Houghton Lake Fishing Report 7/1/12

West Shore Pan Fish and Walleyes

The West shore of Houghton Lake is heating up. We started fishing at 9:30am this morning in 11 FOW slowly working our way around the weeds jigging Berkeley Gulp minnows and leeches. No wind and 80 degree water temps made ideal conditions for working in and around the weeds. We setup slip bobbers with leeches 18 inches off bottom as our secondary rods. At noon we stumbled across a nice school of pan fish that ended up producing four gills at the ten inch mark one at 10.5 and a nice mess for our dinner. The walleye action was best on Berkeley Gulp minnows orange / yellow jigs fished up off bottom. We hooked 10 walleyes and 4 keepers by 1pm.

I talked to a group of fishermen at the dock that had a few walleyes and some big pike. They said they were jig fishing east of the Limber Lost in 10 to 12 FOW.

Crooked Lake:  Saturday morning we fished in a bass tournament on Crooked Lake in Lake Station and had a wonderful time.  This was our first time on the lake and we found lots of bass and big pan fish.   I marked out a few spots and plan to return in January to try hooking some of the big crappy the lake is known for.  Overall the lake is worth fishing if you like to catch bass.

Good Luck.....

Berkeley Gulp Minnow Walleye

  

Alex with his first fish 11 FOW

Houghton Lake Fishing Report 6/26/11

 

We got out on Houghton Lake Sunday afternoon to get some sun and do some fishing.  Started fishing at 1pm jigging in 10 FOW.  We hooked three keeper walleyes on gold jig heads tipped with a leech. The action slowed up at 4pm, so we moved to the West shore and trolled around the weeds clumps with stickbaits and hooked 3 walleye (1 keeper) and two pike by 8pm. 

Good Luck....

Houghton Lake Walleye 5/7/11

Chachi and Holly having a fun time landing the first walleye of the day.  South Shore 12:42pm, 8 foot of water.

Houghton Lake May 4th

Houghton Lake Colors Storm Thunderstick



I took a vacation day today and headed up to Houghton Lake to try my luck walleye fishing after the cold front moved through last night.  I got on the lake at 8am and headed to the South shore to fish 5 to 7 FOW in some of my favorite early season spots.  When I started fishing the South shore water temp was 47 F and the wind was out of the NW.  I trolled all of my spots for 3 hours and never had a hit, so I decided to change up and do some jigging and still fishing.  Well after another 2 hours and no action I packed up and drove to the north shore to try fishing out in front of the Muskegon River mouth.  The water temp was 51 F when I arrived and I marked a few fish laying on the bottom in 6 FOW.  Again I fished for 2 hours and couldn't make a fish bite.  I continued fishing all over the lake until 7pm when I called it a day.   Overall report was no bites anywhere on the lake and a good reminder that I need to develop a new method for fishing after a cold front.  Fished all day trolling, jigging, still fishing and covered lots areas from 4 to 12 FOW.  Had fun practicing and enjoyed my day out of the office....

Dock report- four boats no fish.

Good Luck...



Tracker waiting for the fish to bite









 

 



South Shore Water Temp 50.6 F at 3pm

 

Early Season Stick Bait Collection

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 1/14/11

Tip Up Walleye

We had a great time fishing Houghton Lake today. Started out at 7am in 8.5 FOW and caught our first walleye by 7:30am on a tip up setup with a small minnow. The morning action was good and we caught a few undersized fish and six pike before noon. We tried lots of setups and most of them caught fish today. Overall the best action was on small spoons and minnows jigged off of the bottom. I tried out the new Northland spoon in the morning and hooked two perch, one small pike, and zero walleye, so the testing will continue. The best fishing time for us was 12:40 - 1:30pm, during that time period we were very busy hooking fish. Mark had a great day fishing, but had his favorite jigging pole ripped out of his hand and pulled down the hole about an hour before dark. We will be out later this week and we'll be looking for the pike that is hooked to Marks fishing rod.

Good Luck...

7:30am First Walleye of the Day




 

Perch on a Northland Moxi Spoon

Houghton Lake Walleye Trip #2

Mark and I are heading up to Houghton Lake in the morning to try and improve on our walleye game.  Last Friday we found lots of fish but couldn't buy a bite.  In preparation for tomorrows fishing trip I stopped at Northwoods on my way home and bought a few dozen walleye minnows for a buck a dozen (great deal) and a few new Northland Jigging spoons.  I've read a some good reports about the new Live Forage Moxie Minnows by North

land Fishing Tackle and figured I'd pickup a few to try out on HL.  If the minnow works as well as the sales video does I'll be limited out by 7am.

Houghton Lake Ice Fishing Report 1-11-08

Houghton Lake has a solid 8-inches of ice with about 2-inches of snow on top as of Friday night. The new snow has made walking on the lake better, but if you are not careful walking you can end up slipping.

We headed out of Lyman's access point and continued out NE for 1.3 miles. When you head out of Lyman's you will see the shanty town we are fishing about 1 mile north of the town off of the point.

The action was the most productive in 10 FOW from 3:30pm to 6:15pm using Northwoods jigging spoons with a whole shiner minnow a foot off the bottom. Tip-up action was slow with only one flag. We ended up catching five walleyes, four big perch, and we lost three fish.