Holloway

[vanwagm]

Has anyone had any luck through the ice at Holloway? I have fished it in the past with bad results. I doubt the ice is safe out there now, but I want to try it again sometime. The lake is supposed to be full of fish....I need some pointers though.

[Yellowfin]

Vanwagm,

That lake confuses me. Even the guys at fishintacklegragbag say its real tough to fish. They are supposed to tell you tons of big fish stories to sell some lures and bait but they dont. I'm going to comb that son of a gun with dual planers, gps, and graph this spring. If nothing, then fine. But I cant let a fishing hole so close to home go untouched. Sure would be a Godsend if I could figure it out. Then coordinates can be used with the hand held gps for icefishin. I'll give her my best shot.:confused:

[vanwagm]

Good luck Yellowfin. The one word of wisdom that I can tell you is to troll for walleyes in mid to late May. Use shallow running baits like floating rapalas or thundersticks (water is very muddy, so you don't want to go too deep). That is about the only way that I have caught anything--only a few but that's all that I have. It's pretty bad when the bait shop won't even stretch the truth!!!

[walleyechaser]

I've fished Holloway many times, both through the ice and in the spring/early summer. It can be very good and it can turn bad in a heart beat!
The 2 best areas I've fished in the winter are the stumpfield off
the right side of the old river channel about 2/3rds of the way from the launch and to the right of the channel and about 50/60
yards above the first bridge.
If you get a good map of the lake, you'll see the stump field I'm talking about. Minnows and jigging rapalas and light spoons tipped with a minnow work well for the walleye in both areas as does a tipup set about 12" off the bottom in the stump field near the channel. Both areas will give up nice crappie as well but they'll be suspended.
Be careful above the first bridge----it takes awhile to freeze up due to the current flow.
In the spring there are several methods that produce for me.
On windy days, fish the choppy shoreline by pitching small jig/minnows right up to the bank and hopping it back to the boat.
The area above the first bridge along the left side has a lot of timber and a couple of rock slides that are good for verticle jigging. Also jig the deep hole below the railroad bridge above Columbiaville.
Troll the widening below the Columbiaville bridge with planer boards and rapalas and troll the main lake stump field with hot-n-tots behind boards.
Hope thispoints you in the right direction.

[vanwagm]

Thanks for the details walleyechaser. The stumpfield that you are referring to.....is it between the boat launch and Mt. Morris bridge (1st bridge)? I would love to get into the winter crappie.

[ESOX]

I haven't ice fished Halloway yet, and in the summer the boat traffic is worse than Lake St. Clair (hard to believe, but true). The few times I did fish the resivour itself last summer, we did best after dark, pulling Bass out of the lilypad fields on both sides of the dam. (More Scumfrog talk, geez Byron, what have you started????) There are numerous creek arms that should produce good panfishing action, but watch the ice.