Hubbard Ice (moved to here)

[MichiganMike5]

Figured that some of these guys may not find this post, so I copied here...

Hey Guys,
Was great to finally meet some folks from the site.
Doughboy, Dave and I didn't get the oppotunity to catch any eyes at your spot but we passed the coordinates 'round to some of the other folks from the outing and Rick did score a couple of eyes from your spot on tip ups. Thanks for the help.
Whale, Rick, Hoffie, Kim, etc.. It was great to meet you guys, hope to get a chance to get together on the ice again. btw what was the final score for the Michigan/Ohio Game? I nominate Rick as the MVP! lol
Jon, The North end of the Lake has several "Gas Pockets" which prevent the ice from forming! On Sunday we drove down to Doctors point from the park access, seen east Bay Ed fishin' in about 40 FOW and headed out towards the middle of the lake from him, noticed several spots of "Clear Ice" that looked like an inviting place to setup the shanty. After parking the extended cab GMC in the midst of several of the "snow free" areas I noticed that there appeared to be standing water in the spot nearest to the truck, so I walked over to check if it was actually water or just smooth ice, at about 10' from the spot I noticed alot of white bubbles coming up from bottom!!! OPEN WATER!!! Holy Crap!!! Talk about pegging out the "Pucker factor" meter!!Took me 3 days of listening to my "Soothing Sounds" CD and focused Yoga meditation to achieve a satisfactory trip to the restroom!!! I've heard about these "mystery spots" from the locals for years but had never seen it myself. there were at least 10 open holes in the immediate area, so stay clear of that area. there is also a large stress crack that runs from Churchill accross to the Hardwoods.
As far as a fishing report...this was the worst year we have ever had on Hubbard, we actually left a day early due to the poor fishing. We couldn't even find fish to mark on the Vex! after 4 and a half days of fishing all over Hubbard I doubt we marked 6 fish in total.
Ed did say that the action on the Southwest end was picking up Wednesday and we heard from Cindy at Smokies that they were starting to get some perch and a few eyes out from Sucker Creek in 30-40 FOW.
Here's hoping you have better luck than we did.

Mike

[The Whale]

It was nice meeting you guys also, MM5. Sorry you're fishing was not worth a dang. Ours wasn't either. Rick seems to be "The Man" this year. "Open water", most feared words ever for us icers. Glad you didn't get a first hand meeting with that. Hope to fish with you guys again soon. Good Luck. :)

[Buckeye Tooth Puller]

Guys,

What can I say, Fishing is tough for those who do not connect with the proper local knowledge. I came up on Friday and spoke with some of the locals that do not have a self proclaimed reputation to protect. anyway, we caught plenty of fish. Most of the anglers that give out the fishing info for this lake do not put in the time to properly find the "strike zone" so those who did not catch fish may have been misdirected in tactics. Right now the fish are in the south corner of the lake but seemed to migrate to the hardwoods in 60' of H20. We pulled most of our fish jigging buckshot spoons, chart. or orange glow, in 60' of water. two of eleven fish came 2 to 4 feet off the bottom. The rest of our fish came anywhere from 9 to 20 feet from the bottom. We got our only two tip up fish on pink glow beeds, gray minnows. We got four on friday and seven on Sat. Sunday morning all of the weekenders came out late and scattered the fish to the north. we had to keep moving th follow the school. I only saw one of the hubbard lake yellow giants caught all weekend, in 65' of water. There were four brown shanties parked in the middle of the lake, using the binocs I could see them pulling fish and before I left on Sun. I spoke with the group. They had 27 on sat and at noon on sun. they had 13. They too were way off the bottom. Lesson for this lake right now is to have a jigging pole moving all day, you will get them. Ed and his crew were close to the fish but I did not see them jigging.
enjoy this info and good fishing to you all.

[east bay ed]

buckeye,
i fished both weekends and i can tell you there is no comparison between the two weekends.
both the 13th and 14th we had no trouble getting into fish. even with just tip-ups in the area that you saw us. 64' of water 12' off the bottom. it was way to nasty for me to sit on the ice and jig saturday night. sunday was not bad but we were getting good hits on the tip-ups so i just bs'ed with my dad and brother.
this was not the case the weekend before. most guys had flashers going looking for suspended fish from 17' of water to 70' of water. in fact two of the walleye caught that weekend were hooked 30' down in almost 50' of water. i know michigan mike put in some hard hours of fishing. part of the reason i didn't mention how well we did the very next weekend was my fear that mike might drive up here and shoot me for catching fish so easy after they worked so hard for them.
one thing with hubbard lake if you fish her enough she will kick your butt sooner or later. right mike?

[MichiganMike5]

Yep Ed, It sure was a humiliating and humbling trip to Hubbard this year. After hitting every "Hot Spot" that had produced fish for us in the past years two or three times and washing every lure in our arsenal multiple times, I was just plum outta gumption and ready to concede defeat.
I can honestly say that I dont recall any 5 day stretch when I spent that much time on the ice and seen so few fish! I mentioned that to Rick also, it was like the lake had become sterile! We kept pretty mobile, seldom sitting in one area for more than an hour and simply could not find fish!
Buckeye,
I guess ya lost me with the "Self Proclaimed Rep." statement, I'm guessing that must be an "Inside joke" or sumthin. Glad to hear that you had better luck than we did, sounds like you did well. I'm guessing that the "Disappearing Fish" Act that we witnessed had more to do with the 4 consecutive days of ~50+ degree weather than anything else. In my very limited experience of chasing the Wiley Walleye, I have learned a couple of things about 'em and one thing is for certain... I have a couple MORE things to learn about 'em! lol
Tight Lines to All!
Mike