Houghton Lake First Trip 5/6/14

 

We made our first trip this season to Houghton Lake on Tuesday (5/5).  The weather conditions have made it impossible to get out on the water and for the first time in 20 years I missed the first two weeks of walleye season all thanks to the cold, wind, and rain.  

 

Fishing Report:  when we arrived at the lake we had a strong East wind which kept us locked into fishing the South Shore from the launch to the West.  We fished from 5pm - 10:15pm in 4 to 8 FOW and hooked six pike and one bass.  The water temp was 51F and the weeds are just starting to get going.  Found lots of minnow in close to shore which is usually a great sign that the walleyes will be close.  The lake is behind and will require some warm days to get the bite back to normal.

 

Good Luck.....

 

Houghton Lake Ice Fishing 1/31/14

Houghton Lake 11 FOW.  Joe's first fish.

 

Houghton Lake walleye bite was hit and miss on Friday.   Got out on the Lake at 7am and setup in 11 FOW on the North West side of the lake.  Holes drilling is taking longer now that the ice is 20 + inches thick.  The bite was dead early, but picked up at 10am when I missed two fish and saw a few on the camera.  At noon the pike bite picked up and we hooked five total with two over 26 inches.   Afternoon was slow with one walleye at 5:30pm.  Overall fishing was slow, but had a great time on the ice. 

 

Good Luck....

Houghton Lake 11 FOW 5:30pm Slick Jig

 

Houghton Lake.

Aqua-Vu Micro AV 2 Review

Aqua-Vu Micro AV 2 made fifteen fishing trips before breaking.  Started fishing with the  AV 2 camera on 12/26 and it broke on my last trip to Houghton Lake on 1/26.  Not good results at all.   The failure was caused by the cable twisting and breaking inside the micro camera.  I really like the small compact design for scouting which is a big plus, but the durability of the cable system makes the system fail.

Overall I do not recommend the AV 2 and when I was out looking for a new camera today the fishing rep at Cabela's kind of told me the same thing when he stated that the Micro AV 2 was not made to take hard use.  I'm not sure why anyone would buy a fish camera other then to fish with it on the ice in the cold and hard conditions of winter.
 

Blue Screen of Death. 

Houghton Lake Ice Fishing 1/26/14

Houghton Lake NW Shore 11 FOW

 

Cold and windy afternoon of fishing on Houghton Lake.  Fished the NW side of Houghton Lake in 11 FOW today.  We moved out further East and found some bigger fish while scouting around.  The bite was ok at best from 1pm till dark.  All fish were hooked on slick jigs and minnows today.  One walleye on a tip up and lots of small pike.

 

Good Luck...

First fish of the year. 

Matt, Chachi, and Mark Frozen Fish

Houghton Lake Fishing Report 1/17/14

 

Ed's first fish of the day.  Houghton Lake 11 FOW

 

 

Fun afternoon of fishing on Houghton Lake today.  We fished the West shore in 11 FOW from 1pm to 6pm.  The bite was good early in the afternoon and slow the rest of the trip.  Jigging with slick jigs and spoons with small minnows got most of the fish today.   The ice conditions are great with 15  inches or better. 

 

Good Luck...

Houghton Lake NW Shore 11 FOW

 

 

Tip Up Walleye HL 11 FOW

Saginaw River Ice Fishing 1/10/14

 

Slick Jig Walleye

 

Fished out of the Independence launch down river of the USS Edson this morning.  Started fishing at 8am in 21 FOW.  I used my Aqua-Vu today and enjoyed watching lots of walleyes swimming around.  Early the bite was hot and anything jigged close to the bottom hooked fish.  Around 11am the action slowed up, so I downsized my setup to a small minnow on a slick jig worked close to the bottom.  This setup worked well until the end of the trip at 3pm.  Today I hooked more fish then I can remember with lots being 12 to 16 inches.  If I was fishing for a limit the trip would have lasted about two hours this morning.  Saw a few big fish on the camera that kept me interested till mid day.  Lots of fishermen out on the river hooking fish.

 

Good Luck...

Afternoon setup

 

Kept a few for dinner



Saginaw River Independence Launch

 

Saginaw River Ice Fishing 1/9/14

Saginaw River catch and release 20 FOW

Saginaw River catch and release

Made it out on the Saginaw River after work today and had a good time.  I setup in 20 FOW and started fishing at 4pm.  Hooked my first fish at quarter after four and the bite went strong till dark.  I landed six fish 15 to 16 inches and lost several.  Minnows on slick jigs and spoons with minnow heads worked great.  The ice conditions are very good and so is the fishing.  Lots of fishermen on the river reporting good catches.    Good Luck....



USS Edson

 

 

Houghton Lake Report 1/5/14:

Fished out of the West Launch to the NW in 12 FOW on Sunday afternoon.  The walleye action was good again with the best bite happening from 4pm to dark. 




Joe's First Houghton Lake Walleye

Houghton Lake Walleye Report 1/3/14

Houghton Lake 10 FOW 2:35pm



West Shore 10 FOW



West Shore 10 FOW

Made it back to Houghton Lake this afternoon and fished out of the West launch again.  I moved to the North West and found a good area in 10 FOW.  The action started at 2pm and ended at 4:30pm.  The walleyes were very active during the day and anything I jigged worked.  If I had any luck I could have limited out.  Watching the action on the camera I missed six or more fish and lost one good one when I dropped it down the hole.  Tip up action still not good but I did get two perch today.  If you are heading out to HL the weeds on the North West side of the lake have been good the last two days.  Overall I hooked four 15 inch walleyes and had four undersized fish in a short very cold fishing day.  Wish the fishing was always this action packed...

Good Luck...


Tip Up Perch 10 FOW West Shore

Houghton Lake Report

Houghton Lake West Shore 1-2-14

Fished the South shore on Wednesday (1-1).  Headed out of the South boat launch and fished West of the Elks in 7 FOW.  Fished from 1pm - 6pm and only hooked one small walleye and a few pike.  The action was slow and the best bite was from 5pm till dark. 

Today I moved to the West shore and fished in 10 FOW straight out of the West launch.   I got out at 1pm and scouted until I found a good weed area.  Started fishing at 3:30pm jigging a slick jig and a Lindy Darter.  Missed a walleye that came in for the dater at twenty after four and then hooked my first walleye on the slick jig at 5:30pm.  Watching the camera and my jigs I noticed that the walleyes came into the darter and if they missed it they hit the slower jigged slick jig tipped with a minnow.  I ended up with four keepers all caught in about 35 minutes.  In my last two trips I haven't had a flag on my tip up which is odd. 

The ice is great with 9 to 12 inches where I have fished.  Snow is deep in spots making quad travel difficult. 

Good Luck...




Houghton Lake West Shore 10 FOW





Houghton Lake 1-1-14



Houghton Lake West Shore 10 FOW



 

Aqua-Vu Micro AV 2

Purchased a new camera to replace the broken down Marcum we have kept running for the last three years. It seem like high end cameras only come with a high price and not durability.  I picked up the Aqua-Vu Micro 2 because I liked the light weight design and figured it would give me less of a work out while scouting holes.  We used the Micro on our trip to Pratt Lake and have made a few minor modifications for the next trip.

First the camera needs more weight to get it to the bottom faster when checking hole.  I added weight by wrapping some pencil lead weight around the back of the camera.  Second addition was marking out depth markers on the cable which I do on every camera.  Added markers at 10, 15, 20, and 25 foot which gives a quick depth indicator while scouting.  Third addition was to add a tether with a quick clip to my Ice Armor coat.  The camera unit is so small I worry about it falling in.  I set the tether up so that the camera fits in my pocket.   

On our first trip the Aqua-Vu Micro worked pretty good.  I'll give it a few more trips out on the lake before I give it a rating.  

Good Luck....

Lead added to camera.

Tape used to mark out depth.

Camera tethered to Ice Armor 

Pratt Lake 12/26/13

 

Catch and Release Walleye East Shore 17 FOW

 

We made our first ice fishing trip of the season to Pratt Lake this afternoon. The ice conditions were very good with 6 to 7 inches, but deep snow and slush made pulling the sled no fun.  We setup at 2pm on the East side of the lake and started looking for fish with the camera.  We found blue gills in 15 to 17 FOW, but could not get them to bite.   The tip up action started at 4pm with a few small pike and a bass.  At 5pm we hooked our first walleye on a slick jig tipped with a wax worm and then lost one at the hole 10 minute later.   Overall we found fish but the bite was slow.

 

Good Luck...



Pratt Lake Slush and Snow

Pratt Lake

Sugar Springs 7/26/13

Sugar Springs Pan Fish 15 to 20 FOW

 

Sugar Springs Launch

 

 

We started the morning at the Saginaw Bay, but when we arrived in Linwood the marina reported 3 to 4 footers at the makers.  Not wanting to give up at 6am we headed North to Gladwin to fish Sugar Springs.  We started out at 8am in the main part of the lake scanning along the weeds and found lots of pan fish suspended in 15 to 20 FOW.  Most of the fish we found were just outside of the weed edges 3 to 6 feet off the bottom.  We used our structure scan and sonar to find the fish and then we would spot lock and hold on them.  The best action was on 2 inch gulp minnows fished on tiny jig heads worked very slowly in the zone.  The nice thing about using gulp is that you don't catch the small fish you normally get dropping a worm down into the school.  Overall we had a great morning and a wonderful lunch.

 

Good Luck... 

Saginaw Bay 7/14/13

 



Saginaw Bay trip with Mark, Doug, and Ray.

Great time on the Saginaw Bay.  We fished out of Linwood on Sunday morning and were one fish short of a four man limit.  We started out fishing in 16 FOW and found fish from the bottom up to 7 foot below the surface.  The hot bite was hot from 8am to noon. We caught lots of fish on the scatter rap minnow hooked up with a small diver trolled 20 foot off the board and spinners / spoon rigs. Overall the fishing was great.  We lost seven fish, hooked a few cats and small walleyes and ended the trip with 19 fish in the box. 

Good luck. 
 

Scatter Rap Minnow Walleye

Nice fish.




Mapping Fun

Houghton Lake

Houghton Lake 11 FOW

Slip bobber blue gill



  

Walleye weeds 11 FOW

Houghton Lake morning trip to the north shore weeds.  Fished NW of the middle grounds around the deeper exposed weeds Friday morning.  Used the electric motor and the spot lock function to hold outside of the weeds while fishing two slip bobber rigs and a jig.  Caught half of my fish on slip bobbers and a leech which is lots of fun and easy fishing.  Also did well jigging through and around the weeds with a weed less setup tipped with a gulp minnow.   Found a few blue gills in the weeds and well be back to find more next week.   At the launch I talked to a fishermen from Shepard that had done well on big blue gills and a few walleyes on the north shore.

Good Luck...

12:30 pm walleye 11 FOW

 



Houghton Lake 7/6/13

Houghton Lake 11 FOW in the weeds.

Houghton Lake 7/6/13:  The busy holiday weekend created lots of chopped floating weeds which made trolling impossible.  We changed up our fishing plan and fished the South Shore from Lymans East in 10 to 13 FOW in the weeds.  We hooked the most fish on weed less leach rigs pulled close to the bottom.  Hooked three keeper walleyes and two small fish on Saturday evening.
We took the kids to the UP before the holiday for a long weekend of  camping and walleye fishing.  The UP has wonderful lakes that produce great fishing for Pike and walleye.  We camped at the South Manistique rustic campground and fished Big and Little Manistique Lakes and them moved to Autrain Lake Campground on Sunday to fish Autrian Lake.

Big Manistique Lake 6/28/13: We had two boats in our party fishing all day on Friday and we never hooked a walleye.  We looked deep, shallow and everywhere in between and couldn't make contact with the walleyes.  The perch fishermen were doing ok on the West end of the lake fishing in 12 to 15 FOW.



South Manistique Lake 13 FOW



Nicks first fish









Autrain Lake Walleye for Dinner



South Manistique Lake

South Manistique Lake 6/29/13: Changed lakes after getting shutout on Friday.  We found good fishing action on the West shore in Wolf Bay South. We hooked fish jigging early then switched to trolling in the afternoon.  Trolled in 10 to 14 FOW running crank baits over the weeds.  Hooked 12 keeper walleyes and lots of pike and bass.

Autrain Lake 7/1/13: The Mayfly hatch was in full swing when we hit the water on Sunday afternoon.  We drifted the West shore to the South and caught a few nice pike.  At 7pm we moved to the north and trolled from the river to the beach in 9 to 12 FOW and hooked 6 walleyes.  The best bite was on Rapala Scatter Rap Minnow any color. 










Breakfast at South Manistique Campground

Good Luck...