Capt. Ken

Today's 1/2 day morning trip was with Dave, Rich and Paul from Iron Mountain and Brad all the way from Arizona. We got on the water shortly before 7 a.m. to beat the FLW crowd at the boat launch. I was worried that yesterday's front that moved through might turn the fish off, but that worry was quickly put to rest as I was setting lines. We didn't even get 4 lines in the water before we had a nice fish on, followed by another (a 26 1/2 incher) and then another. In no time we had three fish in the box and we didn't even have all the lines out. We had the worst wind possible, a West wind, but the next couple of hours was pretty decent, not fast and furious, but steady. After putting 9 fish in the box, losing a few, and releasing some undersized fish, the wind changed just enough to go make a couple of drifts with floating jig heads tipped with 1/2 crawlers along a weedline. Here we landed 3 more nice walleyes and lost a couple before our time was up. We ended up with 12 nice walleyes for the guys and lost some nice ones as well. The fishing remains pretty decent. Good friend Ray Norby caught a nice limit of fish in no time a couple evenings ago and Capt. Keith Wils had a nice two man limit Sunday morning as well. Walleyes Harnesses did the trick again trolled behind 1 3/4 oz. bottom bouncers at 1 mph. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

This morning's trip was with the DeWildt family from down by the Milwaukee area. Mark usually comes up fishing with his father Dale (who will be here next week), but this time he brought some of his family with. We got on the water just before 7 a.m. and it sure didn't start out fast and furious. We were marking tons of fish, but they sure had a case of "lockjaw" for a while. We had a couple of keepers and lost several when we made a change in location and then it was pretty consistent action for the next couple of hours until we came in around noon. Could have easily had double the amount of fish today, but we had problems keeping the hooks in many of them. Walleyes Choice (http://www.walleyeschoice.com) harnesses were the ticket trolled at .9 to 1.0 mph, with I-42 and I-34 being our best colors. Nice chunky fish today, and boy did they fight!!! Had to really pay attention to the boards today and get on 'em quick when you got a bite...or they were gone. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

Today's 5 hr. trip was with Brad and his son Jesse all the way from northern Indiana. Having never walleye fished before, this was a new experience for them, and I wanted nothing more than for Jesse to get into some nice fish. They are camping over by Germfask, so they had a little drive this morning to meet me at the resort, so we didn't hit the water until around 7 a.m.. We started out trolling harnesses, but after only having 2 fish in the box at 10:30 it was time for a switch in tactics. We started drifting with floating jig heads tipped with 1/2 crawlers...and in the next hour and a half we put 11 more fish in the box making for a great morning on the bay. We had fish from 16 to 27 inches today, and lost several nice ones as well. In addition to the walleyes, we landed a giant smallmouth, a carp, a pike, a sheepshead, and a few bonus perch! Jesse was a great little fisherman, and his dad was a quick learner as well...being able to feel the light pick-ups from the fish. The fish weren't hitting hard...just feeling like you picked up a weed. It's one of my favorite ways to fish, and I think Brad and Jesse are sold on the technique too. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

Captain Ken Lee

Busy, busy, busy, so this is going to be short and sweet! Me and my clients managed to land 7 keeper walleye today. Better than I expected because of how calm and sunny it was. The walleye bite is finally starting to pick up a little. Hopefully the bite continues to improve and gets back to where it should be!!!

Well...it was day two with Dale and Mark DeWildt. We got on the water about 6:30 a.m. and started marking fish right away in 19-21 fow. We got out the bottom bouncers, Walleyes Choice spinners( http://www.walleyeschoice.com ) (I-42 to be exact), and started trolling at .9 mph. We got 8 keepers and several throwbacks doing this, then decided we were going to try for some perch. I had a couple hundred wigglers left over from perch fishing last month and I'm glad I kept them. We got anchored on a pretty big school of fish and had a blast catching fish...however most of them weren't perch! The walleyes were grabbing the wigglers before the perch could. We caught 4 more keeper walleyes, several throwbacks, some good eating sized perch, and some junk fish like a couple suckers and the first sheepie of the season. The walleyes were a blast on 9 ft. steelhead rods and light line. Once I even had a double, a nice perch and a small walleye. The avg. size fish was a little smaller than yesterday, but mmm mmm good eating! Overall it was a very fun morning of fishing on the bay with some great guys. We saw a couple of guys get their limit tossing jigs, and that's one of the great things about this bay, you can catch fish so many different ways. Seems like it was a pretty good bite today for everyone. Big storms firing up just to the west as I type this...so it's time to shut things down. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

As I sit and write this quick report, the wind that I wanted earlier today has finally started blowing. Today's trip was with long time client Dale DeWildt and his son Mark. We left the resort around 6 a.m. and I had hoped that the wind would start blowing like it did yesterday to get the fish active. Unfortunately for pretty much all of today's trip it was pretty calm. We still caught fish, it just wasn't fast and furious like yesterday's bite. In fact, we didn't get most of our nicer fish until the last hour of the trip when the water temp. got up over 60 degrees and lots of boat traffic left. We were trolling Walleyes Choice harnesses (http://www.walleyeschoice.com) behind bottom bouncers for most of the day. I-86, I-42, I-68, and a firetiger J&K Tackle (http://www.jandktackle.net) in-line harness took most of the hits today. We ended up with 11 nice walleyes and lost 6 others that come off on the way to the net. We've got another half day trip tomorrow and after we do some walleye fishing in the early morning we're going to try for some perch before they have to head home around noon time. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

What a beautiful morning to be on the bay. Today I fished with Norm from Rapid River and his good buddy Brian all the way from Florida...where I bet it was a little warmer this morning than it was here. I had frost on the windshield this morning and thought we might have a tough bite after the strong cold front that passed through yesterday. It was the exact opposite...the bite was phenomenal! We trolled Walleyes Choice harnesses behind bottom bouncers at .9 mph and had a ball. Norm had never fished that way before, so it was a learning experience for him. We had some nice ones come un-buttoned too, but didnt lose too many fish or have to throw that many back either. I-68 was the ticket this morning, but good ol I-42 took a few as well. For the first half hour or so we couldnt even get all 6 lines in the water, it was pretty fast and furious. We quit trolling about 9:30 and then went jigging some breaklines looking for some other fish before heading in shortly after 11 a.m.. Overall I think we caught 17 keeper walleyes and 1 northern. Not a bad morning on the bay at all. Heres some video of todays trip and a picture, good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

I went out for a couple hours this morning to snoop around and find some fish for tomorrows paying charter. I took local boys Michael and Jeremy Williams along with me. We didn't fish any one spot too long as I wanted to find as many spots that were holding fish as I could in the short time I had to fish this morning. We ended up catching 4 keepers and hopefully the fish don't move before I get back out there tomorrow with my clients...

I apoligize for not getting back to you. That said, you will find walleye at all depths and locals the last week of May. The last fish to spawn will still be milling around the north end of the bay near center reef. Many of the walleye that spawned early will have moved south of Gladstone my then. Since today was opening day, I have a little more up to date info. Right now, there are lots of fish near the mouth of the Whitefish River at the north end of the bay. There is also a bunch stacked up in the narrows at Gladstone. The mouth of the Ford River also has quite a few haging out down there. You see what I mean??? There are walleye pretty much everywhere in Little Bay de Noc at this time. Not much will change before you get here next week either. For my money, the last week of May and first week of June are two of the best weeks for fishing Little Bay de Noc, so I think you picked a great time to come. Drifting with Lindy Rigs is one of the best ways to catch walleye this time of year. But you only want to use half a crawler on your floating jig. Good luck on your trip...

A little more wind than I would have liked to see today. It made boat control a little difficult. Actually, it was more direction than speed that screwed things up. That said, grandpa Gene and the Otten's and I battled it out for another 7 keeper walleye and a couple nice perch. All the fish came trolling with spinners and crawlers. We tried drifting, but caught nothing but small ones. Not a great day, but certainly could be alot worse. Feels like we are in the middle of September already up here. Pretty chilly this morning, and cooling down tonight too. Good luck on the water folks...

Friday was the first day of 3 in a row fishing with 3 generations of the Otten family. Grandpa Gene (85 years young), his son Henry, and grandson Nick are longtime clients. We always have alot of fun. Gene is quite a character as you can see in the videos. The old fart is a hoot!!! Anyway, we started off drifting and were marking plenty of fish, but most were not biting. So we got the planer boards out to cover more water and things picked up quite a bit. We trolled spinners and crawlers at 1mph and ended up with 11 walleye and about a 1/2 dozen or so jumbo perch. We pretty much did the same thing yesterday but only caught 10 keeper walleye and 3 or 4 nice perch. It was just too calm yesterday. All in all, we have a pretty good bite happening now on Little Bay de Noc. We'll see you on the water folks...

I had longtime clients Jim Lewinski Sr. and Jim Lewinski Jr. We started out the day drifting the breaklines with Lindy Rigs. That produced zip! We hit several spots but nothing happening there. We finally ended up getting the boards and spinners out for the last 3 hours of the day and ended up with 5 "quality" sized walleye. Guests Joe Volpe and Rick Palasek were working the weeds and reefs yesterday and ended up with 9 nice eaters (sorry, no picture). They went back to the same program today and caught 8 more (picture). The average size was much bigger today though. Joe said "if you were not in the weeds, you were not catching fish". Here's a couple pictures of big and little Jim from yesterdays trip (and video) and a picture of the walleye Joe and Rick caught today.

Friday's trip saw me and my clients head to the north end of the bay and troll harnesses. I think we would have had a great day if not for all the sheepshead. I have never seen so many sheepshead in the bay in my life!!! But, we weeded through them and ended up with 8 keepers even though we quit early due to one of my clients not feeling so well.

The bite on Saturday was a little tougher with the north winds we had but we still scrounged up a nice mess of fish.

The bite today was much improved (though it didn't start until 11:00am)and we brought back 17 keeper walleye and 3 really nice smallmouth bass. Most of the keepers came between 11:00 and 2:00 when we called it a day. Summer is going fast folks, better get out there...

Monday saw my clients and I bring back 8 nice keeper 'eyes (video). We could have easily had our 15 fish limit, but many came unhooked for some reason. Yesterday with the north winds we struggled real bad with only one legal walleye and a 40 inch pike that we released. Hopefully we get some south winds again before too long because it sure makes for better fishing...

What an amazing bite my clients and I enjoyed yesterday landing 28 keeper walleye by 10:30 am! Ended up turning the 8 hour trip into a 5 hour trip. We were pitchin' jigs again in 6-10 feet of water along a weedline. Green was the best color. I hope this keeps up for awhile...

Today's short 5 hr. trip was with Rick and Darrell, a couple of great guys from Lower Michigan that I've fished with the past few years. They are up for a week staying with us at Sall-Mar and we finally got a nice day to fish. Over the past few years the weather for our trips has been either very cold, very windy or very rainy! I think one of the days we had all three of those conditions a couple of years ago. I wasn't sure that the fish would still be as active as they have been, especially with sunny skies again. It wasn't too long into the day though and it looked like we were going to do well. It took a while for the guys to get down the proper technique, but once they did the fish kept coming to the boat. We had our limit by 10 a.m., but released a couple of the smaller keepers so we could keep fishing. We headed a little farther south where we picked up some good fish yesterday and caught another 5 fish, releasing a 25 incher and a 27 incher and filling out our limit. My brother said it looks like Darrell is heaving in one of the pictures...no...he's just picking up the crawlers that he dumped! Hey...I couldn't resist Darrell. Thanks for a fun morning on the Bay guys.

Day three with the Otten's proved to be another great day. Henry, Gene and Nick were all aboard today as we ventured out on the big water. With high skies...I was very happy to see a little bit of a breeze to help break up the sunlight. The northwest wind made boat control difficult where we were fishing, but it eventually switched around to the north and made things much easier. I knew it was going to be a good day when we had 6 in the box in the first 1/2 hour or so of fishing. We came back in to the harbor around 1 p.m. for a lunch break and we had 16 in the box. One more drift and we picked up the other 4 fish for our limit, two being nice eating sized northerns. Overall the fishing has been very good lately, our guests are doing well and we've been having success on our charters too. We caught fish three different ways the past three days, it was fun. Thanks to Henry, Gene and Nick for the great fellowship. Here's a few pics from today's trip, good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

We caught all our fish trolling spinners and crawlers yesterday. Today, we changed up and drifted Lindy Rigs with crawlers. No particular color has stood out on either the spinners or floating jigs. Still catching a butt load of small walleye for every keeper, but it's providing lots of action! The video is from yesterdays trip and picture from today. Good luck on the water folks...

The "stick shot" video from todays trip...

Yesterday was frustrating. Went through better than 7 dozen crawlers for 7 keeper walleye. We caught a butt load of fish, just not many keepers. But at least we had lots of action. My brother was testing out a camera he plans on using to record the charters from start to finish and it worked pretty good. Needs some fine tuning, but over all, not too bad. So anyway, here is the "on the water' video from yesterday as well as "stick shot video" from todays trip where we caught some much nicer fish. See you on the water folks...

Great! Hows the bite been lately? Other sites are saying its been pretty good. Taking the whole family up for the week (listed above) and hoping to get into a few. What's the water temperature up there right now? How much colder is Big Bay than Little (hoping to spend at least one day on Big Bay while we're up there)?

The bite is good right now. The water temperature on Little Bay de Noc was 65 yesterday. I don't know what it is on Big Bay de Noc. I can't remember what it was today on Little Bay (age?). Hotter than blue blazes though, so I'm sure it came up some more today. The warmer the water on Little Bay de Noc, the better the fishing , period. When it hits 80 degrees (not often), it is awesome! You should have some very good fishing unless we see a huge explosion of alewives. But like I said, we have not seen that in many years. If you get a chance, stop in and see my brother Kevin at our resort in Rapid River as he can point you in the right direction. Good luck on your trip...

Wow...I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning and the wind was already blowing like crazy (gusting to 30!!!). I got to work just after 5 to get ready for today's charter and the flags were already sticking straight out (not what I wanted to see). Today I had the pleasure of fishing with Lloyd and Andrew, a couple of great guys from the northern part of the U.P.. The first thing we did was get dressed like we were ice-fishing (to say it was cold would be an understatement). We then headed to the north end of the bay where we've been getting some fish lately. We fished three locations today, and we caught fish in each one. First we drifted with floating jig heads tipped with 1/2 crawlers in 13 to 18 feet of water West of Center Reef. Here we picked up some fish, but most were on the small side. We then went to try and troll Walleyes Choice harnesses along the East bank near the Vagabond. We got into some fish, landing 2 or 3 more keepers and releasing several undersized, but then the wind got too strong for good boat control. I decided to hit one of my deeper locations that's been pretty good to me this year, so we got out the floaters again and drifted for the rest of the day...and the fish didn't let us down! We needed two 60" drift socks out to slow us down today. The term "walleye chop" sure is over-rated! Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area. Be safe and have fun this holiday weekend! It sounds like it's going to warm up and be a nice weekend for fishing.

Any good guesses to when the alewive invasion will occur in Little Bay this year? Spending the week of June 18-25th on the Bay and wondering what I should expect???

Drisc

It's many years since we have seen a huge impact on the bite from alewives. We used see them all over the beaches, but there just hasn't been any great number in quite some time. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Now, quick as I say that, we'll have an explosion of alewives!!!

Well, after yesterday's ridiculous winds, I was hoping today would be nicer. And nicer it was! The wind was much more manageable today, especially in the early morning. I had Dale DeWildt and his son Mark out again and we had a much better bite. As we were working on getting our third line out...there went the first board and soon after that the second board went back. Just like that we had two keepers in the box in the first 2 minutes of fishing. We proceeded to land another 5 or six keepers while trolling Walleyes Choice harnesses behind bottom bouncers in the upper bay. We lost several real nice fish too, not sure why, but we had a lot of fish come un-buttoned today. The wind really started to crank up around noon time, so we switched over to drifting with floating jig heads tipped with crawler halves and managed to land a bunch more fish in deeper water. Most of our fish caught on harnesses came from 17 to 20 fow and all of our drifting fish came from 27-29 feet of water. Many guests of ours staying at the resort have been doing well also, with most of the fish averaging 16 to 19 inches. We did release a 23 1/2 incher today, that has been our biggest fish the past two days. A few nice perch have been caught as well the past couple of days. Our best color harnesses by far were a couple of new ones Capt. Keith Wils has this year. I'm not exactly sure of the numbers, but I'll get them and post them on here tomorrow. Here's some pictures of today's trip. Good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area.

Well, all good things must come to an end sometime. My 5 year streak of opening day limits for my clients came to an end today with just 6 keeper walleye in the box when we decided we had enough fun for the day. This is the windiest opening day we have seen in a long time. Most of our fish came pretty early in the day drifting with floating jigs in 32-35 feet of water with no real hot color. Guests staying at our resort came in with 5-7 fish per two man boat on average. Though one boat did catch their limit. They were also drifting with floating jigs tipped with a piece of crawler. Hopefully this wind doesn't last for too long. Could warm up a little too!!!