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.

It was rough.

And then, if you managed to keep the mosquitoes at bay, the black flies would start biting.  And though they’re a tiny, little bug, it still hurt like hell.  The black flies around our house rarely bite, but these flies were chomping on flesh any chance they got.  Thankfully, the bug repellant we had kept them at bay most of the time, but it didn’t keep them from latching on to any flesh we forgot to cover.  Honestly, at times, it was pretty miserable.

Of course, black flies are nothing compared to deer flies.  I’ve experienced these nasty flies before, but the sheer number of deer flies in the area we stayed in was unbelievable.  As we made our way into the Seney National Wildlife Refuge to chase after some pike, they were actually swarming the mirrors of our Dodge Nitro.  It took me two tries – once to test how the flies would react to my presence and another to cover myself with insect repellant – before the nasty bastards would not swarm me like I was a pile of cow manure.  Thankfully, though, the insect repellant kept them away long enough for Abby, as well as  the wife and I, to enjoy the refuge a little bit before they managed to carry us away to their lair.

The amazing thing about the U.P., though, is that it’s so gorgeous you forget about all the negative aspects of its beauty.  No fly, nor mosquito, nor sand in places we shouldn’t mention, could keep us some visiting its awesome waterfalls, perfect beaches, or fishing holes.

It was an amazing trip.

Our legs and arms are covered in bites, but the memories from the trip will stay with us forever – if only because, at times, they were so painful.

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).

The barometer was steady, and the fishing was slow to say the least, but we were not deterred.  We stuck at it for quite awhile, partially because we didn’t want to give up after putting in all the time and effort to haul quads, load quads, and tow quads, and partially because, since it was SO COLD, we didn’t want to leave the warmth of our shanties – especially the Mr. Buddy heaters – and head back out into the cold in order to load up.

Finally, though, we did break up our temporary little ice town – three shanties, five quads, and a snowmobile – and headed in to load up and start back for some lunch.

And what did we do, now that we were in the confines of a heated house with full stomachs?  We did what any Michigander would do – well any Michiganders like us, anyway.  We bundled up all the kids – complete with the thirty layers (or so, hehe) they would need in order to stay warm in the single digit temps – and headed back into town to partake in the rest of the Tip-Up Town festivities – especially since most of them were geared toward the young ‘uns.

Some would point fingers at us, and say it’s child cruelty – that we shouldn’t have kids outside in such cold temperatures – but if those same people could have seen the smiles of pure joy on the kid’s faces after they went down the ice slide, or watched them as they enjoyed a few carnival rides in the single digit temps, I think they’d change their mind.

The weekend was proof that there isn’t a good excuse for not taking kids outside; no excuse for not letting kids – or even yourself for that matter – enjoy some time spent outdoors.

With a little ingenuity, and some preparation, patience, and perserverance, the outdoors can still be fun – even when the temps dip below zero.

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.

After that close encounter, though, the fishing became somewhat slow.  Our family fishing tournament didn’t end until 10 am, though, so Jeff and I kept pressing on, hoping that, with patience, we’d pull off the win.

9:30 came along, and we still had not managed to put a keeper fish in the boat.  And considering the rules involved how many keeper fish you had in the boat, as well as how big they were in case of a tie – and considering that we knew our two cousins already had a keeper in the livewell – it was time for one of us to step up.

Of course, the person to step up was not me.

In the last half hour, Jeff managed to land 7 fish.  Most of them were small, but eventually Jeff did pull one nice fish over the side of the boat.  After initially looking the fish over, we were pretty excited, and thought the first fish was going in the livewell; upon further inspection, however, he was a 1/4 inch shy.

Talk about an emotional roller coaster.

Not to be deterred, though, we kept at it, and with about 5 minutes left in the tournament, Jeff hooks into what appears to be a decent fish, and immediately asks for the net.  With that, I set my pole on the boat, jump down, grab the net, and head towards the front of the boat.  The fish surfaces, and Jeff and I both know that this is “the fish” – the one that can win us the tournament.

It’s all up to me now, because we can’t lose this fish.

With net in hand, I watch the fish surface.  He’s big.  And there is no way I’m going to lose this fish.  I put the net in the water, and the fish attempts to dart away – but, like I already said, there is NO WAY I’m going to lose this fish.  I sprawl out on the boat, laying completely flat on my stomach – the side of the boat digging into my skin – and net the 16 1/2 in. largemouth at 9:58 – with only two minutes to spare.

It was an awesome morning with family and friends.  And being victorious made it even better.

I was a little envious of Jeff’s catch, considering my morning was so slow, but I was happy to have contributed somewhat to the victory – a good fisherman needs a good net man after all.

Plus, my fish would come later that same day, and it would be only the beginning of one hell of a weekend.  You’ll have to read the next post for the details, though.

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!

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.

Fishing License that was only good for 2 days:  $15

ORV Sticker that was only good for 2 days (after I lost it):  $16.25

Enduring the stress of driving 3 hours on ice-covered roads:  $0

My wife’s first fish through the ice and her biggest fish ever:  Priceless

This past weekend, the wife and I, along with a few members of the rest of our family, took a trip Up North and tried our luck ice fishing on Houghton Lake.  The drive up on Friday night was insane – we witnessed many cars in the ditch, and endured some treacherous road conditions – but everything cleared up on Saturday and it made for some decent ice fishing weather.

We were a little disheartened, however, when we arrived at the DNR launch and noticed the lot was empty.  In my experience, normally a place like this is empty because of one reason:  no fish.  After going through all the work of loading quads, and enduring the nasty drive on the way up, though, there was absolutely no way we weren’t going to at least try.

With quads and snowmobiles unloaded – all 10 of them – ice shanties hooked up and attached, and gear loaded into sleds, we were off.  The trip across the ice was pretty interesting, but uneventful, and the first spot we fished was uneventful as well.  After a little over an hour of not even feeling a fish, we ate some lunch and debated what to do with the rest of the day.

Finally, we all decided that we would head to an area that produced for us last summer.  After setting up in the area, it didn’t take long until a guy in a shanty near us had his tip-up flag raised.  We felt pretty good about the spot after that, and it wasn’t too long before Justin’s tip-up caught the first fish of the trip – a respectable pike.

I decided that, even though the wife and I were originally targeting bluegills, we would switch it up, put a pike minnow on our teardrops, and see what happens.  We had a few minutes of frustration, because of the lack of fish, but we just enjoyed the time outside and eventually the fish gods smiled down on our shanty.

After hours of waiting, I look over and notice the wife start to move a little bit; and then she – in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard – says, “I think I got something”.  A quick glance at her rod and I knew she definitely had something, but then the line appeared to go slack and I figured whatever it was was gone.  Upon reeling up her slack, however, the tug on the line was proof enough for me that something was, in fact, still there.  She stands up, continues to reel, and I just instinctively grab the line by hand as well, hoping to help pull whatever was on the line through the hole.  I was glad I did, too, because as soon as we got the 21 inch pike above the hole, the line promptly snapped in two and I had to pin him to the ice so that he couldn’t wiggle his way back into the hole.

It was a very cool experience, and provided the wife with, not only her first fish through the ice, but also her biggest fish ever.  We celebrated, screamed from the blind that we were on the board, and proceeded to take pictures.  And, as you can see from her pinky position in the picture, she wasn’t very fond of how slimy pike can be (I know Jody will appreciate the picture).  It sure made for some laughs later, though, when we went through the pictures from the day.

The weekend was awesome, and we all enjoyed our 7 hours on the ice.  A few of us managed to land some fish, all of us enjoyed the time spent outdoors, and getting outside always makes for a great day……….even if I did get out-fished by everyone, including the wife.

My inaugural ice fishing trip took us to Duck Lake, near Springport, Michigan.  Duck is probably one of the best fishing lakes in southern Michigan, and since my sister and her boyfriend live on the lake, we headed there to see what we could pull through the ice.

Riding on the back of Jeff’s quad, with a sled full of gear in-tow, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t puckering just a little bit.  I’m not sure why it feels so strange to me, but it does.  Since there were trucks on the ice, though, I relaxed a little; and once I noticed the 9 inches of ice Jeff had to drill through to get to water, I relaxed even more.

Using Jeff’s hunting blind as a “shanty”, we started to setup.  Of course, the 20mph winds blowing across the ice didn’t help to make setup any easier, but it was nothing that anchoring the blind to a couple quads couldn’t fix.  And with that, it was time to fish.

This trip was actually quite the family affair.  There were 8 of us total – Jeff, Matt, Ron and his wife, my sister, Melissa and her boyfriend, Justin – all within hearing range of each other…… in three different shanties….. it was fun.

And now here comes the point that everyone has been waiting for:  What did Arthur think of his first ice fishing trip?  Honestly, I loved it!  We all had a blast hanging out, I managed to pull my first fish through the ice (there really is a fish in that first picture, even though it’s hard to see because of the lighting), and even though the fishing had slowed somewhat, I still had a good time.  Plus, ordering, and then eating a pizza in the shanty was just icing on the cake (they have a party store at the launch that sells pizza, and we had quads to make pick-up much easier, so we figured why not).

I could have stayed on the water all day and thought nothing of it.  It felt great to be outside, being able to see the fish in the “lighted” hole was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience, and I can’t wait until we get to go again.

And for anyone who truly knows me, they know what an incredible thing that is for me to say.

It was a great time, and I’m honestly sorry I haven’t been doing it until now.

We fished Higgins Lake; and while the lake is huge it doesn’t have much structure in it.  There are spots on the lake that are 30ft deep and you can still see bottom.  There are also spots as deep as 134ft; not exactly my style of fishing.

Despite all of that, though, we tried our luck in the morning, and never landed a fish.  Jeff managed to land a few rock bass, and my sister’s boyfriend landed a rock bass as well.  But the smallies, lake trout,  pike, and perch all eluded us.  If we had the right gear to be able to reach a certain depth, and do some trolling, the lake can provide some unbelievable fishing opportunities.  But without any of that gear, it made for some tough fishing.

The afternoon found us fishing on Houghton lake, which is south of Higgins Lake.  Houghton is actually much bigger than Higgins, but it actually has weed cover, and is only 22ft at its deepest point.  In fact, you can plot a path across the lake that would allow you to wade the entire thing.

The lake was way more my style of fishing, but despite trying my best to put a fish in the boat, I just couldn’t do it; must be the gypsy curse or something.  I guess it could have had something to do with the fact that I had to wait at the dock for a half hour or so while my cousin learned the hard way that you have to have the tether pushed ALL THE WAY in for the boat to start.  We learned that lesson.

Because of my lack of fish, we ended up losing heavily in the fishing tournament that day.  Jeff, Matt, and my sister and her boyfriend in the other boat, ended up tying; and with darkness falling, it had to stay that way.

I did end up landing a fish over the weekend……it had to be at my Father-in-Law’s pond, though.  I managed to catch a few there, and it helped to boost the ego a little.

On Monday night my ego was back in full force, though.  I’ll explain that in the post tomorrow.

We headed out to our favorite fishing lake in the area – and the same one where he caught this bass earlier in the day without me – and tried our luck going after some more bass.  We also knew, though, that this lake holds some pretty good pike, and that it’s the perfect time of year to catch some big ones.

The fishing didn’t go quite as well as we had planned, but Jeff and I both managed to land a pike and a bass a piece.  My pike was pretty close to keeper, but not wanting to clean any fish that night, we put him back for someone else to catch.

It was different fishing this late in the year; it’s just not something I’m used to.  But we had a great time, and despite the cooler than normal temps, managed to put a few fish in the boat.

Jeff’s new boat is SWEET, and it’s too bad he got it so late in the year.  With bow season just around the corner, I’m afraid the boat will not get used much this year.  It will still be sitting there next year, though, and I’m sure we’ll have no problem taking it out and going after some big ole bass.

Maybe now we can convince Jeff to write up a post about his new boat.  I would, but considering I don’t know any particulars of the boat, hopefully he posts something himself.

Stay tuned for that!

The alarm went off at 5am on Saturday morning, and the weather at that time didn’t look too bad:  it was spitting rain a little, but overall I was pretty comfortable with the drizzle that was happening.  And since it wasn’t raining that bad we all decided that the fishing tournament was still on and headed to the lake…..and waited…..and waited some more.  We were all trying to assess the weather situation, because the farther south we drove the more lightning we saw – and lightning and fishing do not mix well together.

We waited at the boat launch for a half hour or so, and then decided to launch.  After fishing for about 20 minutes, and having one fish in the boat it started to downpour.  I buttoned down the rain jacket and kept on fishing……………and then it started to lightning again – and I’m talking cloud to ground nasty lightning.  The fishing tournament – at least the morning leg of it – was over.

My cousin and I headed back to the dock feeling pretty confident about the morning’s catch.  We figured having one in the boat after 20 minutes of fishing would put us in pretty good shape.  After getting back to the dock, however, we found we were two fish down already………to my brother of course.

It rained…….and rained some more….and rained some more.  Finally, about 4:30pm it started to let up, and the prospects of us getting back out for the afternoon leg of the tournament looked good.  Everyone was in the water by 5:45, and it was on for the next 4 hours or so.  Unfortunately for my fishing partner and me it was slow going at the start and we found ourselves in a huge hole – down 11 fish to 3.  We weren’t in last place, but we were still 8 fish down to the leaders with only a few hours left to make up for it…..but it just wasn’t meant to be.

The last two hours were the best fishing hours we had all day:  I landed a legal pike, plus a few bass, and my fishing partner added another pike, and one keeper bass to the total as well; in fact that keeper bass would be the winner of the biggest caught bass of the day, and make him a little richer.  Ever after all of our efforts, though, we still only managed to have 8 fish in the boat, five short of the 13 that would be the number to beat.

Of course my brother Jeff, and his fishing partner, Matt, left the winners of the first annual SimplyOutdoors fishing tournament.  It was close, with my sister and her boyfriend giving them a run for their money right up until the end, but ultimately Matt’s floating Rapala came through and caught the thirteenth fish.  Dirt Bags!

It made for an awesome day on the water, and despite losing the tournament I still had an awesome time.  I caught the biggest pike I’ve caught in years, we broke in my cousin’s new Nitro fishing boat, and he managed to catch his first top water fish ever!  Plus we made some other memories that will last a lifetime – one having to do with leaving the trolling motor down when we were trying to head to another spot.  That is a story for a whole other post, though.  Man did we laugh our butts off.

I guess I have to give props to Jeff and Matt for winning the tournament.  And if you ever wonder what you go through in order to win tournaments such as these just take a look at Matt’s face in that picture.  It can be stressful trying to win these tournaments, and you can see it written right across his weird looking face.  Of course I’m sure his face doesn’t look like that now, since his wallet is a little fatter then it was before.

I hate losing!