Lower Peninsula Ice Fishing Reports

[Nate McVey]

Any trolls out there have any ice fishing reports? How's the Traverse City area? Mt. Pleasant? Houghton Lake? Let us know how it's going and post some pics if you have any.

[lakerunner]

shiner2367--if you are heading downstate, hit the typcial lakes around TC.

If you want to go for the trout like you do here in MN, go try cedar lake on 22 on the west arm. From a buddy of mine, that has been good for lakers. Also, if there is decent ice, hit the mouth of the Boardman and the marina just up the westside of the west arm for lakers and stealhead through the ice. I do know the laker #'s are down a bit now that the indians can net again in the bay.

A couple of other spots that I always hit were off of 612 between 131 and Grayling. Try Starvation Lk, Twin lk, and Manistee lake. I always like Starvation as it is a smaller lake with crystal clear water. We used a modified "sight fishing" technique. We would pop lots of consecutive holes in the ice in the 10-15 fow range, drop a handful of spawn down all of the holes then go back to the truck for coffee. Check the holes after 15-20 minutes. If the spawn was gone from a hole, put a boiled spawn egg or two on a small hook or silver teardrop and hold on!! Do you know if this is legal in MN?

Now this works good if you have lots of spawn--either stealhead, brown, or salmon but can get costly if you have to buy it. I lived on the Little Manistee, fished all the time, and always had plenty of spawn. Plus this was a great way to get rid of some of the older stuff in the freezer.

If you aren't stuck on ice fishing, if you head down there around mid-march/april, take some spawn, a "noodle" rod, and size 12 mustad hooks out to the piers at Manistee. You can catch all of the 5-8# whitefish that you can handle plus the occasional "football" brown and stealhead.

Usually by March, I'm done ice-fishing and have moved onto "big" fish.

ps. Don't forget about Crystal lk by Fankfort.