I’ve never really thought of myself as a bug wuss.  We have plenty of the little buggers running and flying around our neck of the woods, but they’ve never seemed to bother me.  Even when a nasty spider makes his way anywhere close to me, I just handle the situation – no whining, screaming or crying needed.  And though I hate mosquitoes – despise them, actually – since I discovered the ThermaCELL, my hunting, fishing and camping excursions have been much more enjoyable.  I’ve lived in a world of bug bliss, I guess.

But it was a different story in the U.P.

The mosquitoes were a different breed up there; they would blow right through the ThermaCELL barrier, and bite the crap out of you.  And while I still have full confidence in the ThermaCELL’s ability, these particular mosquitoes were convinced that they were going to eat all of us ALIVE; it didn’t matter how well the ThermaCELL barrier was or wasn’t working.

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Some people flock to a warm fireplace when it’s cold outside, while others curl up under the covers and watch a good movie.  And some people tend to hibernate like a bear, and never leave the comforts of home, while unknowingly letting cabin fever set in.

We’re different around here, though – we’re from Michigan, and we’re addicted to being outside, negative nineteen degree temps be damned.

Houghton Lake’s annual Tip-Up Town USA activities kicked off last weekend, and we made the most of it.  We were determined to not only get the kids involved in the outdoor activities, but also work in some fishing on the ice fishing Mecca of Michigan, known locally as Houghton Lake.

The fishing?  Slow.  The experience?  A blast!

We put in five good hours of fishing, with nothing to show for it but some empty snack wrappers, a bucket full of partially-dead minnows, and some minor frostbite on my pinky fingers (it really wasn’t, but it felt like it).

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This past weekend – Labor Day Weekend – was somewhat of an outdoor fest for us; it had everything – fishing, riding quads, disc golf, and kids enjoying the outdoors. And because of that, I’ve decided to write a few posts covering our Labor Day activities.  Read on for the first installment.

As the sun rose on Saturday morning, Jeff and I were headed to Duck Lake.  We wanted to get some late season bass/pike fishing in, and there was no better time to do it then on a chilly and windy holiday weekend morning.  Plus, the somewhat inclement weather would be a perfect test for the StormKloth II fishing jackets we received earlier that week.

The weather was crazy, the jackets performed beyond my expectations, and the fishing ended up being pretty good, too – considering I started out the morning by hooking into a monster – what I’m assuming to be – pike.  We never made eye contact with the fish, but I guarantee you, considering the way it was pulling line into the nasty headwind, that this was no small fish.  And, though I didn’t land it, it still made for a great start to the morning.

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New fishing spots are always difficult to fish, and Houghton Lake was no exception.  Okay, so maybe this was the second time we had fished this particular lake, but, considering the first time only lasted about an hour, and since ice fishing the lake back in February doesn’t count, this still felt like fishing the lake for the first time; it was difficult to say the least.

Early on the fishing was very slow, and picking our way through the multitude of “fishing spots” was a task in itself.  Houghton is approximately 7 ½ miles long and 4 ½ miles wide, so trying to find the “spot” on this gargantuan of a lake was a crap shoot at best – even my pre-fish “scouting” didn’t seem to help.  And with the beautiful sunset that greeted us that morning a thing of the past, frustration was starting to set in.

Houghton is very shallow and has the grand daddy of all weed beds.  I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen a weed bed that dense, that thick, that shallow, or that big; it was quite a monstrosity and definitely threw all of us for a loop.   We tried our luck at fishing the drop-offs on the edge of it, but after they only produced one small pike and one huge lost fish, which we can only dream as to how big it really was, we were seriously thinking of throwing in the towel.

Thankfully we all have cell phones.

After 3 hours of slow, slow, slow fishing, Jeff finally dialed us up on the cell phone and let us in on a little secret he had found.  Apparently, after talking with a local old timer who was fishing on the lake, Jeff, along with his son, Tyler, had found a honey hole for walleye.  And, though it was another family fishing tournament, Jeff was still nice enough to share this information and let us in on the secret.

We sped across the choppy water – I’m still sore from a couple of the “bumps” we hit – and headed for the walleye Holy Grail.  Though Jeff and Tyler were using soft tail jigs, I dug through the tackle box and located the rig I sought:  one of the walleye rigs that we used when we were fishing on Lake Erie.  Now, normally, these rigs call for a real night crawler, but not having any of those in the boat, it was time to get crafty – and that is when I remembered that I had some Gulp brand night crawlers in the tackle box, and it was about time they actually caught something.

With the boat positioned parallel to the “run” we wanted to fish, I dropped the rig over the side of the boat, letting it hit bottom before jigging it up and down in the hopes of a strike; it didn’t take two casts before I had a decent little walleye on board; my first fish of the day.  Sweet!  If at first you don’t succeed, keep trying.

The rest of our first drift produced a fish for my cousin, Randy, but didn’t produce anymore fish for me.  After motoring back to the top of the drift, though, I meticulously jigged the rod up and down – slowly and easily – in the hopes of putting the first keeper of the day in the boat and increasing our odds of winning this “tournament”.

Finally, I felt a nice little tug on the line and set the hook.  It was quite a fight, because, not only did I have to fight the fish and the weeds, but I also had to fight the quick drift of the boat – the winds were horrible out on the water.  After a couple minutes of battle, I brought the 15 ½ inch walleye onto the boat – and, since there was only about 20 minutes left in the tournament, I figured this fish was the one that would take home the prize.

But, I forgot I was fishing against Jeff.

Right on cue, and not 5 minutes after landing my fish, I happen to glance over and notice Jeff’s rod bending like crazy.  I started to wish that he only had weeds, but after watching the 17 ½ inch, 2 ½lb largemouth make it to the net, I knew our chances of victory were over.  Obviously, Jeff was going to take home the money.

The trip was worth every penny we had to pay, though.  For one, it proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks – I caught my first walleye actually using a rig and method that is meant to do so, and Jeff caught his first walleye; it only took him 38 years to do it!

It was a great time after a work-filled week.  And, though I lost another tournament to the fish whisperer himself, I still have another walleye fillet to add to the grill.

Yum!

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After a week of nonstop work, I checked the weather radar Saturday morning, and what I saw didn’t look very promising – a strong line of thunderstorms was making its way towards Michigan.  Being the optimists we all are, though, we headed out in the hopes that they would dissipate before they reached us, or go south and miss us completely.

And thankfully we went, because we only had to endure a little bit of rain – the thunderstorms never did show themselves.

With both boats launched before 6am, and with only about 4 hours sleep the night before, we motored up and headed out in the hopes that the fish would be active ahead of the front that was on the way.  As my cousin, Ron, powered back and settled us into our first fishing location, he kept the motor idling and began to play around with his Lowrance fish finder.  As with everything in my family, this morning was about competition – our second annual Family Fishing Tournament – so, not wanting to waste time or opportunities, I threw the Rattle Trap into the water while he played around with the electronics.

The first cast was a bust, but the second cast was much more productive.  It didn’t take many rotations of the reel before something grabbed the rattle trap and started to put up quite a fight.  The fight was a short one, but, even though the fish was over 2lbs, I was a little disappointed.  Why?  Because the rules of this tournament were clear – only bass and pike were included – so, this walleye that I just put in the boat wasn’t going to count.  It was legal, though, and it would taste dang good, so in the livewell it went.

After a few hours of fishing, we were still without a keeper fish in the boat.  We had landed many fish – pike and bass included – but just not any above the 14 or 24 inch mark needed to keep each variety of fish.

Finally, though, Ron sets the hook on what appears to be a great fish.  We knew that one good keeper fish, especially a pike, could help us and be the break we needed in the tournament.  I feverishly pulled the net out of its compartment, and netted the fish just as it broke free from the Rattle Trap’s grasp.  We had another fish in the boat – the problem we had, though, was that we had landed another keeper walleye.

We were having an unbelievable morning on the water, but, of course, we weren’t catching the right species of fish in order to win the tournament.  That didn’t manage to wipe the smiles off both of our faces, though, as we kept casting in search of a fish that was included in the tournament.  Though we knew we weren’t winning, having fish of such caliber in the livewell was making “losing” that much more bearable.

Unfortunately, the fishing tournament came to an end without Ron or myself landing a keeper bass or pike.  And, because of that, we had to give Jeff and his son, Tyler D., the win because of the two keeper bass they put in the boat.

Ron and I still had a great time, though.  And even if we didn’t win the tournament, we had a great time catching fish, and we managed to take home 4lbs worth of walleye, which will taste amazing.  Also, I managed to end the fishing curse that had been haunting me so far this year.

And I’ve decided I really enjoy catching walleye, even though I’ve only caught two in my life – both on Duck Lake.  One was 7lbs, and 28inches, and the other was 2lb, 19 inch specimen I caught this morning.

And you can bet that walleye will be included in the list of species that count during our next family fishing tournament.

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