I am going up north for the weekend, and plan on fishing these lakes. If anyone has any info on where to fish, what to use, on these, it would really help me out! I am just fun fishing up there with my g/f and her family, help me look good!!!!
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Fry... Fry...?
A million jet ski's in one, and a million hammer handles in the other! >:(
Houghton always has a lot of fish(not always bass though)on the edge of the large weed beds. The same goes for the sunken islands on Higgins.
Good Luck!
Potter
My advice is trailer the boat to a smaller lake nearby, because there will be some SERIOUS boat traffic! If you HAVE to go out on the big water, stick with Houghton, hit the weeds, and pray. I would try swimming a watermelon with red or gold flake grub along the weed edges. Or a jig-worm of some sorts.... maybe senkos..... anything small and natural looking. Best times are early early and late late along the weedbeds.
Good luck!
After the spawn, the most consistent bite on Houghton seems to be largemouth bass on the Middle Grounds out in the middle of the lake - slop and weedlesss baits around the heavy weed clumps. If you run to the east-central part of the main lake, you should run into the huge, shallow weed hump out there. Look for holes and clumps, and start fishing.
Docks can be good at times, but I haven't done that much during the summer out there. You might get a few bass in the deeper canals - the big one just east of the Cut River, or the big one on the south side of East Bay.
Worse comes to worse, go into the mouth of the Muskegon River and fish around there - shallow weeds. North Bay used to be good, but I think the weeds still have not recovered from the huge poisoning a few seasons ago - they wiped out all the rice and reeds along with everything else - although they say storms did some of that (but that rice and reeds were there for decades before that).
I haven't fished Higgins after the spawn except maybe 20 years ago once or twice. I'd fish around the big sunken island and the rocks around the big island and see what happens - probably best early and late in the day.
I left to go up north before I could read your advice, but I'll tell ya how I did up there.
Got out on Higgins Friday about 10am, I have never been there before, I heard it had clear water, but wow, really clear, visibility was about 30 feet! Drop offs from 10 feet to 80 feet everywhere!!!! The water temp was 71, there was a light breeze and clear blue skies. My first thought was OMG, I want to be here during the spawn. Boat traffic was starting to pick up, so I turned right out of the launch and just tried to get some distance from the pleasure boats. While looking for somewhere to wet my line. My girlfriend Susan was in the boat with me, and kept asking me where I was going to fish. I told her I wasn't sure, but I will know it when I see it.
I pulled up on a flat, that had scattered rock lines and weed edges near the drop off. I was in 15 feet of water, the other side of the drop was 60ft. About five casts of dragging a tube over the rocks, I hooked up with a 2lb smallie. After a few more casts down the rock line, I caught a 3lb smallie. So I figured these rock beds near drops was the way to go, I prolly caught 10 more smallies and a dozen or so rockies in the next 3 hours on tubes and spinnerbaits. Boat traffic was really picking up, so we (Susan) went to meet up with her brother, and his new Rinker. We did some swimming, and ate lunch, I had put 5 smallies in the live well so Susan's nephew could see some fish close up. When he came aboard, he seemed amazed with the fish, and stayed on my boat for about an hour, just looking at the fish, and asking me to hold them up. Her brother made a comment, that even with all his toys on his boat, a sleeper and all that, he liked my boat better. I told him, that as nice as his new boat was, he couldn't teach his son to fish from it. O by the way the nephew is 4 years old.
Saturday, Susan and I went to Houghton, got on the water about 8am, water visibility was about 3inches or so, wind was going pretty good at about 20 mph and gusts to 30mph, water temp 70 and the waves were 1.5 to 2 ft. I stated in a area I had fished a few years ago, with some susses, but got nothing. With the poor weather, I figured I'd try some docks, again nothing. It had been a couple of hours, and Susan was getting wet from the waves, and would not allow me to go over 10mph, I could tell she was not happy about being out there. Then some light drizzle started, and I figured that was the end of my fishing for the day. I started the long, slow drive back to the launch, trying to keep her dry, but it didn't work so well. As we neared the launch, her brother called, he was finally ready, and was heading to the launch. His cottage is only 5 mins away from the launch.Susan said OK, we will wait for you, which shocked me, but I wasn't going to argue with her. So I motored out to the middle of the lake, before Susan said no more driving, she just wanted to drift and stay dry. I threw a Carolina rig with a lizard over the side and just drifted, keeping one eye on my fish finder. We drifted over some heavy weeds and hooked up a 2lb large mouth. Finally some action!!! So I got on the trolling motor and kept working my way through the weeds and landed 2 more before he brother showed up, Susan said hello, and that she wanted to go back to the cottage, so that was the end of day fishing for me.
Sunday we went back to Higgins, big mistake, we got there at about 9am, waited in line to launch for about an hour. When I finally got on the water, I headed back to the area I had started at on Friday. Only to see it covered with wave runners, water skiers, and tubers, burning up the area. I drove around trying to find an area that was not being ripped apart. Well that failed, I couldn't find an area 500 yards that was being left alone!!! People were everywhere!!!!! I finally found some semi quiet water on the far side of the lake. It was a sunkin Island covered in rocks, about 25 feet deep, I drifted the area with tubes, and caught about 2 dozen rockies, filled the live well for Susan's nephew, and called it a day fishing wise. It was pointless to try to find any calm water out there. I only saw 4 other bass boats on the water, out of the 500 or so boats and the seemingly endless supply of wave runners, and 2 of the bass boats were parked on a flat with everyone less partying.
I will be back to Higgins next year during the spawn, with water visibility to 30 feet, how could it not be a great time?
I haven't hit the spawn yet on Higgins - just a little prespawn - but I've heard there are toads!
Sounds like you did pretty good overall.