OBSERVATIONS FROM MICHIGAN

OBSERVATIONS FROM MICHIGAN
By: Ray Hansen

This is a great time to head for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The lakes are frozen and getting out to the perch, whitefish, walleye, pike, and burbot spots is easy. This year, walleye and pike season extends until March 15.

Ice fishing in relatively balmy temperatures of 20 to 35 degrees is common at this time, as are late season snowfalls that cover some potentially dangerous spots. Keep your eyes open and fish with a friend at all times. Wear a set of ice picks, and carry a length of rope where it is easily accessible. Having said that, as of this writing in late February, the ice I fished on the north end of Little Bay de Noc a couple days ago was still thirty inches thick. Most anglers are still driving trucks out on the ice, but that won’t last too much longer. Think safety first as the season extends into March.

Keep your tackle selection light and portable. A size two Swedish Pimple spoon loaded with spikes (maggots) will catch perch all day. A couple rods, one small box with a few different color spoons, a skimmer, a locator, your bait, and a sled to pull along is just about all you need.

Deer are everywhere, looking for a change from the woody browse that keeps them alive during the winter. I have them in my yard daily, scrounging for tidbits I feed the local turkey flock with.

Logging operations cutting white cedar and other trees attract many whitetails. Deer eat the cedar tips like it is cotton candy. Maple and oak tips, poplar, and some osier dogwood rounded out the feast. Deer eat these things all winter long, but the difference here was that they could get to the tender tips of new, younger branches once the trees are down. Normally, they are restricted to standing on their hind legs and browsing up as high as they can reach during the winter in areas where no cutting takes place. They can’t reach the best browse in this way.

Turkeys flock everywhere. I honestly saw some birds gathered in groups of fifty or more. I watched a neat “parade” of the big birds at my friend Duane Deno’s house in Gladstone, Michigan. Here the turkeys wander the neighborhoods, trotting from one bird feeder to another looking for any spillage. Some people feed them whole kernel corn, and all Duane had to do was rattle some dried corn in a plastic bucket to get them to approach within six feet or so. I have had a flock numbering about sixty birds in my yard in Cornell, Michigan but most days about twenty show up.

Finally, the Escanaba River is still frozen on the mid to upper stretches, and cross-country skiing is possible along the main channel. Traversing this beautiful waterway is like stepping into a “coffee table” style photo book. Each bend and turn presents a new vista, and when I walk along a portion of the river with a lone eagle soaring overhead I realize it doesn’t get much better than this.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2009