Fishing gives us the beautiful opportunity in life to appreciate the outdoors and allows us to interact with the environment, but it can sometimes suck if you’re unable to catch anything. If you’re planning on fishing in Houghton, I highly recommend heaving some of my advice to make things more pleasant.
For my freshman year, I did not have a car and was limited to the Keweenaw Waterway for fishing. I would walk along the waterway casting my line out in the water to no avail time and time again. Eventually, through tenacious fishing trips, I was able to find the good spots and techniques. Some of you might find yourself in a similar predicament for your freshman year trying to catch fish with poor luck. So passing down my wisdom to you, I recommend the Pilgrim River and the area between the Super 8 and the Great Lakes Research Center as good areas to find fish. Still, at this time of year the fishing is pretty slow all around the channel and just in general, so don’t expect crazy amounts of fish from these places.
Pilgrim River is an excellent place to fish for brook trout because the river has restricted fishing, so you can catch fish there but not keep them. Still the trout there are usually well sized, but getting to some of the good spots is difficult with the thick plant life by the river. I tend to have luck casting in deep pockets near log jams or turns in the river. Avoid the walkway area on the side of the bridge touching portage lake, with slow moving water, no shade and lack of good structure for the fish, with leaves this area mostly desolate at this time of the year. Using any type of spinner (except fidget spinners) in Nara park along the river usually brings good luck if the conditions are good for that day.
Now the Keweenaw Waterway itself can be a little… disappointing. Even with the area I recommended the fishing is still slow, or sometimes the fish are nonexistent there. I’ve had some luck around there with rock bass but that’s it. The people that fish in that area with success tend to cast nightcrawlers out there at the end of the day to catch walleye. The area between Super 8 and the research center has varying depths from six to 25 feet, so keep that in mind if you want to use crankbaits. If you go further west down the Keweenaw Waterway you’ll find depths of around 40 feet right near the shore in certain areas but has complete lack of bottom structure. Either area you fish at, fishing will probably be a little slow.
If you have any more questions about good fishing spots, I highly recommend talking to some people in the fishing club. They’ll usually share good fishing spots and tips, plus some might be willing to take you out to cool fishing spots. So have fun and good luck fishing.
