HOUGHTON, Mich. — A lot of people head south when the snow falls. Pro walleye angler Mark Martin goes north to the Keweenaw Peninsula, reveling in the icy conditions that he knows will provide access to excellent walleye lakes that see relatively few fishermen even in summer.

“Some of these lakes are easier to get to in a snowmobile than in a car,” said Martin, whose second home is near the northern tip of the sparsely populated peninsula that juts 50 miles into Lake Superior.

Each year he and two of his close friends from the national walleye circuits, Mark Brumbaugh and Mike Gofron, conduct an annual Ice Fishing Vacation School, where 25 people who want to learn hard-water fishing techniques are guided for three days by about 20 expert ice fishermen.

Martin would love to be able to put the school on in the Keweenaw, but it’s 500-600 miles from the state’s major population centers and would mean adding two days to the four-day event, time that most people no longer have to spare.

For the past few years it has been held on Saginaw Bay, where it will take place this year Feb. 6-9 out of Linwood Beach Marina in Linwood on the west side of the huge bay.

Ice fishing is like every other kind of angling in its unpredictability.

“Some days are great, some days aren’t,” he said. “One day last year, 21 people caught 329 walleyes. We also caught a lot of smallmouth bass, catfish, whitefish and even some lake trout. It was probably the best day of ice fishing I’ve ever seen.

“But then there have been days when you struggle to put a few fish on the ice. That’s when knowing what you’re doing will make the difference between whether you’re the guy who gets a few fish or the one who doesn’t get any.”

Martin said the biggest mistake most casual ice anglers make is failing to make use of modern electronics.

“A good fish finder doesn’t just let you see the fish. You can see your jig and the bottom structure and figure out how the fish are relating to both,” he said. “And a Navionics chip with lake charts will get you right back to the hump or drop-off that concentrates fish. Without it, you could hunt around all day and never even come close.

“Last year, one of the local guys (on Saginaw Bay) told us that a lot of the walleyes he caught had crappies in their stomachs. We used the Navionics charts to go to a place where we caught walleyes last summer and we just crushed the walleyes.”

Anglers also should carry a selection of lures in different colors.

“My box has a bunch of Buckshot rattling jigs, Rapala swimming jigs and Swedish pimples,” Martin said. “And I carry the same lures in glow-in-the-dark colors. Early in the morning, and from about 4:30 on in the afternoon, the glow colors really help catch fish. Last year, we had some days where you couldn’t catch walleyes without them.”

The first day of the ice fishing school is spent helping the students set up their tackle and teaching techniques that will help them catch more fish.

“Probably the most important thing is learning what to do after they get a strike and miss it,” Martin said. “The natural reaction is to reel the lure up to see if you still have a minnow on it.

“What they should do is open the bail on the reel, let it back down and pound the lure on the bottom a few times. The walleye they missed is still going to be hanging around, and once he’s had a taste of that he’s probably going to want more.”

Last year’s ice fishing school saw anglers catching more fish than the previous year, but they were smaller on average. That’s because ice conditions offshore were unsafe and the group couldn’t make the run 5-6 miles out to where the biggest fish usually concentrate.

That forced anglers to scout near-shore areas they had never fished before, “and we found some great places with really big numbers of fish,” Martin said. “That’s where we were catching the smallmouths and whitefish. I was really surprised, because we never catch those species when we’re ice fishing way out in the bay.”

The cost of the ice fishing school is $475, which includes a package of fishing equipment that Martin said is worth $200. For information about the school, visit Martin’s Web site at www.markmartins.net or call Linwood Beach Marina at 989-697-4415.

(c) 2011, Detroit Free Press.

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