- Hello, everyone.

Welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

I'm Jenny Ciolek and we've got an exciting, all-new show headed your way.

Now, we haven't had any luck in the archery woods yet to speak of, but we have been having some luck out on the water.

This week, I'll take you to northern lower Michigan to beautiful Burt Lake for a day of chasing after perch.

You won't wanna miss that story.

We had a blast out there.

And Jimmy's got another fishing adventure in store for us this week.

- Well, we are gonna do a little fishing in northern Michigan on this week's show.

We're also going to hit southern Michigan to chase some toothy pike down there with a guy who literally wrote the book about pike fishing.

We had a great time on the water.

You won't wanna miss that.

And we have a really good fish recipe for 'ya on this week's episode as well.

Make sure you stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger.

It's time for "Michigan Out of Doors."

♪ From the first spring rains to the soft summer breeze ♪ ♪ Dancing on the pine forest floor ♪ ♪ The autumn colors catch your eyes ♪ ♪ Here come the crystal winter skies ♪ ♪ It's Michigan ♪ ♪ "Michigan Out of Doors" ♪ - [Jimmy] What a beautiful day in the woods.

♪ Someday our children all will see ♪ ♪ This is their finest legacy ♪ ♪ The wonder and the love of Michigan ♪ ♪ As the wind comes whispering through the trees ♪ ♪ The sweet smell of nature's in the air ♪ ♪ From the Great Lakes to the quiet stream ♪ ♪ Shining like a sportsman's dream ♪ ♪ It's a love of Michigan we all share ♪ - [Narrator] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by, by Country Smoke House, a sportsman's destination since 1988, featuring varieties of homemade sausage, jerky, brats, and gourmet entrees.

Holiday gift boxes can be assembled in-store or online.

Details at countrysmokehouse.com.

By Great Lakes Firearms and Ammunition, a family-owned and operated firearm manufacturer in Sparta, Michigan, offering a wide variety of calibers and colors, backed by a lifetime warranty.

More information available at glfallc.com.

By B&T Logging.

Forestry management is about protecting your forest for the future while maximizing timber value.

Through sustainable practices, B&T Logging works to improve forest health, wildlife habitat, and the long-term value of your land.

For more information, visit btlogging.com.

(dramatic music) (flint crackling) (gun firing) (energetic rock music) (footsteps thudding) (gentle guitar music) (people chattering quietly) (gentle guitar music continues) - You know, it's a prime time where water probably gonna be... Well, it's open.

Mid-60 degree water temps down here in southern Michigan right now.

Shallow fish, weed edges.

Also quality fish in with the smaller ones as opposed to like the warmer months, those bigger fish are deeper.

So, they should be together and something we can target on, in the weeds and weed edges.

I'll walk you through it a little bit when we're out there as far as like some casting strategies, but I think our odds are good.

I get in tight to keep the retrieve in the zone more, so I'm casting more parallel to the weeds and weed edges, as opposed to like way out there throwing these bombs while very little of your cast is actually kind of in the ambush predator strike zone that way.

- [Jimmy] Okay, so we're gonna be right along the edge here.

- [Joe] Right along the edge, throwing parallel.

One of us a little bit shallower than the other, so we're not doing the same water.

We want to kind of systematically cover it.

All right Chris, we're in the zone.

- [Jimmy] Joe Bednar literally has written the book on pike fishing.

I was joining him and his buddy Chris Allen just last week on a southern Michigan lake in hopes of finding some aggressive pike.

So far, so good.

- It's cool to get him on the turn.

No, that's right, that's right.

- You sure?

- At least we got a pike on the board.

We're just getting warmed up.

We gotta start small.

More of like your common Michigan little scrapper here.

(water splashing) Yeah, he's, he's... (laughs) - [Jimmy] Well, it's a good start.

- It's a start, yeah.

That's okay, we're... - [Jimmy] On the board.

- [Joe] Yeah, we're on the board.

You don't always get to start with a 30-incher.

We're headed for the house, Jimmy.

- Well, maybe not.

Uh, he's staying down.

- I'm gonna get the net just in case.

- [Jimmy] I think you should.

He feels substantial.

- Okay.

- [Jimmy] Yeah.

- All right.

The spinner bait troll.

I'm glad that happened because not a lot of people troll spinner baits.

Oh, nice one!

- [Jimmy] Yep.

- Oh, yes!

(water splashing) Oh, yes!

Take your time.

Oh, there we go, that's the one we want.

- [Chris] Coming right at you.

(water splashing) - [Joe] Oh yeah.

Yeah, there we go.

- [Chris] All right.

- [Joe] That's a quality one.

- [Jimmy] Nice job, guys.

- [Joe] That's a quality one.

- We'll take that.

- [Jimmy] Good thing we brought angler along.

- I know.

He calls me- - Makes that last trip, without someone like Chris, there's no chance.

I'm not going to... - It got me off the golf course.

Always happy to catch a few esox here.

- [Joe] That's that one we wanted.

That's a nice one.

Not real heavy, but good length.

(water splashing) - [Chris] Nice.

- [Joe] I'm only doing this because we're drifting in the wind here.

- [Jimmy] We started by casting today with little to show for it, but once we switched to trolling some spinners, well, we started to find the fish that we were looking for.

- [Joe] I don't think we'll... We'll see.

I kind of don't think so, but maybe.

- I mean, come on.

He's staying down something.

Yeah.

I'll put him in the net.

- [Joe] Give him a good little tussle.

He's not bad.

He's, actually he's pretty decent.

- [Chris] All right.

I'll never, I never... There we go.

(water splashing) - [Joe] Little thinner one.

Yeah.

- [Chris] He's fine.

- [Joe] He's fine.

- [Chris] He's fine.

- He's got good length.

- [Chris] There.

- That was cool.

You could, like we were talking about, you could feel the push.

She went up and I kinda nosed it and unlike I do sometimes where I set the hook too fast, I waited, felt the weight and got her long and lean.

- [Jimmy] Yeah, that's a nice fish.

Good job, boys.

- [Joe] Yeah.

It might be 30.

- [Jimmy] Yeah, it's good a measurement on them.

One of the cool things about Pike is that they are all over our great state.

You can find good pike on small inland lakes like we were targeting here today, but northern Michigan and the UP are also great spots to find this toothy critter.

- [Chris] And small.

No, no he's okay.

Okay.

He's coming at us.

- So we, I think we can just handle that.

Is that all right?

Or do you want me to net her, Jim?

- [Jimmy] It's totally up to you.

- I think, she's nice and lightly hooked.

I'll just take care of her.

- [Chris] Yep.

- They're kind of thin still for fall, but... - [Jimmy] Yep.

(equipment rattling) - I think we're probably all right.

- [Chris] You think so, okay.

- Yeah, it's another like just, you know, average.

- [Chris] Yep.

- [Joe] You're, actually she's probably 20.

- [Chris] Nice colors.

- [Joe] Pretty fish, but probably only like 23 inches or something.

- [Jimmy] Today we were using spinners, some body baits, a little bit of everything, but having a good variety of baits can help you find what they are looking for on a given day.

- [Chris] It's a locally made bait and- - [Joe] He was from near Muskegon though.

- [Chris] Near Muskegon and a guy, he made 'em for years.

A lot of us have 'em and then stopped making 'em.

He was bought out by a bigger company, but these originals are really good, so... - [Jimmy] What was the, what's it called again?

- This is called a claw.

- Talons?

- Talon's claw, yeah.

Good for all- - Michigan origins.

- [Chris] All kind of Esox, musky and pike alike, so... - Those have been great for me.

- [Chris] You can see that's been chewed on a little bit.

(reel clicking) Feels like a netter.

- [Jimmy] It's pulling pretty good.

- [Chris] It is.

Oh, no, I guess not.

Gosh.

(water splashing) (Joe laughing) - [Joe] Got a little savage.

- [Chris] Yep, she wanted it twice.

Definitely hit it once and came back.

(spoons jingling) - [Joe] Eh.

- [Jimmy] There we go.

Yep.

Okay.

I met Joe last year when he reached out during the summer to see if we would like to join him for a day of fishing.

Joe's book, which you can find on Amazon, is called "Diary of a Mad Pike Fan", which fits Joe pretty well.

He is a wealth of knowledge and a great guy to spend a day with.

- Oh yeah, it's nice.

It's better than the last few.

I'm not big big, but nice.

I want to stay away from the (indistinct), though.

- [Chris] Yeah, I'll get the fish on here.

- [Joe] All right, nice one.

- [Chris] All right.

(water splashes) - [Jimmy] Good scoop.

- Yep.

- [Joe] Nice healthy one.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- [Joe] It's a nice legal one.

Got another one?

- Got another one, I think.

We're on another fish.

Been kind of hot and heavy here for the last little bit and we're glad for that.

- We're actually hooking and landing them.

A lot of times I don't- - It's not in the net yet, Joe, so... - Well, we're doing better than I often do.

What's the size guess?

- I'm going to guess 25.

I've got a head shake.

- No?

- [Chris] No.

- Not bad.

- [Chris] Not bad.

- [Joe] I think you're not far, you're not too far off.

24 maybe.

I'll just hand... Is that okay if I just hand land this one?

- [Chris] Hand her.

- Give me a little more line, if you don't mind.

- [Chris] Yep.

Good on water release?

Yeah, we're good, okay.

(spoons jingling) - [Joe] Go ahead?

- [Chris] Yep.

- [Joe] You know, really grateful for this day out here.

We started out casting.

I actually thought that would be best because the fish have been pretty shallow.

It wasn't working out.

We had a small pike and a small bass in about an hour.

Switched gears to trolling.

Moderately deep weeds and took a little bit, but we started to get into it.

And we fine tuned that a little bit too.

We had body baits, like jerk baits.

Didn't have much luck.

It was the spinner baits down there bumping the weeds that led to... We hit 15 pike.

- Yeah, 15 and some couple qualities and- - A couple low 30s and then 36.

I think 28, 29.

- Found a little pattern, never got off it, and had a great day on the water.

- Great day.

Thank you guys.

Well, I won't count my chickens.

I'm not in yet.

Feels like a little bit better one.

- Okay, I'll get the net.

Stick that over there.

- If they have enough power to stay down more it tends to be better.

Oh yeah.

It's a good one.

- [Chris] Okay.

- [Joe] It's a good one.

(reel whirring) - [Chris] Yep, yep, you're good.

- [Joe] Oh, yeah, oh, that's the best one.

- [Chris] Oh yeah, this is the best one.

All right, all right, all right!

Look at that boy.

Good job.

- [Joe] There you go.

- [Jimmy] Nice job, young fellow.

- [Chris] The only thing I can say- - What's that line about the blind squirrels sometimes getting... Get a firm hold here.

(water splashes) Oops.

Nice.

Not the heaviest, but she might be... I think she's at least 35.

- [Jimmy] That's a dandy.

Nice job, boys.

That is a toad.

- I like the head on her.

Got a noggin on her.

(gentle guitar music) - [Jimmy] Well... - All right.

- [Jimmy] Way to go.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- [Joe] Maybe we finish on that note.

You can't really- - [Jimmy] The first week of October usually means tree stands, but don't miss out.

There is also some great fall fishing action around the state.

And if you wanna learn more about pike, well, read Joe's book.

- Oh, how cool to finish like that?

- That's awesome.

Yeah, we were at two super tankers on that.

- Thank you, man.

- [Jimmy] Nice job, boys.

- All right.

Good job, good job.

- Let's call, let's call it.

- [Jimmy] Let's call it.

- Let's call it.

I think that's the day, there's... (gentle guitar music continues) - [Jimmy] Another great day right here in Michigan's out of doors.

- Last week, my husband and I were able to spend some time up on Burt Lake in Cheboygan County with a group of friends chasing after perch.

I spent one day with the camera in my hand and we captured a great story.

(gentle guitar music) (gentle guitar music continues) - Well, we're gonna try to get some nice perch out here.

It'd be a combination of, you know, drifting, slow trolling, maybe casting.

Just depends on how concentrated they are.

If we gotta search for them, then we'll do a little more slow trolling and drifting.

If we find them concentrated, then we can cast to them.

Oh, this is my son, Greg.

- [Jenny] Okay.

- Came over from Milwaukee for our perch adventure.

- [Jenny] The live scope has kind of changed how you fish out here.

- You know, it's a great tool.

You can see there's some fish right there already.

- [Jenny] Oh, cool.

- [John] So that's fish right there.

So, this is Matt and my brother Joe and his girlfriend, Judy.

So, we're up here for the whole week and hoping to get some really nice perch.

- Yeah, we were cleaning perch yesterday and found some crawfish in the stomach, so, gonna throw in a little fake crawler, or a fake crawfish.

- [John] This is a lot of fun.

You know, everybody is up for the challenge, and so it gets family together.

My brother's here, my son's here, close friends.

So, it's just, it's a great time of the year.

The weather's usually really nice.

The fish can be very cooperative at times.

Sometimes they're very stubborn, but it's just a lot of fun.

You know, this is such a beautiful area, such a beautiful lake.

So, we always have a great time up here.

- [Jenny] The fishing action this morning started out very slow.

John had started in the exact same spot where he had picked up several nice perch at sunset the day before, and this morning he marked those same fish, but they wouldn't bite.

We noticed an unexpected fish fly hatch had happened overnight and saw the evidence of wiggler skins floating all over in the area.

The perch here were most likely sitting with bellies full and mouths closed, so John moved to a bay on the other side of the lake and got into some hungry Burt Lake perch.

- [John] It's got great perch, and that's why we come up here.

But boy, she doesn't give up her perch easily.

So it's a big sand bowl.

The fish move a lot.

You'll go, you'll hit a spot, do real well on it one day, come back the next day, and nothing.

So, you are searching for your fish every day.

That's the challenge, but, you know, the rewards are good when you find them.

So, when you find them, you got to make good on it because the fish will shut down very quickly.

You'll hit a school, you'll pop a few fish, and then they shut down and you gotta go find some more.

- [Jenny] The guys found some perch here by constantly moving around and connecting with a few, then searching around for another pod using the electronics.

Over time, John has found his go-to setups and keeps offering a variety of presentations to these finicky perch.

- [John] So, there were three primary rigs, little net jigs with what looked like little crayfish, small jigs also that would look like gobies, 'cause those were the two types of fish primarily that we were trying to imitate.

And then we would use drift rigs with like, it was like a short crawler harness and you could use a half a crawler on it or you could use a goby strip.

The other thing was pounder rigs, and we actually caught a lot of fish, probably most of our fish, on the pounder rigs.

But again, for bait, mostly I'm using gobies, cut up gobies.

This lake is full of 'em.

And, you know, many, many years ago we were fishing with crawlers and catching goby after goby after goby.

You can't put them back, they're invasive, so you're not supposed to put 'em back.

So we ended up with a bucket full of gobies and no night crawlers, so we decided, well okay, we wanna keep fishing.

So we started cutting up the gobies and using them for bait and the perch love 'em.

So anymore, that's kind of our go-to bait is just goby strips.

So, I haven't bought a minnow up here in years.

You go through about half a dozen crawlers to get the ball rolling on the gobies.

And once you start fishing with them, the gobies will bite on gobies.

And so it's like a perpetual motion machine as your bait just keeps piling up as you're fishing.

- [Jenny] Speaking of goby strips, John hauled in this gorgeous 13-inch jumbo on a perch pounder tipped with cut goby bait.

John and his family fell in love with the area and used to own a home on Burt Lake.

They've been fishing here for many years now.

- [John] 10 years.

We used to have a place up here so, that was five years.

And then after that we started coming up here for a week in the fall.

So yeah, 10 years in total.

The fall tradition kind of at late September.

Yeah, so we started doing that five years ago after we'd sold our place.

And the fall perch fishing's good up here, so we try to hit a good week for it.

It's up and down a bit, but we always get some good quality fish.

Sometimes we get really good numbers.

Sometimes we work really, really hard to get every fish.

And actually today it was kind of like that.

We had to hop around from spot to spot to spot.

Some of them produced nothing, some of them produced a few.

So it was a grind, but we got some real nice fish.

That was a bite.

Got 'em.

Ooh, that's a big one.

That's a big one.

You get the net, Greg?

That might not be a perch, but it's fighting.

(reel whirring) - Are you gaining on 'em?

Looks like a northern pike.

- [Jenny] Oh cool.

Oh, pretty.

(water splashes) - [Greg] It's a nice one.

- [Jenny] Yeah.

- Well, first we started out trolling for walleye and then with crawler harnesses, then we kept picking up these big perch.

And so finally my son says, "Why don't we just target the perch?

They're fun."

So we did, and we'd go to those areas where we'd caught 'em in the past, and we'd start out drifting.

And if we hit a pocket of fish, you'd throw a marker, and then you'd just work back and forth around the marker.

Old school, but it works.

It works really, really well.

Even now, even today, when we would find a pod of fish, we'd throw a marker so the other boat that you were in could work the area without the live scope and still be on the fish, right?

But that process works great.

Drifting to find them initially, find them, throw a marker, work the area, drift, drift, troll back, drift, troll back.

Did that for many, many years, and now I'm enjoying some better electronics.

And I have a whole lot of way points in my graph, so I can go back to these spots that have worked in the past.

And that's actually very helpful because the reason the fish are there usually is there's rocks, there's brush, there's weeds, or maybe some wiggler beds, right?

All that stuff is still there.

So, once you build up kind of a listing or a library of good spots, you just kind of rotate through them and the fish will come and go and you just work through them until you find one that's active.

- [Jenny] We used a bunch of John's well-known way points today and picked away at a nice mess of perch.

Over on our boat, Matt, Joe, and Judy were enjoying the fishing too.

I spent a little time with them and John made a quick run to shore to pick up another friend who had arrived today.

They say many hands make light work, and that was definitely the case at the fish cleaning station as we prepared for a group dinner.

- [John] A fish fry.

Get to, yeah, enjoy the bounty of our fishing exercises.

So yeah, there's nothing better than perch.

There's absolutely nothing better than lake perch.

So, this is part of the fun of coming up here is enjoying some perch dinners.

- [Jenny] Any special recipe you do?

What do you do?

- [John] I just pan fry 'em, bread them with Drake's and pan fry 'em, but, you know, that's just me.

They're awfully good.

(chuckling) (Jenny laughing) - [Jenny] Nothing beats a fresh perch dinner, that's for sure.

And what makes dinner taste even better are the people we fish with, the stories told, the laughs filling the air, the sights and sounds of a picture perfect fall morning on the water, and the memories made right here in Michigan's out of doors.

(gentle guitar music) - Well, hey, we are here once again at the Applewood Kitchen and Bar with Jim Wood.

We're here in Greenville, and I believe that is a walleye filet over there.

What are you gonna doctor this thing up?

What are you gonna do to it here?

- So, we're gonna blacken it.

So, we've dusted it with Creole seasoning, so, kind of a spicy seasoning.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- We're gonna hit it with just a little bit of salt before it goes on there because Creole seasoning does have salt in it.

We're gonna put a good hard sear on it.

- Okay.

- And then we are going to make a Creole cream sauce that incorporates green onion, corn, tarragon, white wine, lemon juice.

- [Jimmy] Now this must be something you guys probably do a similar version of this at the restaurants or... - I've done this type of sauce for specials, But we do use Cajun seasoning on our cedar plank walleye here at Applewood.

- Okay.

- It's probably by far the most popular entree.

It's one of the recipes I've never changed because it's just, why?

- It's good.

- It's good.

- Do you make your own Cajun seasoning or do you buy that just straight?

- No, we make it.

- Okay.

- All right.

So, you always wanna lay protein away from you.

(pan sizzles) Shake it as soon as it's in there so it doesn't stick.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- [Jim] And then we're just gonna let it do its magic.

- [Jimmy] Nice.

And I would assume with these spices and everything else, you could probably put, you could do the same thing with salmon or- - [Jim] You can do this with- - [Jimmy] Lake trout.

- [Jim] No exaggeration.

- [Jimmy] White fish.

- [Jim] Any fresh water, any salt water fish.

People have a tendency to overcook fish.

Now everybody says with walleye, well, it's done when it flakes.

- [Jimmy] Yeah.

- [Jim] That's for sure, but it was done two minutes before that.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- [Jim] So, it is definitely ready to flip now.

(pan sizzling) - [Jimmy] Oh, nice.

- [Jim] And that's what we're looking for, that almost caramelization there.

- [Jimmy] Little crust?

- [Jim] A little crust.

- [Jimmy] Well, this tail section is usually the best.

= [Jim] For sake of production I'll keep this one.

Now we're going right in with the onion.

Don't need a whole lot.

Salt as you go, layering flavors.

Now that we've got that, we're gonna de-glaze.

And this is freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Little bit of that.

Okay, so while that's reducing, we can add our dried tarragon here.

So, we didn't cook the corn because we roasted the corn already.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- [Jim] All right.

So once this reduces down, we're gonna add our cream and then we'll add the corn right to it.

Like I said, it's already cooked.

So it's actually to give the sauce a little bit of sweetness.

So you got sweet, tart from the lemon and the wine, and then you've got the fattiness of the cream.

- [Jimmy] Sounds pretty good.

Yeah, I'm excited to try this one.

I guess I was excited to try the last one too.

- [Jim] Can you name the dishes that you weren't excited for so I know not to cook them ever again?

- [Jimmy] Oh, that's a good point.

And what's the name of this dish?

- [Jim] This is Blackened Walleye with a Creole sauce.

(gentle guitar music) - [Jimmy] That's really good.

(gentle guitar music continues) - Thank you so much for joining us this week for "Michigan Out of Doors".

Make sure you stay tuned in upcoming weeks.

We have a lot of exciting things headed your way.

Next week, Jordan will give us an update on what's been happening out in the archery woods.

We also have some pheasant hunting planned along the way, some more fall fishing, and a lot more hunting.

If you'd like to see where we are on a daily basis or maybe check out some of our "Michigan Out of Doors" apparel, you can always do that online.

- Well, online is a good way to see what we're up to.

You can always check out our website at michiganoutofdoorstv.com.

We're on Instagram and Facebook as well if you wanna see what we're up to on a day-to-day basis.

Make sure you are getting out and enjoying everything our state has to offer, and if we don't see you in the woods or on the water, hopefully we'll see you right back here next week on your PBS station.

- [Narrator] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by... - [Announcer] Get away from it all, to your own place.

With GreenStone's recreational land loans, we'll help you finance acreage of any size so you can own your own place in the great outdoors.

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- [Narrator] By Morgan Composting, a family business located in Michigan, Morgan Composting offers a variety of products all powered by Dairy Doo Organic Compost for homeowners and farmers.

To learn more about all the product options available for your food plots, visit dairydoo.com.

(driving rock music) (machine slams) - [Announcer 2] At Boss Shotshells, we make all our shot shells right here in Michigan and deliver them direct to your door.

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Career opportunities are available.

More information at saabinc.com.

(gentle country music) (gentle country music continues) (gentle country music continues) (gentle music)