Whopper in the Summer

I haven't posted too much about my fishing in the summer of 2016.  I notice that some of the places I blog about start to see a lot of pressure once I've posted about them, and I have seen a lot of people harvesting nice pike from the Looking Glass that take years to grow.  I get worried, too, that anglers fishing in places I blog about don't do a good job of cleaning up after themselves, and that people will think that it's me making  mess. It's not.  For that matter, behave when you are out.  I don't want people thinking some kid acting like a jerk is the guy with the blog.

I continue to have fun fishing in northern Michigan.  I attend a camp on natural resources north of Alpena in August, and always stop by the Thunder Bay River for some bass fishing;

Meanwhile, fishing along the Looking Glass is good.  Recently I caught two bass and three pike using a live target frog popper and a Heddon One knocker.  I have also had great success with a Heddon Super Spook Junior with a white body and a chartreuse head.  Black and blue hack attack jigs with a pacca chunk as a trailer are effective, too.

Follow me on Fishbrain as jperry2979!

Up North Success

Last week, on our annual trip to the Crooked River Lodge on the Crooked River near Alanson, Michigan, I tried my luck fishing from the dock behind the Lodge, again.  I did not have high hopes, as we have been coming to the Lodge for years, and I have never caught anything larger than a four-inch sunfish from the dock.  But I was pleasantly surprised this trip by abundant pike, bass and walleye.

My first encounter with a sizable fish Up North happened Sunday night, when I was fishing a chartreuse Lucky Craft jerk bait in the stained waters of the Crooked River.  This fish happened to be a legal northern pike, which surprise me quite a lot.

The next morning, I enjoyed more success from behind our hotel by one of the nicest walleyes I have ever caught and in one of the most surprising places.  At first I thought the fish was another pike, but I was surprised to see it was a walleye that had taken my jerk bait.

Throughout the rest of my time at the Lodge, I caught many pike and a nice northern Michigan bass.

I went to the Oden State Fish Hatchery a couple of times;  it's one of my favorite places to visit in all of Michigan.  Kids can fish on Tuesday and Saturday mornings in the big pond behind the hatchery visitor center, and it is a great way to get little kids started on fishing.  I'm a little old to participate now, but I helped kids fish. Teaching kids to fish is very enjoyable and I look forward to helping out again!

The Longest Day of Fishing, 2016

The time of year has finally come around when my dad and I spend the whole day fishing at various places around DeWitt on the Saturday closest to the longest day of the year, an annual event that we call The Longest Day of Fishing.

On Saturday, June 18, we started off our morning around 7:00 by fishing one of my favorite smallmouth fishing waters, the Grand River in Grand Ledge at Island Park.  The smallmouth fishing that day was pretty decent, but not great.  The tactic I used for the day was a small, 3 1/2 inch black tube on an 1/8th of an ounce jig head. 

The day started off kind of slow, with lots of small fish under 10 inches, but it was saved five minutes before we were going to leave by a nice, 17-inch smallmouth that I fought. for over a minute.  The smallmouth that I caught, was the biggest I have caught out of the Grand at Island Park so far, and it was a great fight with many jumps and long, drag-peeling runs.  I was proud to land such a cool fish after such a long fight in a fairly small river!

Armed with gold shiners from Grand River Bait and Tackle, our next stop was the Looking Glass River in DeWitt.  A lot of years on the Longest Day of Fishing, the Looking Glass is still flooded somewhat and not real fishable.  This year, I was in luck! 

I was excited for this part of my day, because just two days before, I had seen many pike in the river, and just that morning, friends were texting me about where I could find big pike in DeWitt's Riverside Park.  I was a little worried when we first arrived, because we only saw one pike, and I wondered where they'd all gone.  After we identified the one pike, I went in with a bobber and minnow rig, and quickly caught him.

This was a nice pike, about 32 inches long.  After this, the number of pike sitings started to increase, both at Riverside Park, and down the road at McGuire Park.  But as the day grew warmer, the fishing started to deteriorate. 

Later in the day, I visited Hawk Island Park in Lansing, where the week before, I had been catching catfish.  This is a photo from one of those trips.  Unfortunately, I was shut out during this trip.

We finished up the day fishing at Motz Park in northern Clinton County.  Although I did not catch any giants out there, I had fun closing the day by catching a bunch of blue gill on light tackle.  I would recommend Motz Park as a place to bring little kids who are fishing for the first time, as they'll catch a fish with almost every cast.

The day ended under the moonlight when the park closed at 9:30, making for a great Longest Day of Fishing!

Mid Michigan Bass Fishing





This weekend, I attended the Meridian Township Fishing Derby.  Last year I attended this event, and I won the category for the biggest fish, and I was hopeful for the same result this year.  I have fished this pond, at the Meridian Historic Village, a lot during the last few summers, so I had a good idea of where the fish could be found and what they were going to bite.  I was also hopeful because two days before, on Thursday, I had seen a man named Kelly stocking the pond with pike and bass that he had caught.  I thanked him for doing that! 

 

Fishing, unfortunately, was a little slow during the tournament.  Younger kids were catching some blue gill, but the bass were very elusive that day.  I did, however, manage to catch a 16.5 inch bass, which turned out to be the biggest fish caught during the day.  I caught this bass using one of my favorite approaches on this pond, which is fishing one of the many weed edges with a shiner below a bobber.  

 

 



 

 

I would like to do a shout out, and thank the gentleman named Kelly for stocking the pond and making it a great resource for kids who want to fish, and everyone else who worked hard and donated equipment to make the event a fun first day of summer vacation.  I was also pleased to talk with Mike Devlin, with the Meridian Township Recreation Department, and Mark Stephens, from Project F.I.S.H. at MSU.  These gentleman are real resources for young people like me, and they deserve our appreciation!

 

Nothing to Carp About

Several times over the Memorial Day weekend, I have hauled in some nice-sized carp: two here in the DeWitt area and one over in the Macatawa Channel at Holland State Park on  Lake Michigan. 

 

I saw several carp jumping at the Macatawa Channel, but I had been mostly catching white perch and I was surprised when my pole doubled over.  The carp, which is pictured below, probably weighed about 10 pounds, and I caught it on dropper rig with a base three-ounce sinker.  I did not have my net with me, and as I was fishing from the pier, and it would have been difficult to land the fish, given its size, so I released it in the water.  I was the only person on the pier that caught a carp while I was there, although other people were catching catfish and sheepshead.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back in DeWitt, I was catching carp locally on gulp worms.  These carp put up a really good fight!  I'm still a pike fisherman and a bass fisherman first and foremost, but I really enjoyed the battles I had with these carp!

 



Whopper in the Pond!



May has been more successful than usual for me in the Lansing area when it comes to fishing for bass.  Many of the bass were big, they were on their beds and they put up good fights.

 

 



 

 

Most of my fishing in May was done at the Meridian Township park over behind the Meridian Mall.  Generally, I found that the fishing was better from the shore than from the fishing dock.  I have been catching the majority of my bass on wacky-rigged senkos in natural colors.

 

 

Some of the bass in the pond are real brutes!  I am a little concerned that the pond is getting a lot of pressure, maybe because I talk about it too much on this blog, and that the fishing experience is being diminished, however.  I'll be looking for new fishing locations around mid-Michigan in the summer!

Catch and Immediate Release

 

I have been enjoying early season bass fishing in mid-Michigan.  In Michigan, from now until May 28, bass fishing is catch and immediate release only. To me, this means as soon as you catch a bass, you shouldn't diddle around measuring it or weighing it, or doing more than a quick photo.  Instead, put that bass back in the water!

 

 

So far this spring, I have been enjoying fishing for bass at several of our mid-Michigan ponds and lakes.  The place where I have found the most luck lately is at Hawk Island Park on the south side of Lansing.  The technique that I have found most productive at this lake, even with the cold water, is a reaction bait know as the square-bill crank bait.  This may seem weird to some people, as typically, ice-out bass are caught on finesse baits, but I have found if you work a square-bill slow enough, it can be just as, if not more productive, than finesse baits.  With the water being so clear and cold at ice-out, you want to keep your presentation natural and on the smaller side.

 

Again, the fish this time of year are still not extremely active, so you do not want to use a bait that requires too much energy for them to chase down, or that could even spook them.

 

 

 One more tip for people heading out this time of year is to fish shallow, because the bass are trying to warm up, and they are also getting ready to spawn.

 

 

Although there might still be cold temperatures out there, and while conditions can be challenging, spring bass fishing is still a lot more fun than staying at home!

Joseph on Thin Ice

 

 

A friend of mine suggested that people who go ice fishing now, in the last days of February around Lansing, should wear a life preserver.  With that in mind, I will share information about what may have been my last ice fishing trip of the year, at least near DeWitt, which was to Park Lake near Bath.

 

 

 

 

On my previous 2016 trip to Park Lake, I only caught some small blue gills.  In mid-February, I went back to Park Lake and wound up over a number of larger fish.  The fish we were seeing were all at around 8 to 10 feet deep toward the western end of the lake, and they seemed to be very active.  One thing I did notice is that usually crappie suspend over the gills, but this time, the blue gills were suspended over the crappie.  The crappie were more bottom-oriented.  Although the fish appeared active, any time I dropped down a spoon, the fish would scatter, so I downsized my presentation to a small tungsten jig tipped with three red spikes.  Because the fish were so active, I would jig to call them in, and then pull the jig about a foot over them and wait for them to race up and bite. 

 

 

 

Throughout the day, I caught a number hand-sized gills and a nice, 11-inch crappie. 

 

 

 

It's possible there still might be ice fishing locally this winter, but time is starting to run out.  I often do a northern Michigan ice fishing trip in March, but we'll see if it's safe, or if I'd be on thin ice!

 



Joseph on Ice

This weekend was the first weekend I was able to get out on the ice.  In this post, I will talk about fishing in two local lakes here in Clinton County.  Although people may be wondering if the ice is safe, ice thickness at Park Lake and Muskrat Lake is about six inches.

I started off my weekend fishing at Park Lake in Bath.  This was also the first weekend I got to use my Lowrance Elite 4X Chirp ice fishing machine.  We started our day by drilling holes in 8 to 20 feet of water.  The only fish we were marking were in 17 feet of water, so that is where we set up and camped out for most of the day.  On the fish finder, I could see a huge school of fish, but unfortunately, they only turned out to be three-to-five inch perch and blue gills.  My technique for that day was a small tungsten jig tipped with one red spike.  Although the fish were small, they were quite finicky, which I think is due to the colder weather we have had recently.  The first day I got out, I was only able to catch three small fish, but it was worth it to be out on the ice the first time this year and to break in my new fish finder.



 

 On the second day of my weekend, I was able to visit Muskrat Lake with some friends.  Most of the lake is shallow, and it can be described as bath tub-shaped, with very little in the way of drop off points;  for that reason, I set up shallow on a mud flat.  I managed to land several keeper Michigan gills.  One thing I have noticed is that the fish are very picky, and that they want a stationary presentation, or a very slight jigging movement.  Again, I used red spikes that I nipped very slightly on the end.

 

 

 

I'll look forward to seeing everyone out on the ice this winter!

 



 







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