The ClearH2O Crew
It had been a few years since my last adventure on ice with the guys from ClearH2O Tackle. That took place on Portage Lake in Onekema and was a whirlwind of travel, fishing hard, and figuring out all the details as we went along. This time they were coming to my home waters and we were a bit more organized.
The perch bite has been marginal all winter but we were going to start there. I usually launch from the south side and unfortunately a tug had gone through essentially splitting the good water in half. We also had a major warm up and with some unknown slush conditions I elected to leave the quad at home. The slush ended up being pretty nasty but I think it would have been doable with the quad. However I definitely got a workout making a loooong walk. Those guys had a sled so travel was no issue for them.
For the most part it was a lot of picking away at them and moving around in a particular area. Not a whole lot of excitement for most of the day but the fishing was good enough to keep it interesting and we were getting some nice fish. Things got really interesting when a nice brown trout ate Darrin’s tungsten jig. He managed to land it on 3 pound test and I’m going to assume that made the trip worthwhile right there. What a cool catch and a rarity on Muskegon lake, you just never know what is swimming around out there in the winter.
I got bored with picking away at them and decided to make a long walk even longer. However it paid off when I finally landed in the right place. It reminded me of a normal winter perching out there with a stack of jumbos racing up from 50 feet to eat the bait. For some reason they were really onto a Clam Drop XL tungsten jig today instead of the typical Speed Spoon. It was taking a little longer to get down but the bite was fast and furious. Unfortunately for the rest of the crew Darrin left his phone on the snowmobile so he wasn’t getting the news about the bite.
I finished up and headed back there assuming they must be getting them too. That’s when I learned the phone was on the snowmobile and we got things going out there as fast we could. However as is often the case with perch you've got to keep them interested or they will move on. The guys got a few fish but leaving the auger back with the rest of the gear was a fatal mistake. The fish relocated and we were left with stragglers.
We had a choice to make now grind out the rest of the perch or go and try and get an evening walleye bite. I really had these walleye in my head so we opted to pull the plug on the perch switch ramps and try for a couple eyes. I really don’t have much experience with this but we went to try a sneaky spot I’ve caught them in the summer and Trevor had been catching a few this winter. It didn’t take long and I was on the board with a nice keeper on a Clam Tikka Mino. I was pretty satisfied at this point with a limit of perch and a keeper eye. 10 minutes later and I was hooked up again, this time with a much bigger fish. It took a little finesse and patience but I eventually squeezed and eye that was touching on all sides of a 6 inch hole. I’m not really into eating big eyes because I think they taste like the lake so this one was headed back after a couple quick pictures. The rest of the crew was marking a couple fish here and there and Trevor picked up a nice keeper. The bite window was pretty small and we packed it up a little while after dark.
Although we didn’t fully finish up our perch it was still one hell of a day! Species diversity was incredible Yellow Perch (both resident and the Lake Michigan flavor), white perch, rock bass, smelt, spottail shiner, walleye, pike, a lost cisco at the hole, and that spectacular brown trout. Hopefully the perch bite improves next season and we can get the crew back up here and do it again. In the meantime make sure you check out ClearH2O for all your tackle needs they’ve got it all from ice fishing to big lake gear (and they ship all over).