Houghton Lake Walleye Opener

The 2007 Houghton Lake Walleye Opener was unlike the past years of sorting pike and walleye. We fished two and a half days and didn't put one walleye in the boat.

Over the weekend we fished the north side in 8FOW with 55F water temps the south side along the Elks club in 7FOW with 51F water temps the East Bay and other random spots we have marked on our GPS and only produced pike and bass.

Depending on weather condition early in the year we use a few different methods for catching walleye on Houghton Lake.

• Jig heads with leeches and half of a Berkly Gulp body. (Used around structure areas)
• Jig heads with only Berkly Gulp. (Used around structure areas)
• Trolling with 3" Bomber on North Shore 6 - 7 FOW. 1.8mph 70- foot back 8 lb test.
• Dragging Storm Deep Storm ThunderStick 20 - 30 foot of the side. (Used when drift is .7 to 1.3 mph)
• Trolling North Shore off the edges of the old river bed. Use a variety of body baits, but Rapala Tail Dancers are the best.
• Slip bobber with leeches or minnows and then casting crank baits when fish are located.
  

After visiting and revisiting many of my favorite fishing locations and only landing pike I started using my Aqua View camera to locate new fishing areas. During my observation times I only viewed two small walleye which made me rethink my fishing plan for my next trip. Along with our bad luck the other two boats in our fishing group did not catch a single walleye either.

I love fishing Houghton Lake and it's by far my favorite lake to fish walleyes on in central Michigan. I'll be back on Houghton Lake Tuesday after work and will report back.

Pounded by Pike!

Pounded by Pike!
Northern numbers on the rise

I wanted to take a moment to add this short posting about our Walleye Season Opener at Houghton Lake. I enjoy fishing Houghton Lake very much have fished this lake for over 20 years now. I have noticed an increase in the amount of small northern pike over the last few years. For anglers headed to the lake be prepared to see high numbers of Northern Pike.

We track our daily fish numbers and generate productivity ratios and trend forecasts for each lake we fish in Michigan. Northern numbers in Houghton Lake have been on the rise see our Ratios listed below for 2005 – 2007.

Average ( Pike to Walleye ) on the line count.
2005 – 15 to 1
2006 – 20 to 1
2007 – Starting ( over 70 Northern Pike first day )

Our rule of thumb ratio for 2006 was 20 to 1 – so we averaged about 20 northern pike to one walleye on the lines as we averaged the daily fish count during 2006.

This year we found a significant increase of small Northern Pike on April 28th we caught and released over 70 pike. We DID NOT catch a legal pike and most fish averaged in the 18 – 20 inch range. This will be good for future anglers and will keep people busy as they fish for Walleye.

Make a point to Get Outdoors!

Well we finally made it out fishing on the Saginaw Bay last Friday [4-20-07]. We started out looking for fish in front of the man made island and didn't mark much, so we worked our way west over toward Linwood.

We started out trolling in 9 FOW (48.5 water temp) and worked our way into 7.5 (50 water temp) FOW without any luck. During our trolling time we watched other boats cover a ton of water without any hook sets.

About 4:00pm we found an area in 8.5 FOW that we marked eleven fish ranging from 1 to 1.5 feet off of the bottom. We marked the area on our GPS and then setup to jig (metallic 1/4oz gold jig with a shiner minnow). Shortly after we started to jig we were landing walleyes. Our plan was to present our bait slowly with very little action and it worked. We boated 23 walleyes the biggest was about 6 lbs and all were males. We kept the smaller fish for our first walleye fry of the year.

Good Luck Fishing....

Houghton Lake Hot Spots

Current Walleye Hot Spots for Houghton Lake

Night Bite

Houghton Lake Night Walleye!

This year we have been successful trolling for walleye just before dark until about 11:30 PM.

We troll at 1.5 - 1.7 mph with large bomber's running 2 - 3 foot deep. This allows us to travel into the weed bed areas and trigger suspended walleyes that are feeding.

Hot Colors this year - White & Red, Silver & Red and Natural colors.

After dark trolling seems best from the Elks to the West.

Good Luck & See You Out There

Hot Hunting Spots

Windy Weekend

Walleye Season opened up this year with a east wind that didn't let up. This created problems for many anglers who wanted to still fish.

We caught a total of 10 walleyes for the weekend with sizes between 15 - 19 inches. We caught all our fish trolling on larger body baits. Troll speed 1.5 mph which you could almost do going west without your motor. The weekend hot spot was trolling 10 - 15 foot of water in front of the Limberlost and just to the East of this area. Fish were picked up around the scattered weeds in this flat area.

On Saturday we caught all our fish on natural colors. Sunday the fish were most active on Red & white as shown in the photo or silver with red.

We will keep you updated on where to look for walleyes this year on Houghton Lake.

See You Out There...
Hot Hunting Spots

Fishing At 12:01 AM

Good Luck to Everyone!

We will be on the water and ready to fish at 12:01 AM to start the 2006 Walleye season at Houghton Lake. Keep an eye on our web page during the weekend and we may be doing a live wireless webcast from the boat for all those that can't get into the water this weekend.

See You Out There!

Hot Hunting Spots

Houghton Lake GPS Tips

Hot GPS Spots

Here are a few hot spots to start out fishing during the Walleye Season Opener.

We did very good here last year and we will be hitting these points again in 2006.

Just before the Walleye season closed on the ice, we also did pretty good in this area.

Good Luck!
Hot Hunting Spots

Houghton Lake Map

Houghton Lake Map Overview!

Here is a neat little map for those of you that don't already have one.

We put this together for our Houghton Lake Trip and hope that others will enjoy the tool.

For those of you that have GPS units in your boat... we specialize in providing Hot GPS spots and troll patterns for lakes we fish.

Good Luck!
Hot Hunting Spots

Walleye Opener At Houghton Lake

Walleye Season Opener!

It's only a few short days until we can start fishing for Walleye on Houghton Lake.

This year our team will be fishing the south shore and middle grounds for the opening weekend.

We look forward to sharing our reports with others and for those that enjoy the Limberlost look for our Tracker to be dockside for lunch and dinner stops.

Hot Hunting Spots

"Very Good Friday" - from 11:00am to 1:15pm we boated seven walleyes with our best fish being a 9.4 lbs at 12:30pm. We started the midmorning out in front of the man maid island in 9 FOW and didn't have to go too far before we started marking pockets of fish. We used green and silver shallow reef runners and green and silver original storms at 1.25mph targeting 5 - 7 foot deep walleye. I know it sounds crazy but it seems like the brighter the sun the higher the fish are hanging.

The SW wind increased by 3:30pm and we moved in close. We worked the shipping lane in front of the river mouth and picked up two 22" walleyes in 24 FOW with silver and copper crawler harness 3-foot of bottom.

Good luck!

Hunting Hot Spots Team

Houghton Lake Walleye Season

It is almost time to enjoy Houghton Lake Michigan for the 2006 Walleye Season Opener.

The team from Outdoor Creations will be on the lake ready to fish at Midnight and we will be staying on the lake for the weekend. We will be stopping off at the Limberlost for food and refreshments for those of you who would like to get a live update.

We will be posting reports, photos and hot tips for all you anglers who enjoy fishing Houghton Lake.

See you out there!

Outdoor Creations

Saginaw Bay Walleye

April 9, 2006

I really want to encourage all you anglers out there that are thinking about getting out to go fishing.... It's Time!

If you look at our fishing photos you will see that my brother and I are pretty much die-hard outdoorsmen. We fish on the ice, wade the river and on the lakes... it's time for some great early season Walleye fishing.

Michigan is such a great place to fish for Walleye, Steelhead and other game fish, if your not out there... you are missing out! We will continue to keep you posted with all our current fishing reports, hot fishing spots, techniques we use and even a few underwater camera shots.

I look foward to seeing more of you outside enjoying the wonderful state you live in.

Sincerely,

Douglas Resseguie
Outdoor Creations & Hot Hunting Spots

PS. Green & Silver... HOT COLORS!

Sunday April 9, 2006

It's that time again when all serious anglers have to choose between open water Walleye or river fishing steelhead. We enjoy both, however it was time to get the boat out into the Saginaw bay for some Walleye.

We weren't disappointed as we started our day off trolling Green & Silver Thunder Stick body baits running 5 - 7 ft. Most of the fish we were marking were suspended between 5 - 11 ft and we did best trolling the edge of the shipping channel as fish were holding on the break. We also picked up fish by the channel island rock wall. The water is still pretty murkey and so we were using a little extra noise in the lures to help attract our fish. We slowed our troll down to about 1.7 mph, just enough to keep the wobble in our body baits.

We will be fishing the Saginaw Bay all year but our season opener will be on Houghton Lake this year. Good Luck to everyone starting out 2006 on the Saginaw Bay and we will keep you posted on where to find fish and what to use.

See You Out There!
Outdoor Creations