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...


Houghton Lake Fishing Report 6/21/13

Beautiful Houghton Lake

Fished Houghton Lake from 7pm - 11pm on Friday.  The SW wind limited our fishing areas and kept us on the south shore.  We started out fishing in front of the Limberlost and trolled to the East in 8 to 12 FOW.  The action was ok at best and we netted lots of pike and a few small walleye.  At dark we moved to the Heights shoreline and fished in 8 to 10 FOW just outside of the weeds and hooked three keepers and lots of 14 inch fish.  The night bite was very good and we found fish from the bottom up to 3 foot below the surface. 

 

Good Luck.... 

Joe and Mark with another small walleye

Keeper off of the bottom

 

Houghton Lake 6/14 / Coldwater Lake 6/15



Houghton Lake West Shore



Houghton Lake



Coldwater Lake Fishing trip with all the kids

 

Houghton Lake Friday 6/14:  Fishing was slow at best.  Started out fishing in 10 to 13 FOW on the North shore and hooked two undersized walleyes while drifting.  At 8pm we moved to the West shore and fished in 8 to 10 FOW and didn't hook a fish.  We gave up on drifting and trolled at dark and caught and released one legal walleye.

Coldwater Lake Saturday 6/15:  Saturday afternoon we headed over to Isabella County to try out Coldwater Lake.  This was our fist time on the lake so we spent most of the evening scouting around.  We did not find any fish activity in the 20 to 40 foot depth which make up most of the lake.  Close to dark we fished the narrow strips of shallow water near the boat launch and hooked five undersized walleyes and lots of bass.  Overall the lake is very nice and appears to have a good walleye population.

Good Luck...







Coldwater Lake

Houghton Lake 6/7/13

Trolling the North Shore with the Minn Kota Terrova  

Rapala Scatter Rap 10 FOW

North Shore Walleye

 

 

We launched out the North boat launch at 5am this morning hoping to get a few hours of fishing in before the wind picked up.  Our first trolling areas was in 8 FOW along the shoreline heading out to the East Bay.  The area was missing all of the weed cover that normally holds a few walleyes, so we didn't spend a lot of time searching the area.  At 6:30am we moved out into 10 to 13 FOW and marked fish suspended at 8 foot.  We setup to troll and hooked seven walleyes by 9am.  All of the fish were caught on the new Rapala Scatter Rap minnow bait trolled at 2 mph.  

 

Todays trip we found the fish were hanging in 10 to 13 FOW suspended over the weeds.  We are finding that the weed areas have changed, some are gone and areas we could never troll have thinned out.  These weed cover changes will make for some new fishing opportunities and will shutdown some of our old favorite shallow water spots.   Water temp on the North Shore this morning was a cool 61F today.