Houghton Lake Walleye Report

Lake Mitchell Walleye Fishing

2012-05-25T20:53:00.001-04:00

West Shore Walleye

Had a fun morning fishing Lake Mitchell. Mark and I started fishing at 4am on the East shoreline in 5 to 6 FOW. On our first pass we hooked a nice bass and one undersized walleye both on Rapala rap shads. At light the wind picked up out of the West, so we moved over to troll with the wind on the Sough shore. Fishing action was slow along the weed edges and we only hooked one walleye and a few pike. At 9am we moved to the West and fished in 4 to 6 FOW in the weeds and hooked a walleye and a nice sunfish on Rapala Taildancers. Later in the morning we fished in 12 to 14 FOW on the North side of the lake and hooked one undersized walleye on a high line (6 foot down) and a nice bass closer to bottom. Fished the deeper water for 2 hours with limited action. Perch and trout colors were our most productive patterns in shallow water trolled at 1.7 to 2 mph. Overall we hooked four walleyes, lots of bass, sunfish, and a few legal pike. Water temperature was 66 F and should be on the rise this weekend. Good Luck.....

Nice Sunfish on a Taildancer

4:30am Bass East Shore 5 FOW

Early Morning South Shore Under Size Walleye 6 FOW

Lake Mitchell Walleye

2012-05-18T06:16:00.001-04:00

Shallow water trolling path

Mark and I made an early morning trip up to Lake Mitchell to try out the night bite. We got on the lake at 3:00am and setup to troll shallow Our first stop was the South shore in 4 to 6 FOW. The first hour of the morning we trolled stick baits high above the shallows without much luck. On our second pass heading East we changed over to deeper divers and bumped them on along the sand bottom. Our first walleye of the morning came at 4:15am out of 3.5 foot of water on new UV thunderstick. We marked the spot and continued to expand our troll around the area and ended up hooking seven walleyes all 15 to 16 inches. At light the walleye bite ended and the bass bite turned on. We hooked a lot of nice smallmouth and a few pike as we worked our way around the lake looking for new walleye areas. At 10am we headed over to Lake Cadillac to explore and found some nice looking walleye waters on the East side of the lake that we are going to checkout on our next trip. Overall fishing action was very good early in shallow. We hooked nine sunfish while trolling in shallow, so pan fishing on the beds should be good right now. Fishing pressure was concentrated directly in front of the boat launch with most boats fishing in 12 to 14 FOW using slip bobbers.

Good Luck...

Rapala Rap Shad 5 FOW

First fish of the morning.

5am South Shore Smallmouth

Lake Mitchell

2012-05-11T16:19:00.001-04:00

7.5 FOW first walleyes of the day 4:15pm.

Finally made it up to Lake Mitchell to try out the walleye action. We started off slow scouting the lake with the map and structure scan looking for fishing areas. The plan was to map out some shallow areas for night trolling and then visit some of the deeper structure and check for fish with the structure scan. We mapped out our night trolling area on the NW shore in 4 to 8 FOW first. Lots of weeds and open pockets made the location idea for our trolling setup. After studying the shallows we were ready to start fishing some of the deeper structures. At 2:00pm we found some fish hanging a foot off the bottom in 12 FOW on the West side of the lake. The wind had picked up so we anchored on the fish and tried our best to make them bite. We found several spots along the west side of the lake that had fish holding in 10 to 14 FOW but we never hooked anything. At 4pm we were scanning along the South side of the lake trying to get a break from the wind when we marked a pod of bait fish with bigger fish following them. We made a quick map of the area and then setup to troll. On our first run through the area we had a double and hooked to 19 inch walleyes on thundersticks run down to 6 foot. Thinking we had found our limit area we fished the spot and hooked bass, pike, and one undersized walleye. On our last troll over the area Mark hooked a very large pike that ended up stealing our white thunderstick. Ready for a break from the wind we headed into the launch at 7pm and cooked dinner. At 8:30pm the wind died off and we headed West for the night troll. We caught lots pike early and then the action shut down at 10:30pm. Continuing on we kept expanding our trolling area as we learned the shoreline. The best night bite took place between 12am and 1:30am. We hooked seven undersized walleyes and lots of bass in 4 to 7 FOW on the West shore. The best night fishing cranks were black / silver original floating Rapalas and wonder bread colored bombers all back 50 to 60 foot. Overall, we had a great trip and a wonderful day of fishing. Few notables from the trip: we only hooked fish on larger cranks and when we cleaned the walleyes we found the were eating 3 to 4 inch perch. The water was stained making for good shallow water daylight trolling. We didn't have any luck using slow presentations with live bait or cranks on this trip.

Small walleye 5 FOW at 1am.

Lake Mitchell

Good Luck....

Houghton Lake Report

2012-05-04T17:48:00.002-04:00

Mark North Shore Walleye. 7 FOW

South Shore Lunch Grilled Mule Deer

Justin with his first walleye. South Shore 4 FOW

We made a trip up to Houghton Lake on Friday morning to scout out some new walleye fishing areas. We started fishing at 9am on the South shore to see if we could hook a few walleyes before heading around the lake. The South Shore action was slow and we weren't finding any fish in the normal 6 FOW areas. We changed up our setup and ran into the thick weed cover with shallow running cranks. After a lot of line cleaning and some work we hooked two walleyes and a few pike. Overall on both trips to the south shore the walleye have been hanging in the weeds which is not the norm for this time of the year. After lunch we headed across the lake to explore the North Shore. The fishing action didn't get much better, but we did catch fish around weed structures in most areas we focused on. At 6pm the wind picked up and we moved over to try fishing in by Harvey's Marina. When we arrived we found five other boats fishing in close to shore in the weeds. We setup and made a troll along the 9 FOW mark where the weeds were manageable. The weather conditions were better, but we did not hook a fish in the area and didn't see any of the other fishermen do any better.

Overall fishing was slow in the 57 degree water. Our best bite was on black / silver shad raps, x-raps, and TD 7 tail dancers. We didn't hook any fish in open water on this trip. Best action was trolling close or in weed clumps in 4 to 8 FOW. We hooked six keepers, four undersized, and lost a few at the boat. Next Friday we are planning to fish Lake Cadillac.

Good Luck....

Eight Point Lake

2012-05-03T16:05:00.001-04:00

My fishing partner Tracker

Eight Point Lake South Shore

Fished Eight Point Lake Wednesday afternoon. This was the first time I have been on the lake since the DNR put in the new public boat launch and it's a nice one. I spent a lot of time using my side scan reviewing the lake early. I found two areas that where holding fish and looked like my kind of fishing spots. The first area was on a flat on the South East side of the lake in 8 to 11 FOW. I setup trolling rigs to run down to the fish at 7 foot and trolled the flat without any success. After an hour of trolling I setup on the fish and did some rip jigging with gulp and again couldn't buy a bite. Closer to dark I moved up the North shore and fished off of a 5 foot shelf that dropped out into 12 foot. This area had several fish hanging in 8 FOW, but like the last spot I couldn't buy a bite. Back in 2006 we fished Eight Point three times and caught walleye each trip, so I'm hoping that with a little work I can figure out the bite again. Overall, no fish caught, the water temp was 57 F and I was the only boat on the lake last night. The lake is looking good and the DNR walleye stocking should make for some fun walleye fishing.

Good Luck...

Houghton Lake Walleye Opener 2012

2012-04-29T12:15:00.001-04:00

Calm water at 7:00pm

We had a great time fishing Houghton Lake on the walleye opener. The morning was cold and the NE wind made fishing a little challenging. Working with the wind we fished the South shore from the Limber Lost to the Heights targeting 5 to 7 FOW along the weed edges. We started out by trolling a slower presentation at 1.6 to 1.8 mph with TD 5 tail dancers, thunderstick jr, and 3-inch bombers without any luck. On our second run we changed to TD 7 tail dancers and Berkeley flicker shads trolled at 2.0 to 2.3 and hooked four small pike and then a walleye at 11:20am. We hooked our second walleye at around 2pm in 6 FOW South of the Elks Club on a white thunder stick and then the bite stopped.

At 3:00pm we headed to the boat launch to cook lunch and meet up with the rest of the fishermen. The reports were all the same. Cold water, floating weeds, and a slow bite. Out of five boats only two walleyes were hooked and not much else. Our friend Joe who guides for Cal Stier's www.nofishnofee.com had a slow day on the south shore, but did note that they found walleyes in the channels while pan fishing on Friday.

We started our afternoon fishing trip at 4:30pm and continued fishing the South Shore. The wind died off and the water temp held at 48 F the rest of the afternoon but the bite never improved on the South shore. We hooked two walleyes at 7:40pm and that was it. After fishing all day we hooked four walleyes and a lot of small pike. The weather and floating weeds didn't help, but overall it was great to be back on Houghton Lake.

Good Luck...

Afternoon walleyes South Shore 6 FOW

Saginaw Bay 4/13/12

2012-04-13T19:15:00.003-04:00

Mike "Elk Hunter" with the first fish of the day.

It's a great time of the year to get some early walleye fishing in before all of the lakes open up at the end of April. We fished out of Bay City on Friday and had a great time searching for walleye. Started our day fishing near the mouth of the Saginaw River and didn't find any active fish. At noon we headed North of the State Park about 2 miles and trolled in 15 to 18 FOW. The bite was very slow and ended up hooking three females that hadn't spawned out, we released them. Best action was on tail dancers green, red, blue.

3" Magnum Report Detroit River

2012-04-09T09:27:00.003-04:00

Rich with a nice walleye

Over the weekend my uncle came down to try out some Detroit river spring walleye action. We met up after work on Friday and hit the Trenton channel for the afternoon strike and picked up a couple fish, one was in 13 fow on the drop off at north end of humbug island and one was in 9 fow on the glass house drift. We also had a couple fish lost at the side of the boat and a lot of short strikes. Saturday started at the same area and found lots of disappointed fishermen, so we worked our way north to mud island and great lakes steel. Fished in all depths and only got a couple strikes along with everyone else. We didn't see a single fish landed in those areas so we headed up to Bellanger park and finally found some fish. We drifted in 46 fow at the mouth of the Rouge River and picked up 2 nice fish and lost a few as well. All in all we had a great time fishing and I got to show my uncle how we do it Detroit River style. By the way my big fish was 28" and 8lb-12oz. Not bad.

-Rich

Earl with his first walleye of the year

Detroit River Walleye

2012-03-25T21:01:00.001-04:00

Detroit River Walleye hooked on plastic

3" Magnum Report - Detroit River

2012-03-25T21:00:00.001-04:00

We went out to the Trenton channel Saturday for a while and found fishing to be mediocre in the morning with only 1 big male in the box and a few lost fish. Afternoon was super slow with just a few strikes. The water temp was 46 deg in the am and 47 deg in the pm. The weather change, pea soup fog and NE stiff winds that changed to South wind played a big factor in the slow fishing this weekend. I talked to a few fishermen that did catch decent numbers and a lot of guys got skunked.

Sunday morning I went out to Ohio waters in lake Erie between Turtle Island and the Toledo light in 10 FOW and picked up a few fish on yellow and orange blade baits and lost a few as well in the chocolate milk colored water. The water temp was 53 deg and the SW wind made jigging difficult at times but I was catching fish. I did check out the dumping grounds out from Bolles Harbor and found clear water and lots of people caught limits out there. I will give that a shot next weekend.

- Rich

3" Magnum Report - Detroit River

2012-03-22T13:31:00.001-04:00

Well, they went out again this morning and landed 17 Walleyes and lost 35 near Turtle Island. Nice job mark.

-Rich

3" magnum Report - Detroit River

2012-03-22T07:41:00.001-04:00

These fish were caught near Turtle Island in southwest Lake Erie. All males staging near Maumee River for spawning, by the way they did have four people in the boat. I will be heading to this spot on Saturday morning to check out this hot action for myself. Good luck everyone its on!

- Rich

3" magnum Report - Detroit River

2012-03-21T10:43:00.001-04:00

1/4 oz Tube Bait.

This 1/4 oz tube bait caught a limit of walleyes in the Trenton Channel on Sunday.

-Rich

3" Magnum Report - Detroit River

2012-03-21T08:47:00.001-04:00

It's on!
The annual circus we call the spring walleye run in the Trenton Chanel is here. Get your jigs and Wyandotte worms ready and get out there. The water is 43 degrees as of Sunday and getting warmer, the males are in and biting. As far as presentation I've spoke to a lot of anglers and they are biting on a lot of different things; yellow, purple, blue Orange jig heads tipped with Wyandotte worms with or without a minnows and 1/4 oz jig heads with yellow tube baits seem to be the most active presentations. I marked lots of fish over the weekend south of Trenton Edison in all depths of water. Use your extricate motor to keep a vertical jig and bounce it off bottom. There will be a ton of boats congregated in relatively small areas but don't let that stop you from jumping right in the mix, there are certain areas that are usually really active and us locals know exactly where they are so keep in mind that the conventional wisdom of just because there's boats there doesn't mean there's fish there does not apply. They are there, trust me.

I have also heard of lake Erie Ohio waters just off Turtle Island limits being caught on blade baits.

Good luck and happy fishing.

-Rich

Saginaw Bay

2012-03-18T08:47:00.003-04:00

SAGINAW BAY

MARCH 16, 2012

The Hot Hunting Spots Crew hit the Saginaw Bay for some Walleye Action. This year the ice is out early and the fishing action has been heating up to go along with these high tempratures.

We tried several techniques to get fish and found our most effective way was to drive around with the fish finder & side scan looking for fish in 10 - 18 foot of water near the state park area. We did not fish dirty water near the mouth but instead headed out to clear water on the flats.

Once we spotted fish - we used the following SNEAK ATTACK.

We used the wind to move our boat, we slipped our anchor off the bow and we tied a loop for bottom and also a loop 3 foot up the line. ( pulling the anchor only slightly off the bottom to move )

We then used minnows on Jigs to work slowly in the area.

After a few minutes, if we did not get strikes, we would lift the anchor to move quietly.

As the sonar picked up more fish, ( reading off the back of the boat ) we would slide our anchor back down quietly holding the bow.

Prior to going into our Stealth Mode - we tried multiple techniques, including our favorite troll methods. The fish were not responding to those methods:

We spoke with many others at the boat landing who were frustrated they could mark fish but not get them to bite.

All the fish we caught were heavy females - Wow what a fight!

But we needed to really slow down to entice these fish - We also noticed that even drifting, we did not get the same response from the fish. We had to pretty much sit down on the fish before they would respond.

Hope that helps you on your next trip out to the Bay.

Douglas, Dennis, Mark, Nicholas & Chachi

Eight Point Lake

2012-02-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

Budd Lake Fishing Contest 2/19/12

2012-02-19T19:39:00.041-05:00

Dennis & Chachi

The 2012 Frost Bite Open Fishing Tournament had a big turnout and a great day for ice fishing. My nephew Chachi and I got on the lake at 6:45am ready to fish. Our first stop on our way to registration was at Riches sleeper shanty to meet up with Millais and Rich for the tournament. They moved their shanty to the South shore Saturday night after a two day stay on Houghton Lake. The sleeper shanty experience has added another level to ice fishing all together. Fishing started at 8am and we were setup on South shore along with lots of other fishermen. Things went well early and we hooked all of our pan fish by 9 am. Then we worked the rest of the day trying to find a walleye or a pike to complete the stringer. Everyone in our team and as far as I could see fished hard without ever producing a fish. It turned out to be one of those days and we ended up hooking lots of pan fish, but no big fish. At weigh in no walleyes were caught and the winning team of Mark Reinkee and his wife won the tournament with 9 lbs, one pike and a 10 pan fish. Another fun even made possible by Kens Landing and the Harrison Chamber.

Rich and Chaci fishing 12 FOW

Great ice fishing weather

Houghton Lake 2/17/12

2012-02-18T10:01:00.001-05:00

Mark and Tracker waiting for a bite

We fished the West Side of Houghton Lake Friday afternoon from 2 - 7pm. Mark and I headed out 1.6 miles to one of our winter fishing areas in 9 FOW. We setup and found good weeds and saw a few walleyes on the camera early. The fish didn't cooperate at all and we had our fist shut out of the year on HL. The ice conditions were very good with about 10 to 11 inches in most areas.

Holly and Danny

West Side of Houghton Lake

Budd Lake 2/12/12

2012-02-12T21:54:00.001-05:00

Chachi taking a break by the power dock

We spent seven hours today walking Budd Lake marking out fishing spots for Frost Bite Fishing Tournament that will be held next Sunday. Chachi and I checked out a lot of new fishing spots and didn't find many fish. We didn't hook any fish today, but we did find a few new areas that have nice fish structure.

Afternoon setup on the West side

Budd Lake 2/12/12

2012-02-12T21:28:00.002-05:00

Underwater camera clip of a musky found in 15 FOW while scouting for walleye.

3" Magnum Report

2012-02-05T20:36:00.001-05:00

After getting my boat uncovered and ready I headed for the boat launch at lake Erie metro park only to realize that my fuel line was bad so we decided to hit the Gibraltar Marinas. We ended up slaying the jumbo perch, lunker gills and crappies. We caught about 30 perch over 10" and about 50 gills over 8" and about 10 average size crappies over the weekend. It was nice to sit on the dock watching a bobber in February.

- Rich "3-Inch Mag"

Pratt Lake 2/3/12

2012-02-03T20:24:00.003-05:00

Slow bite on Pratt Lake. We made it out on Friday and found lots of fish but not much activity. The blue gills were scattered in 10 to 18 FOW in most areas we looked. Ice conditions are still good with about 8 inches in most areas. If your heading out on the lake make sure you have ice cleats on.

2012 Houghton Lake Ice Fishing Tournament

2012-02-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

2012 Sportsmen for Their Neighbors Ice Fishing Tournament

Brought to you by Central Michigan District Health Department

Saturday March 10th, 2012

South Shore DNR Boat Launch Houghton Lake. M-55 and Townline Rd.

Registration begins at 7:00 AM with fishing starting at 8:00 AM.

Weigh in is at 1:00 PM with prizes being given away at 2:00 PM.

Two-person teams

$15 per person prior to event

$20 per person day of event

Prizes for (legal caught):

u Largest Pike

u Largest Walleye

u Largest stringer of Walleye

u Heaviest mess of pan fish

u Largest Sunfish

u Largest Perch

u Largest Crappie

All fish caught will be donated to local food banks in order to help decrease hunger in Central Michigan. There will also be a canned food drive as well as a wild game drop off to be donated to food banks as well.

Family events will also be going on for those not interested in ice fishing include:

Skating rink, Chili Cook Off, Professional Fisherman appearances, Dietitians

Hotel Rooms at a discount rate through the Beachfront Hotel

www.Beachfronthl.com or call 989-202-4700

(2 queen beds with a beachfront view for $69.99 with a Jacuzzi upgrade for $10 more)

Visit CMDHD.ORG for registration information or contact:

Jake Trombley

(989) 615-3968

TROMBL49@MSU.EDU

A special thanks to our Premier Sponsor:

Lyman’s on the Lake Buy your bait at Lyman’s!

Pratt Lake Fishing Report 1/27/12

2012-01-29T10:32:00.002-05:00

Pratt Lake Gills

The original Friday fishing plan was to head over to Lake Cadillac, but work issues kept us close to home. We made the best of our situation and drove over to Pratt Lake to try our luck. Mark and I started looking for fish on the South East side of the lake at noon and found lots of bass and sunfish. We worked our way around the lake and found bass and pan fish in 10 to 18 FOW in most areas we checked out. We took advantage of the gill fishing and caught a limit while we searched for walleyes. Overall we caught lots of average sized gills and had a busy time with our tip ups unhooking bass and pike. No walleyes hooked on this trip, but we did see two nice ones on the fish camera. The ice conditions were good with seven to eight inches everywhere we fished.

Lake 13 Report: Friend of ours have limited out on gills and big perch on the last four trips out to Lake 13.

Good Luck...

Lake 13 Farwell Michigan

Pratt Lake Ice Fishing Trip 1-27-12.

2012-01-29T08:55:00.000-05:00