The Pike Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas,

And all through the Glass, 

Not a creature was stirring,

Not even a bass.

To Bridge Street in DeWitt

I rode with a clatter,

And cast in a line

To see what was the matter.

Then what to my watering eyes

Should appear,

But a nice, hefty pike

Toward my minnow drew near.

He fought hard,

He fought fast,

But I got my wish,

I reeled in my line and landed the fish!

I put him back in the Glass,

And he swam out of site,

Saying "Merry Pikemas to all,

And to all a good bite!"

Pre-ice bass

Despite some difficult weather conditions, I have had some success fishing in the second half of November at the North Lansing Dam along the Grand River in the Old Town area of Lansing.

Although water temps are probably just a little above freezing, I have still managed to catch a few bass.  My rig for this has been a fairly heavy split shot, running down to a size-4 live bait hook.  My best technique has been lip-hooking a gold shiner and letting it drift in the current naturally.  Although the bass I have caught have not been huge, they fight harder than many fish do this time of the year.

 I have also heard reports of pike being caught in Old Town, but have not recently caught one there myself.  Fishing has been a little hit or miss, but with good bait and consistent tactics, you should have some success at the North Lansing Dam!

The Pike of November Remembered

This weekend I went fishing for pike in the Looking Glass, although by this time in the year, my success with esox luscious (northern pike) starts to fade. 

I started the day fishing all the pools with cover near-by, but did not get so much as a follow, nor did I see any pike. Through the course of the day I did not have any luck, and that lasted until I got to my last spot of the day, under the Bridge Street bridge at DeWitt's Riverside Park.  My spirits were dwindling as I fished this spot for about 20 minutes with nothing happening.  Then, the idea of trying to catch a smallmouth popped into my head.  I tied on a 3 1/2 -inch green pumpkin tube, and started to poke around.  It wasn't long until I had what I first thought was a very nice smallmouth.  After fighting it for about 15 seconds, however, I realized it was my old friend, the northern pike, and a nice, 24-inch specimen at that.

Two things surprised me about this pike:  one was how cold it was when I picked it up, and two, why it had hit a small little tube intended for smallmouth.  It was basically a bonus fish for me, since I thought I wouldn't be catching anything!

Unfortunately, this might have been the last pike I'll catch before hardwater season- and it's time to starting thinking about that!

Snotrockets of October

Snotrockets are not something from your nose, but, actually, the northern pike.  The reason they are called snotrockets is because they are extremely slimy and because they can move as fast as rockets.

This fall, I have been having extremely good luck fishing for northern pike in the Looking Glass, right here in DeWitt.  I am not going to lie- pike fishing here is not like shooting fish in a barrel, but the local fishing has been much better than it has been in recent years.

The trick right now is to move around if you do not see any pike or have any pike hit in the first 30 minutes at a location.  Because water levels are so low, and the water is so clear, I think if you aren't catching pike within the first half hour, then it's time to move on.

Because the river is low this fall, the best fishing spots are places that have access to pools or relatively deep water.  Two of these places are 1) behind the DeWitt Fire and Rescue station at McGuire Park, or 2) in downtown DeWitt at Riverside Park.  Pike numbers are up!  And honestly, the pike seem to be more aggressive, perhaps because of the lower water or mild fall we have been having. 

Bass fishing hasn't been too bad, either, but most of the bass I have been catching are fairly small, and other Looking Glass anglers I chat with say this as well.

My main pike rig this year so far has been very simple- an 8 to 12 inch thin, rubber coated wire leader and a strong wire wide-gapped hook.  I have just been using live suckers this year and liphooking them.  Many of the pike I have caught have been very chunky in the 26" to 30" range, and hopefully, I will be hooking into more before hardwater season starts!

Muskie Charter!

My favorite fish is the northern pike, but this summer, I got to experience one of Michigan's hardest-fighting freshwater fish, the muskie!  We went fishing for muskie on Lake St. Clair with Lakeside Charters out of St. Clair Shores.  Lakeside offers many kinds of charters, but our choice was muskie. The day started off pretty fast.  I was fishing with two friends from DeWitt, their dad and my dad, and one of my friends quickly caught a nice pike.  We soon realized that pike would outnumber all our muskie catches for the day.  Our charter was six hours long, mostly in Canadian waters.  Let's face it, it just seems like bigger fish are in Canada!  After my friend caught the pike, I was up, and I started to land a fish.  It felt huge!  I started to pull it in and it was pulling extremely hard.  Then I heard a pop, and it was off, and left me with a shattered smile of despair.  Over the next half hour, I was feeling a little jealous, as both of my friends had by now landed muskie over 40 inches.  Finally, I landed a muskie, but he was on the small side.

After about an hour, I was able to hook into a big fish and land it.  I was a nice muskie, about 40 inches.  The fight lasted several minutes.

The charter captain said it is not unusual to catch a walleye while someone on the boat is catching a muskie, and sure enough, while my friend was catching a muskie, I landed a nice walleye, who measured out at around 27 inches.  As you can see in the picture, clouds were moving in, and shortly after I caught the walleye, we headed for the shore.

Muskie fishing was very fun, yet very different from what I normally do.  Trolling is a very different technique and I can now say I prefer to set the hook myself, rather than having the boat do it for me. I also like to study underwater geography so I can determine on my own the best places to fish, but the captain had us over fish in short order.  It was cool, too, to catch fish this big literally within sight of downtown Detroit!  I am looking forward to the next time I battle muskie!

Pike Comeback!

This past month has been one of the best times for pike fishing on the Looking Glass river in DeWitt in the last three years.  My friends and I have had amazing success lately, including one special day when I caught a 20 and a 26-incher, and my friends hooked several pike in the mid 30s.  I have to admit I was a little jealous that my friends were catching all these big pike, so I decided I needed to catch a monster of my own, and soon!  My dad and I headed out to our regular pike spot in the DeWitt Riverfront Park where my friend and I had seen a huge pike just days earlier.  The action started within five minutes of our arrival, as I cast a six-inch sucker under a bobber towards a pool. Soon after, the bobber start to move around, and I wondered if the pike was playing with it.  I gave the rod a few quick pulls to see if the bait was making my rod move, or a pike.  Then I saw a huge flash and I knew a pike was on and I set the hook!  As soon as I set the hook, the pike immediately got tangled up in a brush pile.  I let out more line, handed the pole to my dad and waded in.  I got the pike untangled and was able to land him.

I can't claim total credit for landing this pike, since my dad was holding the pole while I was untangling my line.  It was a team effort!  The pike that we landed together measured 37 inches and was my personal best for 2015.

That day, I caught several other pike, one just over 30 and one just under 30. I caught both using the same tactic and the same bait.

Catching all these pike is fun, but it's also a sign that the pike population is increasing, and maybe a sign that other fish populations, like the smallmouth bass, are also increasing in the Glass.  I look forward to more Looking Glass river pike fishing this summer!

Helping Out

This past week, I was fortunate to be able to help out No More Sidelines with a special fishing event.  No More Sidelines is a great group here in mid-Michigan that helps kids with a variety of challenges and disabilities.

Throughout the day, I helped kids by casting, reeling in fish, untangling lines, fixing gear, and overall just helping catch fish.  I thought it was great that so many kids could get out and do some fishing, and I hope they get hooked on it!

Toward the end of the day, I helped a kid catch the biggest fish of the event and win a fishing pole.  The fish was a respectable 18-1/2 bass.  We baited our line, and we cast it into an area where we had seen a big bass.  It wasn't long before we had a hit!  I helped the kid reel in the bass and we grabbed it.  It was great to see another kid get to have so much fun doing something I enjoy doing so much!

I ask everyone to look for volunteer opportunities like No More Sidelines so we can help any kid who wants to get involved with fishing get the chance!

Trout Week!

Currently, as I am writing this, it is Shark Week on TV, but for part of Shark Week, I was in northern Michigan, and it was Trout Week!

One of my favorite summer hangouts is the Oden State Fish Hatchery, along U.S. 31 between Petoskey and Mackinaw City.  We go there every year, and it is always cool to see big trout swimming around in a pond and being able to feed them.  On Tuesday mornings this summer, however, you are allowed to fish in the pond and do catch-and-release, and that was one of my coolest fishing experiences ever.  Recently, the hatchery was given a grant to put in new fishing and lookout piers on their ponds, and they are putting them to good use with a youth fishing event every week.

I attended the event on Tuesday, July 7 and wound up catching around 40 trout in about two hours!  That comes down to a trout about every three minutes!  At the event, there was a ton of kids fishing, but I was having good success.  Within the first five minutes, I caught a nice 17-inch brown that they said might have been the biggest trout someone ever caught out of the pond. 

 

 

I was catching both brown and rainbow trout, mostly from about 7 to 14 inches, although I did catch three that were bigger.  The biggest trout in the pond were in the low 30s, but they were much harder to catch than the littler ones.  A few things that stood out about this pond were that even the little fish were not easy to catch.  Many kids only caught one to three trout. 

 

After fishing for about an hour and a half, I finally spotted a big fish that I thought might take my worm.  I cast it right in front of his face and did my normal fast retrieve and he quickly took action.  He paused and then took the bait and started fighting like crazy!  I battled the trout for a couple of minutes and finally landed him on the pier.  He was about two feet long!

 

 

 

The hook was barbless, and came out easily.  I caught him on a four-inch worm  I had been jerking along, which had been my technique for the whole day.  Just about every summer I write about Oden, but if you can get there on a Tuesday morning for the youth fishing program, it's even better.  The people at Oden are always great.

 

Meanwhile, north of the bridge, I spent some time fishing in the Les Cheneaux Islands along the north shore of Lake Huron.  Last year, I caught some big perch at Hessel and Cedarville, but this year, I was limited to some rock bass.  Down at DeTour Village though, at the eastern end of the UP, the big bass were around!  There were some nice fish and they put up some good fights.

 

 

Northern Michigan is a lot prettier than most places you will find in southern Michigan, and it is also a wonderful place to fish!

 

 



The Longest Day of Fishing 2015

 

 

For years, I have called the Saturday closest to the longest day of the year the "Longest Day of Fishing."  This is a tradition, now, and I try to fish for most of the day.  For the 2015 Longest Day of Fishing, I visited four fishing hot spots in mid Michigan:  Island Park in Grand Ledge;  Central Park in Okemos;  the Grand River at Old Town in Lansing and Sleepy Hollow State Park near Ovid.

 

 

Island Park, Grand Ledge MI, on the Grand River

 

We arrived at Island Park before 7:00 a.m., and within two minutes, on just my second cast, I had my first fish of the day, a nice 14-inch bass.  Bass #1 was caught on a brown 4-inch tube on a 1/4 inch jig head.

 

Now, unfortunately, the bass fishing did not hold up to a bass every two minutes, and it actually slowed down a little bit.  To at least catch a few fish at Island Park, I decided to tie on a smaller pink tube and fish for rock bass around the rip rap.  I was pleasantly surprised by about 12 nice-sized rock bass, and a few bluegills mixed in, too.

 





 After catching the rock bass, I went after bass again.  The fish I caught were all about the same size.  Although I caught some nice smallmouth, I was disappointed with my catch rate, but high water and an incoming cold front caused some of the fish to stop feeding.

Central Park Pond, Meridian Township, Michigan

The next stop on my Longest Day of Fishing journey was the pond at Central Park in Okemos, behind the Meridian Township Hall and the Meridian Historic Village.  This is an area that has served me well for both bass and pike.  The same conditions that were affecting the Grand Ledge fishery were also present at the pond, and while I caught some nice fish, I did not catch the beasts that I usually catch in Okemos.

I managed to catch a few bass on wacky worms, and there were some bass chasing bluegills on their beds.  The bluegill beds were very interesting, so I decided to try and catch a few of the big fish that were swimming around. I caught a few jumbo bluegill, but they were more finicky than you might think.  I had to have my bait in front of them for a long time before they would commit to eating anything.

I was also able to use some bluegill as bait, including one that summoned a nice bass to my hook!

Old Town, Lansing, MI, on the Grand River

That afternoon, I went to the Grand River in the Old Town part of Lansing near the fish ladder.  I caught a number of rock bass, as well as a 14-inch bass there.  The water was very high and was pushing up onto the rocks so the fish were shallow.  The high water flooded the rip rap, which caused the fish to hide in the crevices.

Sleepy Hollow State Park, Ovid, MI

 

 

I finished the day at Sleepy Hollow State Park, with the hopes of catching some catfish as the day was drawing to a close.  I have caught catfish there before in the evening.  Unfortunately, all I caught were some small bluegill.

 

Although the Longest Day of Fishing wasn't my best fishing day of the year, it's a great tradition, and I enjoyed being out on the water in our great state of Michigan

Bass attack!

Lately, I have been doing extremely well fishing for bass, and I believe the secret to all my success is the wacky worm.  During the past month or so, I have been hammering bass using this technique wherever I go.  It has even produced five 18-inchers and many more bass over 15 and 16 inches.  

Now, for those of you who do not know what a wacky rig is, I take a senko worm and hook it through the middle.  This is a little more technical than using just any hook.  You have to use a special wacky hook for increased hook-ups and you can use rubber bands so you don't lose as many worms.   Here is a photo with some examples:

The method is to cast out as far as you can, usually along a weed edge, and let it fall to the bottom. Then you give the rig two to three pops every ten seconds or so and then let it fall back to the bottom. Many of the strikes will occur on the fall;  when you go to do the popping motion, you will hook your fish.  I have also enjoyed success with quick, two-second pauses, and then reeling the rig back. When you use this technique, you want a long, sensitive rod, so you can feel the light bites and keep in touch with the light lure.  

Several times in May, I have caught more than 12 bass in just a couple of hours! I can tell you from experience, the wacky worm works!

The Maple River State Game Area

For several years, people have suggested that I visit the floodings in the Maple River State Game Area to fish for pike, crappie, and maybe even a bowfin.  I finally went there this past Saturday, in an area just to the west of U.S. 127 in southern Gratiot County.  I did catch some small pike, and I suspect there was a bigger pike right nearby, as something was striking at my bait.  I think this fish might have been about 28 inches long.  I was using gold shiners as bait.  

There were mosquitoes everywhere because this is kind of a swampy place.  I scouted this area back in the winter with a friend and we saw a couple of guys spearing bowfin.  A huge pile of decaying bowfin is still there, and was causing the place to smell pretty bad.  The fresh scent of springtime was not in the air!

The water where I fished seemed pretty stagnant and I didn't see any pan fish, which is a little unusual.  I wonder about the extent of the food sources in the floodings as compared to the Maple itself.  If you're a bird watcher, I think this would be a good place to visit, but if you're an angler, there might be better choices along the Maple close by, like the dam in Elsie, where I caught a huge number of rock bass during Memorial Day Weekend in 2014.

The Pike of Spring

The pike in the Looking Glass river in DeWitt are hungry as we head into May.  On May 3, I was surprised to see two pike in the Glass that I was unable to catch the weekend before.  These pike were spoon-fed, and were notorious for nosing up to my bait, but not taking it.  But this weekend, down at the east end of the riverfront park, they hit my bait again and again.  When the action at the east end of the park died down, I went down by the Bridge Street bridge and tossed out an eight-inch sucker, not expecting to catch anything with a bait that size.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the line shooting off the bail of my spinning reel.  I saw the line stop, so I closed the bail and snapped the hook into the pike's snout.  At first, it felt like I was snagged on a log, by then I felt the tell-tale pull of a nice pike.  It was actually a quick fight, as I was trying to make sure the fish did not get tangled up in all the debris around the bridge.  The pike I scooped up was 28 1/2 inches.

Recently, I noticed an increase in the number of pike in the Looking Glass.  It seems like the pike population has recovered from what I think was a die-off in 2012.

Another good spot early this pike season is the Meridian Township park, behind the mall in Okemos.  Just recently, I was able to pull in a 30-incher there as well.

Meanwhile, I did some bass fishing at a friend's pond in DeWitt this weekend, and the bite was on there, too.  May is a good time to catch up with those hungry fish!

Trout 4 -Joseph 0

This winter, I have been visiting my Grandma in Novi every weekend, and, along the way, I have been stopping at the Island Lake State Recreation Area near Brighton for some ice fishing.  A fun thing about the Spring Mill Pond at Island Lake is that it's stocked with brown and rainbow trout, including some of the brood stock from the state hatcheries.  I have seen several trout at Island Lake this winter.  I wish I could say I caught one!

On my first visit to Spring Mill Pond, I had a huge brown on my line that must have been more than 25 inches long and weighed six to eight pounds.  I think this fish might have been from one of the hatcheries.   It was a great fight that lasted for about four minutes, with lots of heart-pounding, drag-peeling runs.  After fighting the fish for a few minutes, I finally had the fish up to the hole, but then he swam back down and coughed out the hook, taking off under the ice.  I was sad this great fish got away, but I enjoyed the fight!

On my most-recent trip, I had large fish on my tip ups three times, but they managed to get loose every time.  After being discouraged three times, I focused on the area where I had been getting action, but I was only catching small bluegill.  Still, bluegill are fun to catch.

Although I haven't landed that big trout, I know I will be back and I'll hopefully get my ice fishing trout of 2015!

The Icefish Cometh

I was finally able to get out on some of our local, mid-Michigan lakes this past weekend.  On Saturday, I went to Lake Lansing and Park Lake with no results.  Undeterred, on Monday, I returned to Park Lake and found myself site fishing for some nice pan fish.  Monday had a tough start on the ice, without bites in my first hour of fishing.  When I moved to shallower water, however, I quickly found myself over fish.

I'd estimate we were fishing in about five feet of water, with green weeds covering the bottom.  I noticed that every few minutes, a different school of blue gill would come in, and every school would have two or three good blue gill or crappie.  For bait, I was using gold and silver tungsten jigs, tipped with one or two lively red maggots.  These fish were very finicky, even the little ones.  The fish were only responding to dead-sticking and very subtle quivers.  Even though most of the fish I saw today were small, I was still able to catch some nice blue gill, crappie and perch.

Small baits were key today, and I wonder if the red maggots might have been working better than the wax worms I used on Saturday.  Out of all the people out on the ice, I was having more success than anyone else today, and I have to say I was the only person using quality bait supplied by my friends at Grand River Bait and Tackle!

A perch for perch

Around DeWitt, there's no safe ice in the first days of 2015, so I headed north in early January to Cadillac, Michigan for an afternoon of ice fishing.  When we arrived in Cadillac, we saw a number of ice shanties out on Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell.   Stopping at the Carl T. Johnson Hunt and Fish Center at Mitchell State Park, I heard that there's great fishing on both lakes.  I didn't bring my ice shanty along, but decided to do some pan fishing.  On Lake Cadillac, the ice was about four or five inches thick, but it was very clear and I could actually see my jig through it.  I was using a custom Custom Jigs and Spins Chekai jig with a fire tiger design, which I tipped with a wax worm.  In short order, I was catching perch.  They were mostly pretty small, but, once I started, I was catching perch every few minutes.

The perch might not have been giants, but they put up great fights on my ultra-light gear.  I was disappointed that I did not have any pike ice fishing gear with me, because a DNR employee I talked to said the action for my favorite fish on Lakes Cadillac and Mitchell has been great.

If you are up in Cadillac, I recommend you stop at the Johnson Hunt and Fish Center.  The people there were very helpful and have good local knowledge.  They also had some great information and displays about pike!