps.  I'll be back out fishing in October looking for some bigger fish.

SPECIAL NOTE: Hot Hunting Spots Pro Staff Member - Joe "Bird Dog" Fornwall show above with a nice small mouth and a walleye.  Joe has been very busy with upland game and other work related things, but it is very good to see him back in action.

Also note that Joe NEVER has a problem eating the Walleye and he does make it up for our meetings & fish fry events.

More Fall Fishing Reports to follow.

HHS Admin

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 8/22

It's getting to be the time of the year when we start gearing up for our western hunts and fishing gets put on the back burner for a month. The good news is that fishing is getting better if you have the time to do it. We made it out on Saturday afternoon and despite the bad weather we ended up with 8 keeper walleyes and caught a nice 35 inch pike that we sent back. Fished in 6 to 7 FOW to start, but had our best action in 9 FOW trolling at 2.3 mph on trout colors.

Good luck..

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 8/13

We made it out fishing on Thursday evening and ended up with sixteen keepers and twenty undersized walleyes. Fishing action was slow at the start but it kicked in after dark and lasted until 11:00pm. Most of our fish were caught on trout colors and black and gold Berkley Frenzy back 25 foot in 7 FOW.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 8/7

Fished Houghton on Friday evening and ended up with 12 keeper walleyes. We started out fishing in 6 FOW on the north shore where we only picked up two undersized fish and a lot of pike. After working the North shore we moved over to the West end of the lake and targeted 4 - 6 FOW. Trolling was hit and miss with a few small fish. The action picked up at dark and the bite was very good until 10:30pm.

Best action was on Blue / Silver and Black / Gold.

Good luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 8/5

Fishing continues to be very good on Houghton Lake. We fished the North Shore in 6 to 7 FOW last night and boated 9 keeper walleyes and 15 undersized fish.

Fishing action was best from 6:30pm to 8pm with the best color being Red/Silver.

Good Luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 8/1

Made it out fishing on Saturday morning with a new Houghton Lake walleye friend (Jim) and ended up with six keepers and eight undersized fish. We fished the first part of the morning in 4 to 6 FOW and had good action. At 10:00am we moved over to the North Shore and picked up one undersized walleye and lost a good fish at the boat. The wind didn't cooperated and the North shore was to ruff to troll by 11:00am.

Other fishing team members did very well this weekend and between the two boats they ended up with 57 walleyes in three days.

We will be out during the week.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 7/21

Fishing Reports:

Pratt Lake (7-20): We fished Pratt Lake on Monday and got skunked. We worked 20 FOW trolling with crawler harnesses for three hours and never had a bite. At dark we moved to the East shore and only caught bass.

Houghton Lake (7-21): Fished on the North East shore in 7 FOW and boated nine walleyes total with seven keepers. We hit a few of our 12 to 15 foot fishing areas earlier in the day and couldn't find a fish.

Good Luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 7/13

Monday evening fishing was a great time despite the strong NW wind. We headed out to 12 FOW NE of long point and trolled East for an hour before we picked up our first walleye. We didn’t find many suspended fish in 12FOW, so we headed South into 13 FOW. The wind made trolling into the wind very hard and limited our ability to stay on the fish. Closer to dark we hit a school of fish and we ended up boating six keeper walleye and five undersized fish all in about fifteen minutes.

Overall the deeper water produced fish, but not at the rate we are catching them in 7 FOW on the West Shore. Best bait was the Rapala Taildancer TD 7 Green / White trolled back 52 foot.

Good Luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 7/10 - 7/12

Walleye fishing action continues to be excellent on Houghton Lake. Our new fishing friends Jeff, Tom, and the family spent the weekend limiting out in 6 to 7 FOW trolling taildancers and thunderstick Jrs.

Great job guys!!


We'll be out tonight looking for fish in 12 to 13 FOW.

Good luck.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 7/8

Fished Houghton Lake on Wednesday evening and had a great time. When we hit the lake the water was calm and the sky was clear, so we decided to start fishing in 12 FOW. Work the area for about two hours and picked up three walleyes. Around 8:30pm the East wind pushed us int 6 FOW and started catching a lot of small walleyes. Overall we boated 17 undersized walleyes all in 6 FOW and 12 keeper walleyes.

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 7/6

Monday evening’s strong NW wind and gray sky didn’t slow the walleye action on Houghton Lake. Fished off of the North shore about one mile out in 5 to 6 FOW where we found a school of walleyes feeding on minnows. We started fishing at 7:45pm and had our three man limit at 10:20pm. The hot lure was the Berkley Frenzy Minnow in black / silver trolled back 25 feet and troll speeds ranged from 2 to 2.9 mph. Overall we boated 12 undersized walleyes, 15 keeper walleye (kept 10) with the largest fish being 19-inches and two bass.
Talked to a fishermen at the launch and he reported that he has been limiting out in 9 FOW in East Bay drifting with floating jig heads tipped with leaches.

Good Luck….