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!