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!
No comments:
Post a Comment