Little Bay de Noc Fishing Reports

benzie rover · Member

Tough going - wknd report

slammer · Senior Member

Thanks for the good report Benzie........now I feel a little better about not getting out!!! Slammer!!!

catman · Guru

benzie rover wrote:
Within the context that all knowledge is good, I'll post a report despite the results we had. We had 8 dudes fishing primetime Thurs, Fri and Sat evenings as well as Fri and Sat mornings. We fished east bank south of Vagabond, right off Hunter's as well as 2nd reef. We fished from 24' - 41' fow. We got 4 keepers total (25, 22, 16 and 15) and about a dozen dinks and a few medium sized northerns. Worst part was lack of action on the graph compared to any other trip(been going up 15 years or so), so that is what shocked us more than the poor catching. Usually that can keep you in the game by just trying to get the lookeers to hit, but there were very few lookers this year. Hopefully our results were just a fluke and other dudes are on them like normal, but boy it looked pretty bleak to us, in terms of #s of eyes in the bay right now. good luck and hope to read some success stories here soon!!

Thanks for the honest report. You have to tell it like it is!!! That said, I have heard very few good reports so far this ice fishing season. However, a friend of mine and his son did do ok yesterday evening landing 4 keepers so hopefully that's a sign of things to come...

JMax · Member

In my 18 years of fishing little bay de noc, I've run into a few outing like that in the past as well. My group and I always chalk it up as breaking even for some the incredible outings we've also had out there. If it wasn't for those tough outings every now and then, we wouldn't appreciate the really good ones as much. And I always say- I'm only really looking for 1 bite up there- because there is still plenty of giants roaming around. Benzie- just curious what you had for ice thickness on the east bank and near 2nd reef- I fish the upper bay as well and I'll be there this coming weekend, however the warm up has brought some concerns. Thanks in advance and I'll post upon my return on the 15th

benzie rover · Member

Jmax - I concur that LBDN is an amazing place that can provide some incredible fishing and we certainly had our best ever November night trolling season just 8 weeks ago, so I know the fish are/were there. So yes, always more hope for next time. Regarding ice thickness, we found 6-8 along east break and around most of Hunter's, although there were some 4-5" spots right near the sandbar (Hunter's Point itself) which is normal with the currents there. No one was crossing the narrows yet and it looked a bit sketchy out there. 2nd reef had 6 good inches, but, when our group crossed over there from Vagabond there were some 4-5" spots in the middle of the bay that started to spider web with cracks under the 4 wheelers as they drove (actually had two buddies just hop off and choose to walk cause they were a bit freaked out by that). So like everywhere, be careful and always look at the ice yourself, don't just follow others. Looking at the forecast though, and with the wicked south winds last two days, I don't think I would be crossing that upper bay this weekend and would just stick with the closest drop-offs. Good luck.