- Hello everyone, welcome to Michigan Out of Doors.

We're so glad you joined us this week.

I am Jenny Silick and we have a brand new show headed your way.

I'll take you out on Saginaw Bay chasing after walleyes with an all ladies group.

And when I say all ladies, I mean the captain and crew, we're all women.

You won't wanna miss that story.

We had a blast out there and Jimmy and Jordan have some other excitement in store for us this week.

- Well, that's right Jenny.

We do have a couple more things on this week's show.

We're actually gonna kick things off from the northwest part of the lower peninsula, doing a little bass fishing on beds.

Some really cool footage there, you won't wanna miss that.

And I think we're gonna have time for a bragging board as well to see what you, the viewer, have been up to.

Thanks so much for joining us this week, I'm Jimmy Resinger and it's time for Michigan Out of Doors.

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- [Narrator] The Michigan Charter Boat Association has provided education of the Great Lakes fishery for over 52 years.

Information about Great Lakes fishing opportunities as well as captain advocacy can be found at michigancharterboats.com.

By Network Outdoors, connecting members to share experiences, help grow businesses, and to give back to the outdoor community.

Learn more at one of 10 monthly meetups or online at networkoutdoors.com.

(upbeat music) - [Jimmy] For this week's show, I was on beautiful Crystal Lake in Northern Michigan, tagging along with a couple of anglers looking for smallmouth bass.

- Oh, we're up here on the beautiful Crystal Lake in Benzie County.

Gonna be hunting some Michigan gold, also known as smallmouth.

This time of the year we're pretty shallow and sight fishing, bed fishing should be a good time.

And we always bring Rik up here for his birthday and his birthday's here in a few days so we figured we might as well make it day trip out of it.

Call off work 'cause who wants to work, I'd rather fish.

So that's what we're gonna do.

Right now the water temp is 58 degrees, which is actually a little colder than I thought it would be, but all the smallmouth come up out of the deep water and then they'll find on this big sand flat here, anything they can to put a bed next to whether it's a a pop can or a stick, a rock, anything.

There's bricks, I've got probably 50 or 60 way points that we're just gonna bounce between and there should be some fish up here so it's gonna be a good time.

And every fish in this lake seems like it's four pounds so it's gonna be awesome.

Looking forward to it.

I see him right there.

I think he just came off from this bed right there.

Oh yeah, good news, we're surrounded by fish.

Hey, there's another one right there.

- Nice one.

- Good one, finally got one angry enough to bite and not just nose dive or baits and get the hook into him.

Finally get the curse outta the boat and skunk out so a good start.

- I love this part of the state just for the pristine water and everything seems to move a little bit slower up here except for time.

Time moves too quick, especially since I don't live up here.

But the people move slower and there's just, I don't know, the beauty of the northern part of our state is kind of unrivaled.

I've traveled the country pretty well and nothing beats northern Michigan, especially at this lake 'cause it's down in a bowl.

Come here in the fall and you get like the color tour all the way around it.

It's a pretty good spot to be, pretty good spot.

- Got 'em, that's a good one.

That's a nice fish.

That's what we're looking for right there.

Man, these fish have so much power.

All muscle, come here.

Let's see if I can reach down there and belly land them.

Oh yeah, just like that, nice one.

I know what color's on that fish.

He's all emerald.

- Nice spots on him too.

- He does, it's a pretty, pretty fish.

What I'm seeing right now is a bunch of dirty pads.

There's fish up here.

There's actually fish everywhere and especially after the one that I just caught seeing that his eyes aren't red yet.

He is still gold, I think these fish are freshly pulling in so it's real early in the cycle, but there are definitely some beds being made right now.

So we should still catch quite a few today.

Just gotta be patient.

Might have to work for 'em a little bit harder than what I'm used to, but it's just when the fish are this fresh of being up here, they're non-committed, I can see there's another boat up there.

He is just kind of driving around doing the same thing we are, driving around and looking.

He doesn't know what he wants to do except for eat my bite.

That one actually ran off the bed to eat it too.

So the males get the beds all cleaned off, then the females are gonna come up and those females will only be up here for say six hours or so.

But if you can hit that six hour window when the females are up, it's the best time of the year to catch a giant.

Now even the males that we've caught today were all in between three and four pounds, which is a solid fish, but I've seen seven and eight pound fish in this lake.

And then after that, the females will vacate the area and then the males will stay and guard the beds, keep the eggs safe and all of that.

And we're probably... That's a three week process and we're just in the beginning of it.

So you can come up here in another week and probably just hammer 'em.

- It's a good thing I didn't have my line though 'cause I felt him, I didn't see him.

- I just moved a fish off from this bed.

That's a good one.

- [Jimmy] We were catching plenty of fish all while using tackle that was pretty basic and inexpensive.

You can catch smallmouth this time of year using a variety of different lures, but these guys prefer a drop shot rig.

- So today, we're using drop shots to catch these fish, which is a real popular rig.

And the reason I like to use them for bed fishing is because they fall straight.

So we're looking at a real small hook.

This is a number two hook and then I always use a half ounce weight.

And then pretty typical line set up is running a braid to a 10 pound floral liter, which obviously in this clear water, that liter is key.

And as far as rod selection goes, we're running, this one I do believe is a seven foot medium.

And then these are the baits that we're using here.

This is the only color anybody ever needs.

Rik, what color does anybody ever need?

Oh, green, pumpkin, purple and gold.

And then we just take 'em, hook 'em through the nose, throw it out, and they get snatched.

(upbeat music) - [Jimmy] The bite this time of year can change significantly throughout the day as the water temperature rises and the weather conditions start to change.

And as the morning went on, the bite did slow down, but we were still finding a few.

- A cute little fish.

Fishing up here, it's a lot different, especially with the water.

We don't get this kind of water down at home.

Down home, we're looking at morrow bottom lakes and soft bottom and if you can see two foot in the water, it's a pretty clear day, but up here we've got 20, 30 foot clarity pretty much anywhere you go, which is kind of nice and it's cool to see 'cause like we've proven today, you can see a whole lot of fish, just there's fish everywhere.

Don't always cooperate, but they're here and that's a good one.

I fish tournaments up here for, gosh, I think three years, fishing one of the circuits up up here.

It's kind of just how I discovered this lake and really fell in love with it and learned how to fish and how these fish act up here.

And it's, like I said, it's entirely different from home too, just because the fish act different due to the clear water and it's always something to learn, that's for sure.

- [Narrator] What a great day on the water.

It's pretty hard to find anything to complain about when the fish are biting and the weather is just about perfect.

Thanks to Trent and Rik for letting me tag along on a fun day of fishing here in northern Michigan.

- Well that northwest part of the lower peninsula is a beautiful part of our state and a destination for many anglers.

Another destination that is hot this time of the year is Saginaw Bay.

Jenny was just there with an all ladies team and they had a great day on the water.

- Here at Michigan Out of Doors, we've taken you on many walleye fishing trips out of Linwood over the years, but I can honestly say to the best of my knowledge, we've never featured a story here with a captain and crew comprised all of women.

Last week I joined a couple of longtime friends and a couple of new friends to do just that.

- We'll head up there and try it.

If we have to, we can just roll right back down through what we already did.

I had an idea to round up some ladies that I knew and get out on the bay and just kind of do an all women's fishing trip.

And so it's been in the works for, I don't know, three, four months now, give or take and today's the day.

So we got out this morning, we left about eight o'clock and got out to Callahan Reef.

We picked away at 'em, I think we got nine in the box and now we come to pick you up and now we're headed back out.

So hopefully we can try a different spot and get out there and get a limit.

- Awesome, tell me who we've got with us.

- So we have Amy, Lisa and Lenae and friends through social media and then Lenae and I went to high school together.

So we're just bringing us all together to get out there and just a group of girls getting out here having fun and proving we can catch some fish.

So, we had a really hard northeast blow that might have turned the fish off a little bit last night.

We couldn't get out yesterday like we wanted to, but that is what it is.

And so today, we're kind of running around trying to find some spots with some fish in it and see what we can come up with and it's a little bit of a northeast blow again today.

Not quite as bad, but we'll see what happens.

Some storms are coming in and we'll see if we can't get some fish in the boat before the storms hit.

We have number seven flicker minnows and shads that we're running today and they pretty much bit equally, so not one versus the other.

We started out this morning and pink was our hot color and now we've kind of had better luck with purple this afternoon, so we've putting purple all back out and see what we come up with.

- Let's hoping for there goes snowboard number two.

- No, you take it.

They like purple.

- I got a message from Amy who I just happened to have met through fishing and she wanted to know if I wanted to be part of this women's fishing day.

And it sounded like a fun time.

I had never met the other two ladies and it turned out to be a really good day.

I made three new friends, so it was awesome.

I like just being out on the water.

I mean, even if we're not catching fish, I like just being out there and the fresh air and the breeze.

Just being on the lake, I really enjoy it and if you can catch dinner, that's a bonus.

My husband is a charter captain and unfortunately that makes it so I don't get to fish a whole lot because he has the boat, but we have tried to make a point of fishing together the last few years and we get out together between Lake Erie, Detroit River, Saginaw Bay, of course.

The charter kind of cuts into that, but we do make time to go together.

- Oh, we just got set up and we got two walleye real quick and we're railing in another one right now.

So exciting stuff.

Hopefully fill the box up.

- No weight behind this one.

Hoping it's a walleye.

- [Jenny] Amy's fish was indeed a nice sized walleye and to add to the satisfaction of bringing in a fish on a rod she set, this one came on a special bait that she had chosen.

- No way, is that one of them?

- It's a CNS custom.

Friend of mine, Sarah, paints these.

- [Jenny] Amy and her husband Greg have been fishing Saginaw Bay for 13 years now and she's embraced it full force.

She has advice for any ladies who feel nervous about getting started fishing.

- Women can do it too.

I mean, don't be scared.

If it's what you wanna do, do it, and find somebody that can show you the ropes.

I mean, my husband and I, we fish together.

That's what we do.

We are a husband and wife couple fishing team and I learned to run the boat.

Trolling, motor kicking, motor docking.

Just don't be afraid to learn.

It's scary, but it's so fulfilling.

I always like a challenge and I mean, I love to fish.

I mean, yeah, I can just sit here and just sit and fish, but I also want to know how things work.

I want to run the boat, I want to learn.

Girls can do it too.

And I think there just needs to be more of us out there and be more confident you can do it.

And I just get a real thrill out of learning and I like to challenge myself and I've learned a lot over the last, I would say even year and a half and gotten more confident and I just wanna keep growing in this sport and maybe inspire someone else to do the same.

- We've got two coming in right now and I think we've put eight in the box since we set up, so it's a good afternoon.

- [Jenny] Lenae and Tina have known each other since high school and even though she and her husband have been fishing for 20 years, she still has a lot to learn from Tina.

- I have really looked up to Tina for a long time.

She's an excellent boat operator.

She is so confident and I fished with her one other time and also Amy, she's really growing in all the things that she's learning to do on her boat and it's just really impressive.

And so to fish with 'em, it's just a lot of fun.

I guess what I love about fishing is just the anticipation of what's gonna happen for the day.

Sometimes it's just fun to watch chaos when that happens.

I love the sunrise on the water and just being outside, being on the water is beautiful.

So just anything outside is fun, but I love that you can just have so much fun with friends when you're fishing and a good laugh.

So it's always fun.

- [Narrator] Well, Lenae is an excellent fisherwoman and kept us all laughing while hauling in walleye today.

Captain Tina had put us on the fish and the live well was filling up, which is always a great thing.

- Had an okay afternoon out here.

- Getting there, picking away.

- How's it feel, Lisa?

- Feels great, this is what we were looking for all day.

- Yeah, I didn't feel like it was any stress.

When you're tournament fishing, you have the stress of I need to get here in a certain time, I need to rush to put lines out.

We need to battle every fish like it matters and here, we had a great setting.

We set up out here and got into some pretty decent action, but we're watching some storms rolling in from the south, so we might give it about another half hour or so and probably pack up and head back in before it gets too rough.

I just wanted them to enjoy the day and run the back of the boat, do their thing that they know how to do and have a great time.

And we did that, it was phenomenal.

We got run off with by the rain and thunderstorms, but we'd probably still be out there fishing and laughing and joking, but it is what it is.

It's what you roll with, but it was no stress.

And it's nice to have that sometimes versus tournament fishing and you're running your boat as hard as you can and flying all over the place in rough waters and time is money in tournament fishing.

But this was just a good old time and I'm thankful for that and I got a feeling that we're gonna try to do it.

This will be the first annual ladies trip and there'll hopefully be many, many more.

We are gonna have a fish fry.

We're gonna invite anybody and everybody in the campground that wants to come and enjoy a good time and laugh and joke some more and make new friends and I'm thankful for that because I love the group of friends and the ladies that I have and we can enjoy a phenomenal day like this out on the water.

- And that is exactly what it's all about.

Even those anglers who like the competition of tournament fishing still love getting back to their roots and spending a day of fishing with friends and family.

Special thanks to Tina, Lisa, Amy and Lenae for reminding us all to slow down, relax, and soak in all that summer has to offer here in Michigan's Out of Doors.

(calming music) Thank you so much for joining us this week for Michigan Out of Doors.

Make sure you tune back in throughout the summer.

We've got all sorts of great, exciting adventures headed your way.

If you'd like to see where we are and where we're headed next or maybe even shoot us a story idea, you can always do that online.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

Online is a good way to kinda keep tabs on us.

You could check us out on our social media platforms as well as our website or YouTube is another place you can check us out.

Lots of stuff happening around the state right now.

Get out and enjoy it and if we don't see it in the woods or on the water, hopefully you'll see it right back here next week on your PBS station.

- [Narrator] Michigan Out of Doors is presented by-- - [Narrator] Do you dream of somewhere bigger than your backyard?

You can get there with Greenstone.

Whether you wanna hunt, fish, hike, or just watch the sunset, we're ready to help you own your place in the great outdoors.

To learn more, visit greenstonefcs.com.

- [Narrator] By Network Outdoors, connecting members to share experiences, help grow businesses, and to give back to the outdoor community.

Learn more at one of 10 monthly meetups or online at networkoutdoors.com.

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From earth moving to landscaping and light construction, Alta offers over 50 brands across seven Michigan locations to serve you.

More information online or 844-GO-2-ALTA.

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Green Mark Equipment is a John Deere dealership network in southwest Michigan and northern Indiana.

Green Mark provides sales and services to farmers, commercial businesses, large property owners and homeowners.

Information about pricing and products available can be found online at greenmarketequipment.com.

- [Narrator] Closed captioning brought to you by Double Ranch Foundation, a nonprofit 501-C3 foundation working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

♪ When I walk far away ♪ ♪ A dream stays with me night and day ♪ ♪ It's the road that leads to my home state ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ Changing seasons, paint the sea ♪ ♪ Like rain boat child in a hidden dream ♪ ♪ The white tail deer in the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ That's where I'm from and I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord I love this land, I am a Michigan man ♪