Post by MadWags on Jun 8, 2004 19:54:34 GMT -5
RCL Houghton Lake
Pre-fishing Day One.
I left Harper Woods (a NE suburb of Detroit) at 6:30 am for the approximate three hour drive to Houghton Lake Michigan. That put me at the DNR south access to the lake at 9:30 am. The parking lot was almost full of what I knew to be tournament rigs minus the boats. Launch fee was $4.00 daily or $24.00 for a yearly pass, standard across the state, but no one was on duty to collect the fee and there was not any drop boxes or such.
I parked to remove my travel cover and ready the boat for launch.
I had never fished Houghton Lake and was anxious to get busy finding out what I could over the next two days prior to the tournament.
Armed with only a “Fishing Hot Spots” map I decided to tackle the East Bay area of the lake on the first day. It looked like it had more spots in close proximity to each other and that would make the search easier for me to start. I tried a submerged point on the south side of the bay first using a jigging spoon without success. I proceeded south to an area at the mouth of Spring Brook Creek and trolled crank baits. I was immediately rewarded with several Northern Pike. Something I learned that I would have to get used to the rest of the week. After an hour with no Walleye I moved an area on the north side of the bay and switched over to crawler harnesses with Gulp worms. I have been having success with these on Lake St. Clair so I decided to give it a go. Only minutes after setting two lines I was rewarded with a nice 17” walleye in 14ft of water. One hour later I had a limit in this area, but nothing had any great size to it. I moved deeper in the same area to approximately 16ft of water and caught a really nice 3.5 lb walleye on a chrome and red harness with a Gulp Nightcrawler in Natural color.
As the day wore on it became apparent that this was going to be a good area. I had several waypoints laid out and had developed a trolling pattern that was producing fish on a regular basis. The water was fairly clear so I stuck with the high flash harnesses and caught fish the rest of the day.
The only problem was the size. No other large fish bit and I knew I would need at least a kicker or two to do well.
I decided to call it a day at around 2pm and head for the hotel to get checked in to develop my game plan for the next day.
Pre-fishing Day Two.
As is always my game plan I would be on the water at tournament time to begin to simulate my actual day of competition. I hit the water at 6:30am and headed straight for the area I left off in the day before. This time I put on a Rapala Tail Dancer in Hot Chub color and threw it out while I rigged a few more rods. Before I could get another rod in the water I had boated three walleye in the 17” range. I felt confident having three fish inside of 15 minutes. Within the hour I had a limit and would have culled two fish.
Once again I did not catch any big fish. Also I began to notice that a May Fly hatch had taken place the night before but the fish seemed to be feeding on what I was offering. Satisfied with my progress and with many waypoints set in this area, it was time to begin to explore other areas of the lake in search of more and hopefully better quality fish.
The north side of the lake offered few fish in early afternoon. Several local anglers in the area of the Cut River peeked my interest. I noticed they were casting Rapala minnows. I gave it a go and caught several Largemouth Bass and a few Northern Pike. Further west on the north side of the lake produced more walleye but not in the frequency I had caught in my original spot. Long Point in the mouth of the North Bay gave up some nice size pike on Cranks.
I was beginning to realize that there were fish all over the lake. With the tournament meeting drawing near I decided to call it a day and start the tournament on the north side of East Bay.
As usual the Pre-Tournament meeting was expertly run by Sonny Reynolds of FLW Outdoors, who also handles the Wisconsin Division of the RCL League and is Tournament Director for the RCL Tour.
My partner draw was a good one. Gordie Fiddler fishes the MWT with Joel Otto who I fished with at the RCL Walleye League Championships last year at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. Gordie informed me that the area I was fishing was one of their primary spots in the MWT last year. I felt confident that we could do well with what I had learned and what Gordie knew. We drew boat #31 in the first flight.
Tournament Day
Launch and take-off went off without a hitch. It sure does help to run launch control and weigh-in for that matter, on a VHF radio.
We went straight to my waypoints in 11ft of water, put the lines in the water and started to fish. We put out all the best producing crawler harnesses from my previous two days of fishing. Both of us immediately noticed the HUGE May Fly hatch that had taken place the night before. The water was covered with them.
I took almost an hour before we caught our first walleye. It barely measured at 15-1/4”. This was not starting out like I had planned. Fishing in our area was Gus White, who had won the Detroit River Tournament. I felt good about seeing him in my area as I knew that meant that we had to be on some fish.
By 10am we had 3 small walleye in the live well. Gus and I were trolling side by side at one point, holding a conversation about how slow the bite was. He stated that he was heading east to see if he could locate more fish. I headed south to deeper water where I had boated my 3.5lber two days prior.
We caught another keeper walleye at 10:30 am. With 4 in the live well I told Gordie that if we got our limit by 11am we would move to find a kicker fish to cull out the little one. Gordie had a nice fish on at 10:50am but it came unbuttoned just before the boat. That’s fishing. I started trolling wider and wider circles in my area to hopefully locate these fish that I had been catching. To make a long depressing story short. We never boated another walleye the rest of the day. Oh we caught plenty of Northern Pike and even a Perch, but not the elusive Eye.
We ended up with a small 4 fish weight of 6lb 8oz for a 65th place finish. The bright side of this is that I did move up to 49th place in the points even after two dismal performances. It will certainly take a top 10 finish at Saginaw Bay to make the top 25 cut for the championship. Saginaw Bay is another unfamiliar body of water for me. But even after two disappointing finishes in what should have been good tournaments for me, I have not been beaten mentally. Therefore I must believe I still have a chance.
In retrospect. (2020 hindsight) (Monday morning quarterback)
Gus White had headed east and ran into more fish 500 yards from where we were fishing. He then went to the mouth of the Cut River and boated a 5.5lb walleye kicker to his limit and gave him enough for second place. Congratulations.
I met a lot of great guys and am looking forward to the next Tournament.
Next Tournament Saginaw Bay July 31st.
Pre-fishing Day One.
I left Harper Woods (a NE suburb of Detroit) at 6:30 am for the approximate three hour drive to Houghton Lake Michigan. That put me at the DNR south access to the lake at 9:30 am. The parking lot was almost full of what I knew to be tournament rigs minus the boats. Launch fee was $4.00 daily or $24.00 for a yearly pass, standard across the state, but no one was on duty to collect the fee and there was not any drop boxes or such.
I parked to remove my travel cover and ready the boat for launch.
I had never fished Houghton Lake and was anxious to get busy finding out what I could over the next two days prior to the tournament.
Armed with only a “Fishing Hot Spots” map I decided to tackle the East Bay area of the lake on the first day. It looked like it had more spots in close proximity to each other and that would make the search easier for me to start. I tried a submerged point on the south side of the bay first using a jigging spoon without success. I proceeded south to an area at the mouth of Spring Brook Creek and trolled crank baits. I was immediately rewarded with several Northern Pike. Something I learned that I would have to get used to the rest of the week. After an hour with no Walleye I moved an area on the north side of the bay and switched over to crawler harnesses with Gulp worms. I have been having success with these on Lake St. Clair so I decided to give it a go. Only minutes after setting two lines I was rewarded with a nice 17” walleye in 14ft of water. One hour later I had a limit in this area, but nothing had any great size to it. I moved deeper in the same area to approximately 16ft of water and caught a really nice 3.5 lb walleye on a chrome and red harness with a Gulp Nightcrawler in Natural color.
As the day wore on it became apparent that this was going to be a good area. I had several waypoints laid out and had developed a trolling pattern that was producing fish on a regular basis. The water was fairly clear so I stuck with the high flash harnesses and caught fish the rest of the day.
The only problem was the size. No other large fish bit and I knew I would need at least a kicker or two to do well.
I decided to call it a day at around 2pm and head for the hotel to get checked in to develop my game plan for the next day.
Pre-fishing Day Two.
As is always my game plan I would be on the water at tournament time to begin to simulate my actual day of competition. I hit the water at 6:30am and headed straight for the area I left off in the day before. This time I put on a Rapala Tail Dancer in Hot Chub color and threw it out while I rigged a few more rods. Before I could get another rod in the water I had boated three walleye in the 17” range. I felt confident having three fish inside of 15 minutes. Within the hour I had a limit and would have culled two fish.
Once again I did not catch any big fish. Also I began to notice that a May Fly hatch had taken place the night before but the fish seemed to be feeding on what I was offering. Satisfied with my progress and with many waypoints set in this area, it was time to begin to explore other areas of the lake in search of more and hopefully better quality fish.
The north side of the lake offered few fish in early afternoon. Several local anglers in the area of the Cut River peeked my interest. I noticed they were casting Rapala minnows. I gave it a go and caught several Largemouth Bass and a few Northern Pike. Further west on the north side of the lake produced more walleye but not in the frequency I had caught in my original spot. Long Point in the mouth of the North Bay gave up some nice size pike on Cranks.
I was beginning to realize that there were fish all over the lake. With the tournament meeting drawing near I decided to call it a day and start the tournament on the north side of East Bay.
As usual the Pre-Tournament meeting was expertly run by Sonny Reynolds of FLW Outdoors, who also handles the Wisconsin Division of the RCL League and is Tournament Director for the RCL Tour.
My partner draw was a good one. Gordie Fiddler fishes the MWT with Joel Otto who I fished with at the RCL Walleye League Championships last year at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. Gordie informed me that the area I was fishing was one of their primary spots in the MWT last year. I felt confident that we could do well with what I had learned and what Gordie knew. We drew boat #31 in the first flight.
Tournament Day
Launch and take-off went off without a hitch. It sure does help to run launch control and weigh-in for that matter, on a VHF radio.
We went straight to my waypoints in 11ft of water, put the lines in the water and started to fish. We put out all the best producing crawler harnesses from my previous two days of fishing. Both of us immediately noticed the HUGE May Fly hatch that had taken place the night before. The water was covered with them.
I took almost an hour before we caught our first walleye. It barely measured at 15-1/4”. This was not starting out like I had planned. Fishing in our area was Gus White, who had won the Detroit River Tournament. I felt good about seeing him in my area as I knew that meant that we had to be on some fish.
By 10am we had 3 small walleye in the live well. Gus and I were trolling side by side at one point, holding a conversation about how slow the bite was. He stated that he was heading east to see if he could locate more fish. I headed south to deeper water where I had boated my 3.5lber two days prior.
We caught another keeper walleye at 10:30 am. With 4 in the live well I told Gordie that if we got our limit by 11am we would move to find a kicker fish to cull out the little one. Gordie had a nice fish on at 10:50am but it came unbuttoned just before the boat. That’s fishing. I started trolling wider and wider circles in my area to hopefully locate these fish that I had been catching. To make a long depressing story short. We never boated another walleye the rest of the day. Oh we caught plenty of Northern Pike and even a Perch, but not the elusive Eye.
We ended up with a small 4 fish weight of 6lb 8oz for a 65th place finish. The bright side of this is that I did move up to 49th place in the points even after two dismal performances. It will certainly take a top 10 finish at Saginaw Bay to make the top 25 cut for the championship. Saginaw Bay is another unfamiliar body of water for me. But even after two disappointing finishes in what should have been good tournaments for me, I have not been beaten mentally. Therefore I must believe I still have a chance.
In retrospect. (2020 hindsight) (Monday morning quarterback)
Gus White had headed east and ran into more fish 500 yards from where we were fishing. He then went to the mouth of the Cut River and boated a 5.5lb walleye kicker to his limit and gave him enough for second place. Congratulations.
I met a lot of great guys and am looking forward to the next Tournament.
Next Tournament Saginaw Bay July 31st.
