Little Bay de Noc Fishing Reports

It's a riot to watch fish thru the hole isn't it! Glad you had some entertainment anyway. Several years ago when I was actively guiding, I had a couple clients with me from Grand Rapids (Joe and Brandon Volpe) and we saw the most amazing thing. We were set up along a steep break and I put them in 45 feet of water where we had been catching most of our fish. I then wanted to try something different and set up my portable in just 14 feet of water. With the clear water, it looked like it was only 4 feet deep. Didn't really expect to have any action, but lo and behold after sitting there for about a 1/2 hour or so, one walleye after the next started swimming by. One big old sow even gently pushed her nose against my rap like she was smelling it then slowly swam off. After watching 17 walleye swim by (all nice ones) without ever showing any interest what so ever in any bait I tried, I went and got Joe and his son and told them to go sit in my shack just to watch the fish. It was incredible. I can't remember how many they saw swim thru, but after another half hour or so, Brandon finally coaxed one into biting. By now the sun was down to the top of the horizon, so I figured the light level had dropped to a level where they started feeding. We ended up catching a few more and had one of the most amazing experiences on the ice and I will never forget it. That experience is what started me thinking that sometimes humongous schools of walleye migrate into the bay to feed. If you are fishing on one of those evenings, the fishing is great. If not, it's only so-so. The reason I think this is because every single walleye we saw was swimming north... Coincidence???

I hear ya Kevin! Even when the bite is slow, getting to see fish is entertaining. That is a great story. Getting to witness stuff like that is part of what makes it all worth it. So to bring you up to speed on the small mouth experience, it continued today. This time it produced results! In all my years fishing, I have never caught a small mouth through the ice, or even seen them, untill yesterday and today. Jigging an orange, spotted rat finky with a two inch minnow, landed me a 19 inch small mouth! Perch fishing was good in the morning but trailed off to nothing by late afternoon. Had a barely legal northern show some interest right as I was pulling up lines. Other than that, nothing. I have a couple pics of the bass I'll try to post. Good luck and be safe.