Smelt at Higgins w/pics

[Big K]

Headed up to Higgins Wednesday with some family I haven't seen in a long time. I've been wanting to try for smelt through the ice for a while now, but just haven't been able to get my schedule to agree. We got on the lake about 3:00 pm...way to freaking early. We drilled a few holes, setup some tip-ups to see if we could get lucky with a brown or lake trout and sat there trying to get something to bite off the bottom. No such luck. It was about 6:45pm and I was about ready to call it quits when my vex went nuts..."The run is on!" shouted my cousin and the fun began. Here is a pic of what I saw on my vex non stop from 6:45pm until we left...
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/533/4996Smelt_Vex-med.JPG

All 3 of the guys I was fishing with started to catch fish. I on the other hand could not get the hang of hooking these little buggers. They are a lot harder to catch than you would think. Finally after about 45 minutes...wham...fish on! Here is a pic of my fist smelt ever through the ice...
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/533/4996My_First_Smelt-med.JPG

We stayed until 9:00pm and caught about 60 smelt. All were pretty small and we should have caught more if we could learn how to set the hook better and if we could have stayed longer. They were still there when we left. We had to leave because we had a youngster who had to get up for school in the morning. Fun was had by all and hopefully I'll be back up there Saturday night for round 2. Good luck!

[bgoodenow]

That's a beautiful sight on a Vex! I've never tried smelt through the ice, but sure would like to. Maybe some of you vets could post a few tips on hooking the tasty little fellas...?

Thanks
-Brian

[mkroulik]

That has to be the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to a smelt bite as "WHAM" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Mike

[redneckdan]

What kind of fishing tackle do you use for catching said smelt? I assume spearing is not a viable option?

[Fishfoote]

I think you'd do well using slammer tipups - just put your bucket about 30 feet away from the hole and "lauch" :lol:

[Big K]

We used the smallest white colored tear-drop we had tipped with a waxie...the smaller the better. I don't know if you can spear smelt or not, but I don't think spearing a 5" smelt would do you much good. :bash:

[therapy]

I will be going to higgins tomarrow, hope to be there at 5:00,i need to know the best route to get to smeltville please,I will be coming from the west,and how much does the underwater light improve your chances, any and all help would be greatful, Should we bring the snomobile how far is the walk without it?

[Big K]

I wasn't fishing smeltville. I could see that area from where we were at, but we stayed away from the crowd. If going to smeltville, you may want a sled. It's a pretty good walk, but could be done without one if needed. I cannot give directions because it was the first time I was up there and I did not drive. I'm heading up there again Sat. night, but I'm following my cousin. I'll try to pay more attention to how I get there this time! :lol: I think a light is a big plus. We got there around 3:00pm and put the light in right away and kept it in until we left. My cousin says he won't go smelt fishing at Higgins without it.

Hope this helps a little. Good Luck! :fish:

Big K.

[steelhead05]

i went to higgins last saturday and did decent..fish were bitting all night...ended up with 115 smelt..vex was lit up from 10ft all the way to 60ft...i had a light in the hole and you could see smelt all over under the hole it was something else...i think a light is a good thing to use...i was running 3 small white tear drops with 2 red eyes with waxies and a hali jig on the bottom with a minnow head...bigger smelt were hiting the hali...looking forward to this weekend

[Mark-1]

How deep do you lower the light? do you fish in a hole next to the light?

[steelhead05]

we have a 12 by 12 shanty with holes in each corner...we have a hole in the middle of the shanty with the light down it.. the light is about2-3ft under water and it lights up every hole.

[joefsu]

Does a coleman lantern work as well as an underwater light? I've used a lantern for smelt on a lake near my house in the U.P. and it seemed to work but does it work well on higgins?

thanks,

joe

[steelhead05]

i also have two colemans running too...i'm sure they would do just fine but a underwater light is something else to use...a lot of guys in the area have under water lights so the smelt are gonna stay in the area so a lantern should do just fine

[Big K]

We hit it again last night and fished from 5pm to 11pm. The smelt showed up again at about 6:45pm and were still there when we left but the bite seemed to slow considerably the last couple of hours. We ended up with about 50 fish between 3 people. We should have had more, but those little buggers are hard to hook! :lol:

[fishindude]

all this talk is getting me even more excited about my trip next weekend. Im going up there midday around thursday and coming home sunday night. im going to key in on lakers but theres no doubt in my mind i will be making a few trips to smeltville. i will let you know how i did.

[BigAl]

Then I was a kid, my dad took me ice fishing for smelt at Okhotsk Sea. The smelt there were at least 2 or 3 times bigger compare to Great Lakes smelt. We used small pieces of pained foam (green, red, orange and yellow) as bait. How do you fish for them here through the ice?