First Fish of the Season

On Thursday, my girlfriend and her little sister went out to enjoy some of the first ice fishing this year. We traveled to a little lake north of Calumet. There was good ice and we got set up quickly, shortly after four p.m. Her little sister was set up with a perch rig and we went out to set up a few tip-ups. Not long after, her little sister was letting out whoops and hollars and we looked back to see her pole doubled over the hole. She had hooked something and was very excited. I ran back and helped her to pull a 16" pike through the hole. It was a big fish for her and it was great to see her so excited. We caught another similar sized pike on a tip-up just before we left for the evening. It was a great first day.

We returned the next day but were unsuccessful. There must have been some sort of low pressure moving in because there were no bites at all.

Hopefully we can get out again soon. The ice should be firmed up again with the return of this colder weather.

Enjoy and get out fishing.  

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.

Perch, Perch, Perch 1/22/12

The fishing trip today took place at Lake Bailey, just a few miles west of Copper Harbor. Earlier this week, the word at the bait shop was that a gentlemen had caught a fair amount of very, decent sized perch out at Lake Bailey. Ten plus inches! This was very exciting news since I have never had much luck fishing for perch because they always ended up being tiny.
Upon my arrival, there was evidence around the boat launch of other people who had been here to fish, but nobody appeared to be out on the lake. I followed some old tracks looking for a spot indicating some serious action. I walked to the end of the tracks and found several spots that looked like holes in the ice, so I tried my luck.

Ice Fishing Saturday 1/14/12

On my last post I mentioned that I was going to head north this weekend to check ice conditions and hopefully get out to fish.

Ice Report:  Copper Harbor looked a bit sketchy. It was thin and it still looked like there were a lot of floating ice chunks. Hopefully it will be frozen over soon. Lake Fanny Hooe is frozen solid, with good ice that was several inches thick. Lac LaBelle also has good ice. Bit of a slush layer on top but very solid underneath. The same goes for Gratiot Lake.

That being said, how about the fishing? Fanny Hooe proved to be a bit discouraging, but I was not there terribly long. There weren't any bites, but I wasn't in the best spot either. Lac LaBelle was a bit more exciting. Within about ten minutes of setting up, I had a nice pike on the line. It was a bit small to keep but other than that it was a very nice fish. Sadly though, I must have missed most of the morning action because there wasn't another hit until round lunch time, which turned out to be a tiny perch.

Later that afternoon, my girlfriend and I headed to Gratiot Lake to hopefully have a little more success. She predicted that we would get a walleye that night and that we did! It was the only fish we got, but it was very exhilarating.  Hopefully in the coming weeks, the stories on the ice will be much longer and more exciting!