Houghton Lake Opening Day 4/30/11

Another great Houghton Lake walleye opener.  We had a great time trolling with the wind and working all of our favorite early season walleye spots. My nephew and I started fishing on the South side just east of the elks club trolling our normal setup.  At 9:50am we hooked our first 19-inch walleye of the open water season on a white thunder stick trolled back 18 foot at 2.35mph.   We continued west and hooked our second fish in 5.5 FOW with the same white thunderstick.  The action slowed up till a little after 11am when we found a nice school of fish in 4 FOW on the sand in front of the Heights Marina.  We basically trolled off of the sand starting in 3 FOW and pulled our baits over the break into the waiting walleyes in 5 FOW.  Overall we hooked six fish and kept four.   We then moved back South to get out of the wind and hooked three more keeper walleyes by 3pm.   With nine keeper walleyes in the boat and hunger setting in we decided it was time to head home and deep fry our catch. 

The best colors for the day were all white and gold and black.  Speed was 2 to 2.5 and I know it seems fast for 48 to 50 F water, but it was working today.  Area to fish tomorrow is just south of the Heights Marina on the break 5 - 7 FOW.

Boat Launch Reports:
We talked to a few guys at the dock and the action was slow for jigging with most guys getting one.  The Hannson boat hooked 8 walleyes trolling shallow and we met Joe who had a slow day, but said he normally limits on each trip to HL.

Good Luck...

75th Annual National Trout Festival

http://www.nationaltroutfestival.com/schedule.html

Houghton Lake

Houghton Lake Canal fishing....

Walleye Season Opens Tomorrow!

Happy fisherman

Don and two nice walleyes

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Dons 2nd walleye

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Dons 1st walleye 27-1/2" about 9lb



Trenton Channel Walleye Action

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3" magnum report

Went out this morning to the Trenton Channel and picked up 2 walleyes on chartreuse in 15-18 fow. These were dons 1st walleyes ever and he is on top of the world. Yesterday his son Cody got his 1st ever walleye. It makes me happy to put people over fish and see them smile like that.

-Rich

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Cody with a nice detroit river walleye

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3" magnum report

This morning Cody and I went to the Trenton Channel and got 1 nice male for the freezer and quite a few lite hits and lost 1 hogg that broke Cody's line. This afternoon I went back out by myself and got 1 more nice male and lost 5 half way up to the boat. This was very disappointing to me and I almost threw my pole in the water. All 5 lost fish were within about an hours time. The fish were in deeper water today and had little action with chartreuse and found the magic color of the day to be orange. Hand liners were filling their boats up today and the Bliz and Kieth had there limit within 2 hours this morning pulling fire tiger baits. The water in the entire river is muddy due to heavy rains all week but the fish don't seem to mind. I will have a boat load tomorrow morning and see what the river will give us.

-Rich

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3" Magnum report

I spoke with the bliz just now and they caught 4-9+poud males and a small female for a net weight of 43.49 lbs fishing 9-10fow south of edison in the trenton channel using 1/2oz chartreuse jigs tipped with minnows or berkley 4" shad. They used their trolling motor to keep a vertical jig, laying the jig on bottom for a few seconds and softly raising up about a 1/2". You can read more @ the master walleye curcuit website or walleye central.
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3" Magnum report

What a weekend! The cabelas masters walleye tour came to the detroit river and braved all that mother nature could throw their way. As it turns out my life long freind greg bliznik aka "the bliz" took 1st place against all the pros. Greg is a long time tournament fisherman that usually places highly at the weigh in scale and it is no suprize that he smoked the field last saturday on his home court. I haven't spoke to him yet but I will be soon to get the full story and report and pictures. I'm looking forward to posting his reports in the future as he is an excellent fisherman that knows more about these fish we love so much than most. Great job bliz!

3" Magnum s/e michigan field supervisor
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The love of fishing

 

My nephews new shirt the Periodic Table of Fishing Lures and Flies. 

3" Magnum report

I went to Marina Gibraltar boat yard on Wednesday afternoon to check on my boat and was talking to the owner of the gas dock.  Bill told me that he has been seeing lots of customer in his bait shop the last two days who have been hooking 3 to 5 fish and sometimes a limit.   The warmer weather is helping and fish activity and it should be great fishing in the Trenton channel from here on out.
I will be out both mornings this weekend to capitalize on those eater males, hope to see you there. On a separate note a friend of mine was in the dwf tourney last Saturday and took 6th place with 3 walleyes. Nice job blizz!

-Rich

Live Web Cam from Detroit River

Here is a link to the Web Cam on Belle Island in the Detroit River.

http://www.detroithistorical.org/webcam/

3" Magnum Detroit River Report

Trenton Channel Early Moring Fog

Rich and his first open water walleye 4/10/11

It's on! Spring walleye is on the upswing in the Trenton channel of the Detroit River. We loaded up the skiff Friday night in preparation for a weekend of excitement on the river. Saturday morning we were in our favorite fishing hole by 7:00 am to find no less than 300 boats within a 1/4 mile radius due to the DWF tournament going on. Its was fun and unbelievable. The best way to describe it is organized chaos as you have all these boats drifting downstream sometimes inches from each other. Most of the people out there have been doing this for years and manipulate their trolling motors around each other without a problem.  We had a great time and saw a few nice fish hooked.

The fishing report is as follows:

• Saturday,  we got shut out.  Had a few hits and lost two on plain lead 5/8 oz jig tipped with minnow.  Lots of light bites.

• Sunday started with slow action for most anglers until the fog lifted and then it turned on for about an hour. We landed 1 fish during that time and had countless hits on chartreuse jigs tipped with white twisters / minnows. Purple and Plain jig heads were also working tipped with motor oil color grub or minnows.and minnows.

Good luck and we'll see everyone next weekend on the river.

-Rich

Walleye 101 Fishing Seminar

Lance Valentine Walleye 101 Seminar at Saginaw Gander Mountain

You can never know too much about walleye fishing no matter what your level of experience.  And when you have the opportunity to attend a free fishing seminars held by experts it's a great way to expand your knowledge base.  As my boss always tells me "you never lean anything when your doing all of the talking" and with that in mind it was great to listen to Lance Valentine and his staff from Walleye 101 put on an excellent three day free informational seminar at Saginaw Gander Mountain.  Lance is a good as they get and he is also a great speaker who will keep your attention and help you learn in the process.  The free three week seminar covered topics from open water trolling, GPS and Sonar tips, to river walleye fishing methods.  Lance and the Walleye 101 staff have a great seminar format setup with lots of video and PowerPoint presentations that really go into detail and keep you glued to the topics.

If you have the chance to attend a Walleye 101 event you should do it, you'll have fun and learn in the process.  Check them out at http://www.walleye101.com/ or at http://www.walleyekid.com/ .

2011 Lake Erie Creel Limit for Walleyes is ( 6 ) Six - May 1st

Lake Erie Dally Creel Limit for Walleyes Is Six Beginning May 1

Contact:  Liz Hay-Chmielewski, 734-663-3554 or Mary Dettloff, 517-335-3014 
Agency: Natural Resources

March 28, 2011

The daily creel limit for walleyes in Michigan's waters of Lake Erie will be six beginning May 1, the Department of Natural Resources announced today.

Michigan has adopted a process for setting regulations that allows the DNR to use real-time population data instead of using year-old survey results. This process parallels one adopted by Ohio last year.

"This change to the regulations process is critical to helping us manage walleyes in Lake Erie in a timely manner," said DNR Lake Erie Basin Coordinator Liz Hay-Chmielewski. "In order to do that, we have to set regulations in March instead of the previous autumn."

Michigan's daily creel limit for walleyes on Lake Erie is based on its share of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the lake, which is determined by the Lake Erie Committee under the aegis of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. The TAC is generally based on overall abundance of walleyes; the Committee establishes quotas for each jurisdiction based on the percentage of habitat for adult walleyes in each jurisdiction's waters of the lake. The daily limit is based on a formula that projects how many walleyes anglers can keep but still remain within the quota.

See the attached table for an explanation of the formula used to set the daily creel limit.

The Total Allowable Catch for Lake Erie for 2011 is 2.919 million fish, making Michigan's quota 0.17 million fish.

The new regulations process means that the creel limit for walleyes on Lake Erie will not be set until TACs are determined each March, after the Michigan Fishing Guide goes to press. Anglers will need to check for changes annually.

There are no changes to either the fishing season or size limit for walleyes on Lake Erie.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state's natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. For more information, go towww.michigan.gov/dnr.

If Michigan's share of the annual TAC is	Then the daily possession limit for walleye shall be
greater than 108,364	six (6)
96,958 to 108,364	five (5)
85,551 to 96,957	four (4)
74,144 to 85,550	three (3)
62,737 to 74,143	two (2)
less than 62,737	one (1)

Lowrance Rebate

REBATE Lowrance® HDS-8 Fishfinder/GPS Chartplotter

Lowrance HD-8

Lowrance is offering rebates on most models up to $200.00 until 3/27/11. 

I'm updating the electronics in the Tundra this year and adding an HD8 and a HD7 with the structure scan. 

Saginaw Bay Ice Floes On St. Patrick's Day

UPDATE: U.S. Coast Guard rescues 12 people from Saginaw Bay ice floes on St. Patrick's Day

Published: Friday, March 18, 2011, 11:15 AM

By Michael Wayland | The Bay City Times

 ESSEXVILLE — A dozen people were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard officials from ice floes on the Saginaw Bay.

Lt. Justin Westmiller, of the U.S. Coast Guard Detroit, said from 7-11 p.m. Thursday crews from theStation Saginaw River, along with three fire departments, assisted with four rescues.

Westmiller said two of the 12 people rescued fell into the water and were sent to a nearby hospital to be treated for hypothermia.

The Coast Guard advises all ice-sport enthusiasts to check the weather prior to going out on the ice and to recognize that warming temperatures can make for extremely unsafe conditions.

“At this point the ice is extremely unsafe," Westmiller said. "We can’t force people to stay off the ice, but we ask that they be extremely extremely cautious and stay off the ice.”
Westmiller said fire departments from the townships of Bangor, Kawkawlin and Pinconning assisted with the rescues.

New UV Bright Lure Finish

Open water fishing is just around the corner and its time to get ready to go.  Last night I purchased a few new Storm stick baits with the UV Bright finish to add to my collection.  The UV finish is a new concept that will be fun to test out this year.