Marker bouy Walleyes,an old trick?

I suppose with the advent of GPS technology marker bouys have kinda gone the way of 8 track audio tapes. Well as much as I’d like one I don’t have a GPS yet, but I’ll tell you my story of our fishing trip a few days ago.
We decided to try the Peavey Reserviour. The Peavey is just across the Wisc/Mich border near Iron Mountain, Mich. It is formed by the confluence of the Michigamme River and Paint River Diversion Canal. Its Dam outflow goes into,the Menominee River in Florence County. Its stained water contains most warm water species and covers several hundred acres. It has some fairly predictable weed walleye patterns when the cabbage is up. Our problem was the cabbage STILL ISN’T UP?
We used every searching technique I know and finally we worked a trolling pattern across a windswept bay from deep to shallow. At 11′ we finally hit paydirt in the form of a 16″ eye. I turned the old T-8 around to retrace my steps and a few minutes later teen aged Jeremy Thiel had another eye on. Same place, same depth, same jointed Shad Rap. My old instincts reached for a bright orange marker bouy. “PLip,plip,plip..as it flopped around feeding out line. We fished around the bay until “dark thirty” but only caught walleyes near the marker. We picked up the marker and headed home scoring on a half dozen Walleyes and some nice Smallmouth. By the way, I don’t have a GPS but that spot is where the Birch tree and the big line up with each other at 11′ deep.

Sorry about the typo in the last sentence guys! The hot spot is where the Birch tree lines up with the big rock in about 11′ of water.

Great post!! Isn’t it amasing how some have lost the art of boat control & location control. I have a favorite spot on the lake I grew up on in WI. You have to line up straight off from the red boathouse (it use to be white), then line up between the silo to the east with the large white pine on the west. You don’t even need to know the depth. Hit them every time

Hey Markvan, what lake would that be? Steve

Thanks Markvan, I guess even the markers were high tech compared to when we used to line up distant reference points like your silo. When I fish Little Bay De Noc and there are 75-100 boats on the reefs I don’t dare throw out a marker, as you’ll have 10 other boats fishing on it. I still use the vector system. Of course thats were the GPS shine I guess.

Steve: I grew up on Tainter Lake. Moved there when we were one of only ten year round residents on the east side of the lake. People told my Parents that they were nuts! Why would anyone want to live 10 miles away from town! Guess the old man was smarter than most!!! I know lots of little known humps /points / drop offs all over the lake.

Yep I kind of figured that is where you were talking about. Too bad you
had to head back right away. I had to work on Saturday and I guess it wasn’t
a real good fish day yesterday anyway. I awoke to thunder and rain (again)
Oh well get the honey doos done and play when the weather straightens out
and it stops raining. When are you comeing back up. I would like to get on
on Tainter and do a little trolling.Maybe with the river pouring in it will keep
the water changed and it won’t get green. Nah that won’t help. Catch you later Steve

As a kid I use to use the green scum as a form of paint. I would spread it on the dock & anything else I could find. (I must have been a deprived Kid!!) I have notice that over the last 10 years the lake has cleaned up. The thick slime isn’t as bad. One of the best places on the lake is up the Hay River, by the bridge. A jig & minnow combo by the bridge pilings always brings in a few Eye’s. The east side especially is productive. The flat right at the mouth, north side, is also very good. I troll a floating Rap in 5′.

Hi…
Boy, reading your post made me smile. I’ve fished for about four or five years now, and have always used GPS. I swore by GPS and relied on it all the time. In all honesty I never really took note of other ways of referencing an area, I just didn’t think I’d need it. Well, this May I had the awesome opportunity to fish with Steve Fellegy for a week on Mille Lacs. It was incredible! I learned so much about locating an area in a lake without having to depend on GPS. I’ve now learned to force myself to determine position/ location by other means in addition to GPS. And your comment about marker buoys…I too thought they were a thing of the past. How wrong I was! It was so awesome learning how to properly place a marker buoy so as to envision the structure of the area one is fishing. Just having that marker buoy out there, and having figured out the structure of the area before fishing it, I can totally envision where I am on a piece of structure now! I thought I was doing it before without the buoy; but, when out in a vast area on a body of water, just that one little buoy made a big difference….at least for me it did!
So, your post brought back memories of an awesome week of fishing! Thanks! I am dying to get up there and fish again!
~Jenn

Jenn: Sorry the end of the post carried off the subject!! I read a lot of Joe’s stuff. You are lucky!! Just when you think you have it down….. wham – somebody comes along and opens your eyes even wider. Just like I tell my Kids, always compete against yourself. If you always compaire yourself to others you are going to be dissapointed. No matter how good you are at something – someone is always bigger, stronger, faster, etc.. Make sure you learn, make sure you try your hardest, and you will improve. Doesn’t the same go for fishing?

Mark

Opps: I ment Steve.