Monster walleyes on Little Bay de Noc

An Outdoorsman’s Journal

Mark Walters sponsored by

Hello friends, This past week I put another serious test on the Chevy Hotel with the load I was pulling and some go-forit driving on Upper Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc. LBDN is known as a place to potentially catch a 30-plus inch walleye and attracts hardcore ice anglers from throughout the Midwest.

Friday, March 3 High 33, Low 26

My old high school buddy Doug Cibulka is doing three trips on the ice with me this winter and they all have challenges. Our other companions would be Ruby and her pup Red and the challenge began from minute one as we entered the ice on what is the north arm of Green Bay. We would be going on local advice, a Fishing Hot Spots map and literally my foot on the gas pedal.

The local advice was that due to deep snow drifts we could not pull my trailer with a snow machine in it. Our other option was to unload everything at the public landing at Kipling and pull four Otter Sleds for multiple trips to wherever we were going to set up for this fourday excursion.

I sensed the 2006 with 363,000 miles was hungry for a challenge and, by God, as long we kept moving she performed like the champ that she is. We really did speak with a lot of locals about a strategy, and we settled on the south end of what is called Second Reef where we each put out tip ups and Finicky Foolers over 22 to 25 feet of water. We baited with large shiners and then we began the massive job of building camp. There was no wind and we had three nights on the ice to live large. The mood was excellent.

At dark a steady east wind began that was blowing off from the open water of Lake Michigan. There was so much moisture in the air that everything got an extremely heavy frost on it. Even though we stayed up very late we could not catch a fish.

Saturday, March 4 High 36, Low 29

This morning was our second primetime on the ice, and we had zero action and neither did any of our neighbors. A difficult decision was made to break camp and drive north about 4 miles to shallower water where we would build camp and catch at least a dozen walleyes over 30 inches. Once again the Chevy Hotel was serious-ly tested and we ended up where the Whitefish, Rapid and Tacoosh Rivers enter the bay. Eventually the walleyes will swim up these rivers to spawn.

So, we build camp, the mood is excellent and about three hours after we arrived I am fighting a fish on a jig pole that I have baited with a fathead. Holy moly were we ever happy when I landed our first walleye. It was only 14.5 inches, but we had no cares as we knew there was a herd of 30-inchers swimming our way. I just had let it go and I had a flag which ended up being a 28-inch gator.

Now we knew that we were on top of our game, and it was determined that the social hour should begin to honor the awesome catch. Well folks I have to tell you, the late day primetime came and went without any action. At about 10 p.m. we decided that we were going to try and stay up all night as we were going to go home a day early because there was a nasty snowstorm headed our way.

Doug and I gave it everything that we had, including socialization, cooking a fine 1 a.m. meal and fishing hard. Nothing we did triggered a bite. We were both aware that in five days we were headed to Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior and there was no sense in taking a chance on crashing the Chevy Hotel in a snowstorm.

We fished until 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon under beautiful conditions and had zero fish catching experiences and did not see a neighbor catch a fish.

We broke camp and the moment I hit my driveway the next storm began. I lit my wood stove, took a hot bath and all was well in my world!

Sunset