River Report 3/24/12

On Friday afternoon, I finally got to go out and do a bit of fishing. I checked one of my favored sites and was surprised to find a few people parked nearby. The people there didn't stay long, however, and I ended up having the river to myself.
With the snow melt finally drawing to a close the rivers seem to be slowing down a bit and it seemed like a good time to check for some trout! I began with a fake crawler and had no luck. I then switched to a dead crawler I found nearby, which also resulted in no bites. My next choice of bait was a bit more exhilarating; trying a daredevil spoon, which resulted in a very nice rise from some sort of fish. But being far away kept me from seeing what it was for sure. I tried a few other baits and got a few more rises, but the fish just wouldn't bite!
Point being, there are some fish moving up the rivers, just have to find the right bait for them! Good luck!

Steelhead Flies

I recently found an amazing site while searching the net:

The Caddis Fly

It is an amazing website that is loading with great information about fly fishing in the state of Oregon. They also have lots of great videos for tying flies. Since people are getting back out on the rivers, I figured they might like a good resource for restocking their fly box with some very intriguing Steelhead flies.

Enjoy.

River Report 3/20/12

As of yesterday the rivers in the area were running really fast and high. The radio even reported a flood watch for some areas in the Keweenaw because the water level was getting so high. On Saturday, I checked out the Traverse river and that still had ice on it, however I imagine that to be gone by now. Eagle River on Sunday was was flowing very heavily, pushing a lot of debris out into Superior. Last night, the Tobacco River in Gay was roaring into Lake Superior and it looked a bit too rough to fish. Most of the banks were washed down to the big rocks and there were several trees sitting at the mouth of the river that had been pushed down stream! The power of water is quite impressive!

Stay tuned and enjoy the pics.

Falls at Eagle River

Tree that washed down Tobacco River

High water on the banks of Tobacco

Rivers Are Heating Up!

With all of this nice warm weather, the snow is melting quick and that means that the rivers are starting to flow freely with the spring melt. As the ice melts on the lakes, many fish will begin to make there runs up river or start to spawn and that's a good time to fish.

Fishing The Pier

A couple of gentlemen I ran into the other day said, that the warm weather is making a few fish start to run but its been pretty hit and miss. It will be fun to hit a few streams this week and see if anything is moving yet. Pretty soon there will hopefully be runs of steelhead and smelt!

Stay tuned!

Book of the Week: The Treasury of Angling

I have been reading a great deal of fishing literature lately and thought it would be cool to start a book of the week section that deals with good fishing material. For this week I wanted to tell everyone about the following book.

This is a really amazing book that my grandmother dug out of her house for me. It is full of great pictures, old stories, and lots of fishing lore. There is also a good break down of fish species with some related information on how to catch them. Click here to check out the book on Amazon: The Treasury of Angling

How to Spear Northern Pike

This past year, I have had the opportunity to take up fly fishing and  I have enjoyed it immensely. Now, I want to endeavor on a new style of fishing, spearing. I know its the end of the fishing season for pike and walleye and the ice is starting to melt, but I figured that a how to article on spearing would be kind of neat. If anyone has input or comments, please feel free to leave them.

Although I have yet to try spearing, I've gathered this much on the topic:

1. Park a closed shanty (darkhouse) out on the ice, in roughly 6 - 10 ft of water. Look for a weedy bottom since this is good cover for pike.
2. Acquire a proper fishing spear and tie at least 15 ft of line to the end. 
3. Acquire a few large suckers and a large wooden, fish decoy.
4. Using a line and hook, lower a sucker down into the water and let swim freely. This will help to bring in pike.
5. Using your preferred decoy, lower it down into the water on a separate string, keeping a hold of it in one hand.
6. Swirl it around in the hole to help draw in pike.
7. When a pike does come in that is legal in size, carefully lower the spear into water above the base of the pikes head. Push the spear down hard into the water. 
8. Slowly pull the pike up and remove from spear. 

Here is a really awesome story out of the NY Times about spearing in the Upper Peninsula. Click Here

Fishing Tournament

I received an email last night from Tech's fishing club regarding a fishing tournament in Chassel this Saturday. The information is as follows:

• Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 
• Entry fee of $25 per pair
• Single largest Crappie or Perch and heaviest 15 fish per team
• Teams must be signed up with dues paid by 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon. 

This event is being put on by the owner of the bait shop in Chassel and it sounds like it should be a good time with nice weather. By the sounds of it, there is still a decent amount of ice so, I hope people get out and catch some fish.

Warm, Warm Weather!

As the warm weather starts becoming more prominent it will be time to start dusting of those fly rods if you haven't done any winter fly fishing. Coming up shortly, I believe the 14th or 15th, the fishing season for walleye, and pike ends. We'll have to turn our eyes back to trout and panfish.

Stay tuned for stream reports, as I will hopefully be getting out to do some stream hiking soon, weather and pocketbook permitting. Also, the Fish Species section is about finished, so check that out if there are any fish that you were looking to identify. Also check back as I will be adding a depth charts page for people interested in finding out more about the lakes they like to fish on!.

Enjoy the nice weather!

Michigan Outdoor Magazine & Panfish

One of my good friends recently introduced me to the "Michigan Outdoor News" paper. It is full of wonderful articles relating to fishing, hunting, and anything else that deals with the outdoors. In the latest issue, there is an article (pg 11) that discusses a method for gathering panfish bait. 

Many people know that panfish like wax worms. But what happens when you run out of bait on your trip or you don't really feel like running to town to the store? Trying looking for some dried up goldenrod stalks! I was very surprised to find that the lumpy ball (officially called a "gall") usually contains a little worm very similar to a wax worm in the cold winter months. Simply, make a shallow cut around the ball and then try to pry it open. These worms can make a nice alternative source of bait for those winter fishing trips!

Good Luck!

Click Here: Michigan Outdoor News

Pictures from:
http://archimedesnotebook.blogspot.com/2011/11/goldenrod-galls.html
http://biology.vassar.edu/gallery/goldenrod.html

Pike Eats Baby Duck!

My girlfriend sent me this really crazy YouTube video. Check it out !!

How To Set Up a Tip-Up

I know its getting to late in the season, but I wanted to set up a "How To" for setting up Tip-Ups. They are a great tool for fisherman to use when they want to cover a large area out on the ice. Enjoy.

Although tip-ups have many different shapes and designs, they all follow the same basic principle. There is a support structure that sits over the hole, a reel with line that descends down into the water, and some sort of mechanism for tripping a flag when a fish bites.

When the fish strikes it causes the wheel/spool to spin, which releases the flag causing it to spring into the air...TIP-UP! Setup is quite simple:

1. Drill a hole in the ice where you would like to fish, clear hole.
2. Bring your tip-up, bait, and a depth finder to the hole.
3. The line can be lower to what ever depth you like, but since many fish swim near bottom (pike, walleye) you can clip the depth finder to your hook to sink the line all the way to the bottom very rapidly. 
4. Wind your the wheel until its tight and then give it a few more turns. This brings the depth finder (and your bait) off bottom for fish to see. 
5. At this point you can also attach a mini bobber to your line, to mark the depth. That way you don't have to remeasure each time a fish bites.
6. Wind up the line, take the depth finder off, put your bait on, and drop the line back down. Fold the flag into position and wait for a bite! Good luck!

A Word of Caution.

Hey there, just wanted to caution everyone about going out to ice fish. I've heard recent reports that with all the recent snowfall in the area, it could actually start to weaken the late season ice. Be careful ice fishing but have fun!

Also, I hope to soon have new pictures up for a Emily Lake.

Thanks