Little Bay de Noc Fishing Reports

The north end of the bay was far and away the best producing area for walleyes over the opening weekend. Slow trolling orange or purple crawler harnesses in 20 to 30 feet of water seemed to be the most consistent. Many guys commented that the bite didn't "turn on" until after 9:30-10:00 in the morning.

Fishing in the Escanaba River was fair. Best catch out of there that we heard about was 2 guys landing 8 keeper walleyes and 4 jumbo perch on opening day.

Things have been pretty quiet from Ford River, south. Wrong conditions to get that area going, so far. The only catches we've heard from down that way have been from guys trolling cranks after dark.

I normally start chasing smallmouth with the start of the early catch and release season. Opening night on the Escanaba River, the fishing was tough! Diane and I crossed paths with 6 or 7 fish, but couldn't keep the hooks in them! Diane finally landed a small pike, but that was it for us for the evening! I tried the Ford River Sunday night and went 2 for 5, casting assorted colors of Senko's. Still much slower than normal for the start of the season. At least the first one I landed was a 20 1/2 inch pre-spawn female, that was well over 5 pounds. Sounds like a lot of the fish are already well upstream, so it may be slow down at the mouth until they start dropping back down.

Good luck out there.