Well this past weekend we once again headed north to Houghton Lake for the second weekend of Tip Up Town. This weekend wasn't so much about fishing but just spending some time with the kids, having some fun and enjoying the festivities.

We couldn't leave until after my son's basketball game on Saturday morning so we didn't get to Houghton Lake until afternoon, just in time to catch the Polar Bear Dip!! We spent the afternoon checking out the carnival, rides and other activities going on.

We did spend a little time fishing late in the afternoon but no luck. You can see there is a lot of empty spots still on board for the fishing contest.

Here's a quick video of my daughter and I on a ride.

 

And lastly a reminder to be safe on the ice, this truck fell through Saturday evening. 

So, what a weekend of fishing....and I mean fishing, NOT catching. LOL. We spent the entire day on Friday up on Houghton Lake setting tip ups and pike spearing. The weather conditions were good and there was plenty of ice, the fish just did not cooperate. At least we were not the only one's, we did talk to several other anglers on the lake and the common theme was that the fishing was slow.

Here is a picture of a my buddy Nate setting a tip up on Houghton Lake.







From Houghton Lake we traveled to Bay City on the Kaukawlin River to spear pike. There was about 6" of ice on the river and beautiful conditions on Saturday. We did see a few pike come through the hole but nothing big enough to spear. If you look closely in the picture, next to the decoys, you can see a pike that is about 24" long.

I did finally get some news on sunday that someone was catching fish. My brother was on Higgins Lake, which only had about 3" of ice, but they were doing pretty good catching pike on tip-ups in 25' to 50' of water. This one measured 34" in length and weighed in at 10lbs.

Well, I had hoped to be writing this second post along with some pictures of a mess of fish laying on the ice. Unfortunately that is not the case....

My kids and I did visit Shaffer's bait shop in Weidman on Saturday afternoon and got the local ice and fishing reports. After talking with the owner there we decided we would drive to Lake Isabella and check the conditions there. There were people fishing on the lake however the ice conditions at Gilmore Park on the west side of the lake were not favorable enough for me to venture out on, especially with my kids.

From there we drove to Halls Lake which is located just north of Blanchard. There were several people fishing and 4-5 inches of good ice. We set tip-ups along the north side of the lake near the drop off in 5-8 feet of water. We then drilled several other holes working our way out to the middle of the lake in 15-18 foot of water in search of panfish. After about two hours we were empty handed and with the sun starting to set a the temperature dropping we opted to pack up and cal it a day.

In one last effort and to make use of the pike minnows we had purchased the day before we ventured out onto Coldwater Lake, where we live, and set three tip ups out in front of the house Sunday morning. After several hours the reality sank in that I would not have any fish pictures to post this week. Luckily I don't measure my success by how much fish or game I bring home at the end of the day. It was a great weekend spent with my kids and we had a great time in Central Michigan's great outddors.



To the left is my daughter jigging for panfish on Halls Lake.




Stay tuned as we will be heading to Houghton Lake for the kick off of tip-up-town this weekend and will be doing some pike fishing and dark house spearing.

Welcome to Central Michigan Outdoors. My name is Mark Wilson. I have lived in central Michigan my entire life. I have traveled to other places and and spent a lot of time hunting and fishing in other states and Canada but I have a true love for Michigan and all it has to offer. I have two hunting and fishing partners that accompany me on many of my adventurers, they are my children Luke and Aubrey.

Over the next several weeks we will be sharing our adventures in Central Michigan's great outdoors.

Enjoy!