Fishing Michigan

Took a little while to get this entry ready, had to do a short version for the paper.  Will have a few more pictures in the blog to give a better idea of what was going on last Saturday out on the lake.  I was with a guide, but it wasnt a guided trip if that makes sense!  Steve Webb is one of the many guys who I fish the winter Ice Team tournament series with,  and he had an off day.  Steve loves to troll, gets him ready for the summer tournaments and allows some time for experimentation before it counts for money.

We got our bait over at Matthews in the morning and got a little report on what the action was like out on the lake.  We started trolling just passed Luna Pier and made our runs North and South in waters between 16 and 20 ft deep.  Steve’s buddy Joe made the trip with us and we had six lines out from the boat.  Here’s a quick pic of the inline planer boards that Webb and I both use when trolling.  You cannot see it, but there is a rod set up with a heavy bottom bouncer right off the side of the boat. between the two board rods.  We ran two sets on each side of the boat, and a bottom bouncer rod on each side, too.  Its a good method for keep all the lines from getting crossed up, as well as keeping an eye on all three at the same time.

The first fish was mine (this did not make the paper) on one of the bottom bouncer rods.  Bringing it up, we saw what was probably a 24″ walleye, that must have been dead for several weeks, perhaps as far back as ice out.  A quick shake of the rod and it fell off the hooks of the crawler harness and sank back down to the bottom.

Remember that I make my harnesses 10 ft or longer,  because the first few (phantom) bites that I had were actually clumps of zebra muscles.  To remedy this, I still let the 4 oz bottom bouncers down to the bottom, but at the end I cranked the reel up twice, just to get it a bit further off the bottom so the rig wasn’t dragging.  This adjustment resulted in several fish being taken on the bb set ups.

We switched out all the rods to crawler harnesses eventually because they were producing better than the jigs and crankbaits.  The nicest fish to come off the boards was this big 6 lb male, caught by Joe.

The fishing was hard only in the fact that we had to avoid so many boats out on the lake that day.  There was a tournament that launched out of the Detroit River, and it seems like none of the boats stayed in the river at all.  We had the tourney anglers looking at us with binoculars to see what we were doing right.  Then we had a few locals almost turning into us to follow our passes.

Webb kept us on track with his Lowrance fishfinder/GPS mapping system.  For giggles, I did the same thing with my Garmin handheld unit.  Its a good option for those with a fish finder already in the boat,  and not wanting to add any more hardware to the boat.  A great option for adding an additional fish finder to the boat, is to rig a puck transducer to the bottom of your electric trolling motor, in front of the propeller blades.  Vexilar makes the flasher units  and are easy to rig yourself.

All in all it was a good day, each of us getting a Michigan limit of five fish.  These five totaled over 25 lbs.  The other two guys probably took come home close to 20 lbs each themselves.

If you havent been yet, get your boats ready and tested.  Call up the bait shops to see where the bite is happening and GO!!!  If you dont have a boat, take one of the many charters available in the Monroe area or give Webb a shout at Trophy Charters  and you can check on rates.  Speically if you are thinking of buying a Lund of your own,  its a nice boat to fish out of.

Ever get that feeling like its Christmas morning,  when you just know that there is something going to be delivered in the mail that day?  That was Monday around here,  only question would it be an early afternoon delivery, or would it take all day to get here?  It was the early afternoon variety,  and I couldn’t wait to get that duct tape off the ends of the long white tube.

The rods from St Croix were here,  two 8′ Premier glass trolling rods and a 6′9″ Medium Light Avid casting rod.  I choose these carefully to match up with the right applications.  Will any rod get the job done in a pinch, answer is probably.  Will these rods perform exactly the way I want, to get that optimum feel, absolutely.

I picked the glass rods out to run my inline boards,  these may be a bit stiffer to some anglers who target walleye.  They are rated Medium Moderate action and will handle lines from 10 to 20 lb test.  Some believe they need a really soft rod for pickerel fishing to absorb the strike.  My philosophy is that the boards will do that in the first place, on the strike the boards slide back.  That little extra bit of stiffness, coupled with the glass tech that goes into them, just handles the constant stress that the boards cause better.

The 6′9″ Avid Medium Light casting rod, actually says “dropshot” on the blank.  It was designed for a method of fishing for bass, that until recently was illegal under Michigan regulations.  Because the walleye tour that my partner and I fish has included Houghton Lake this year,  I needed to expand my rod inventory just a bit to be able to adapt to the situations that can come up on that shallow inland lake.

What does this have to do with shopping in Toledo?  I had to put some new reels on them of course.  The original plan was to get a pair of linecounter reels  to match up with the glass rods.  I will drop in a shop or sporting goods store from time to time just to see what they have in stock,  but when I go shopping for something specific  there is a little planning involved.

I always call ahead, to make sure they have the item in stock, and to check with the store if they will allow me to bring the rods in, as well.  Why bring the rods in?  Because I want to check the balance of the rod and reel together, to get a feel for the weight.  I could have gone to a place practically in my own backyard, but what fun is that.  Besides with your better linecounters, the price is the same wherever you go and after a couple of times  you know the place and speel by heart.

I wanted to see a pair of Daiwa SG 27 LCA’s, without the walleye handle.  I might want to double this rod and reel combo some day for salmon fishing, and cranking handle is best suited for it.  So I called a place in Taylor, all they had was the walleye handle model, then called another downriver location I haven’t been too in a very long time, all they had were the 17 sized models.  So I called down to this place in Toledo.  Just a straight shot down Lewis Avenue and they had them in stock, even said bring the rods in, no problem.

I walked in and started looking around.  It was a small area to browse through, and the kid working there was quick to ask if I needed any help.  I told him I was just looking the place over before I picked up some linecounters that I had called about.  He remembered the call, and had them sitting out when I got to the counter.  My mistake was that I kept looking at other reels.  Found another reel that would be perfect for the Avid rod, wouldn’t you know it,  it was on SALE.  Normally I would have looked at the line after that, but knew I had some at home in the shop, and thought I better get while the “getting was good”!

I knew I had spent a little more than I had planned, but I could always tell “Betty”,  “look honey, I saved us 60 bucks because of the sale”.  I always wanted to turn that around to the other foot!!!!!  Bad news is that I think I have to go shopping this weekend,  and it won’t be for more fishing gear.