- Well hey everybody, welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

Thank you so much for joining us this week.

We are glad that you are here.

We're gonna kick things off on this week's episode in my hometown of Ludington, Michigan on PM Lake, chasing some tip-ups for some pike.

Great day on the water there.

You won't wanna miss that.

Then we're gonna drop down to Southern Michigan where there really hasn't been good ice in the last couple of winters.

Well we do have good ice this year.

And we're gonna spend some time on the hard water with a couple of guys doing some pan fishing.

Then we're gonna end this week's show with a really good fish recipe.

It's actually a smoked salmon dip inside of a walleye filet.

I know it sounds a little crazy, but it was phenomenal.

You won't wanna miss that.

Make sure you stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger, and 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.

♪ Some day our children all will see ♪ ♪ This is their finest legacy ♪ 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 ♪ - [Announcer] "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.

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Offering a wide variety of calibers and colors, backed by lifetime warranty.

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(upbeat music) - [Announcer] By Angler Quest Pontoons, offering Fishing pontoons designed by anglers for anglers.

Angler Quest Pontoons are built with a multifunctional layout to support a variety of fishing adventures.

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(water splashing) (gentle music) - We're on Pier Marquette Lake in Ludington, Michigan today.

And we're actually chasing after some big pike.

Just tip-up fishing today.

And just hoping for a big female spawning pike that's getting ready to stage in the Pier Marquette River.

So hopefully that happens today.

We've already had a couple flags, two keepers on the ice, so it's a good day hanging out with some good friends that I haven't seen in a long time.

So it's a good day.

We're using tip-ups today.

Mostly drag traps are from a polar tip-up.

50 pound braid.

And we're using smelt as bait, dead smelt on a Swedish hook.

And we're running the bait anywhere from a foot to two foot off bottom.

And we're kind of fishing kind of a pinch point right here.

It's kind of a staging area before the Pier Marquette River.

We're just hoping for a big pike that travels through here.

- [Jimmy] We had quite a few guys on the ice today, some local and some who had traveled quite a ways to be here, all to celebrate Chris's birthday, and hopefully catch a few pike along the way.

Lots of anglers means lots of tip-ups and we were anxious to see what the day would hold.

- Yeah.

Did it move at all, guys?

- [Fisher] I didn't see it move, but.

- There's a fish on there.

It's small, but it's a fish.

Oh wow.

Smallest fish I've ever caught here.

Look at how small this is.

- [Fisher] He likes you.

- [Jordan] They say the camera adds 10 pounds.

- Thanks Jordan.

- So it weighs 10 pounds.

- [Fisher] So it's a 10 pounder.

- I go Tristan, that's big pike, big pike water.

I run over, it's a 12 inch pike, not even is as big as my smelt.

So we got a Swedish hook here.

We're gonna put our depth finder on and find depth.

We're just gonna release it down until we find up.

And what we're looking for is bottom of course.

And we're fishing deeper water out here.

So it should be anywhere from 20 to 30 foot of water.

And I like to feel bottom right there, I know it's tension and sitting on bottom, but I still like to feel it and know it's gonna bounce off bottom.

So that's bottom.

And I usually set the tip up off the side and I'll go one foot.

And since we're in deeper water, I'm gonna go further than two foot off bottom.

We're gonna go three foot off bottom, two foot, three foot.

And then I'll grab a line marker.

So that way every time I get a flag on this tip-up, I don't have to reset for depth.

It takes one equation out.

Instead of having to use a depth finder every single time you get a flag, there's your line marker.

Some people like to use buttons, which that's how I grew up, using buttons.

But this is just simple, efficient way, and I like being efficient.

We're using a smelt today.

We're using smelt for the oils in the fish, not the presentation of the fish.

We're using it for the oils in the fish.

Big pike like oils.

They like oily fish.

We're gonna run this Swede all the way up through the fish.

Straighten it out a little bit.

(group chattering) Make sure the barb is just sticking out past of the head.

And then I like to squeeze it so when the fish goes down, it has no air in it.

So the fish will sit perfectly like that in the water.

Drop her down, foot over foot, nice and easy.

You can take your time when you're doing this.

It doesn't have to be a rush.

And then we got a tip-up down.

Hopefully it goes off and we catch a nice pike.

Get him, hoarder.

(gentle music) - [Jimmy] That looks like a good fish, guys.

Tension.

- [Tristan] Hook him up.

- Last time he fished with me was five years ago.

Nice fish, hoarder.

- Bring the bucket.

- Yes!

- Okay, now bring the bucket.

- [Jimmy] The bite was a little slow the first few hours, but consistent.

We were averaging just about a fish an hour between the group.

But the time between flags seemed to fly by as we were having just as much fun waiting for a fish as we were pulling them through the ice.

- You know, it's one of our favorite places to fish in our hometown.

You know, I like to set up something special for Chris's birthday every year, and we most likely like to hit this spot because it's his favorite spot in our hometown.

So we love coming here.

The last four or five years though, we've had to kind of bounce around because we haven't had good ice here.

So this year, having good ice finally on his birthday, being able to get out here.

We got a friend in from Pennsylvania, we got another friend that came all the way down from Petoskey area.

I'm coming up from the Grand Rapids area, another buddy from the Grand Rapids area all here to celebrate his birthday and do what we love and we keep this tradition on that was passed onto him by his dad.

We use the same techniques and we get to hang out, and I've always said it's kind of like having a deer camp, but being able to fish at the same time.

And at deer camp you get that campfire, that atmosphere of hanging out.

Well we get to do this while we watch our tip-ups, so we get to share these memories and it gives us a reason to always get back together.

We've been friends for 30 some odd years now, and the fact that we can still get together and do what we love outdoors is a very special thing.

- Good fish come out?

- Yeah.

- There we go, good job.

- That's a dandy.

- I'll take it.

- [Chris] Nice job, bro.

- Oh!

- Oh no!

- Did you get that on film?

- I think so.

- I hope so.

My spreader popped out and it couldn't have been any more of a switch.

- [Fisher] You got it about this high and it went right down.

- [Eric] Kinda like your phone.

- I was telling them about earlier- - Oh man, that's funny.

The first fish in Pier Marquette lake.

- Fish on there.

- We got speed or icky?

- Nope.

You just got tension is what you got.

Good tension.

And he's jerking it right now.

Fish on.

Seems like a decent one, T, is it?

- [Tristan] I think he's okay.

- [Chris] Yeah.

Nice job.

- There we go.

- That's a pretty fish.

- Not bad at all.

- Walked right by it.

Just boom.

- [Tristan] I think we said as we're kind of counting here right now, I think we had about 15 flags, which really isn't a bad number, but it was a good amount of time in between each one.

We didn't have firing popping off all at once.

It just felt like, it almost felt like one every hour.

- It was about a flag per hour.

Yep.

- And I think we ended up with a total of four keepers on the ice today between everybody.

A couple, one was, what was it, 32?

- 32 was the biggest fish.

- We got a 29.

So a couple nice fat fish.

- [Chris] And then lost a decent fish on our last flag.

But it was kind of a slow day today on Pier Marquette Lake.

- So we definitely had a mixed bag.

We had some small pike and we had some good size ones too.

So it was a good day.

It was a good day.

And with the wind that was forecasted and we were able to get here in this cove area and get the block of the wind and had the sun out, and actually temperatures weren't bad.

So it actually was a pretty great day.

- [Chris] For sure, great day.

- We spent almost the entire day on the ice, and I'm not sure if there was ever a dull moment.

When you combine good friends, good fishing, and good weather, it's pretty tough to beat.

Special thanks to Tristan, Chris, and the rest of the crew for inviting me out for a fun day of ice fishing here in West Michigan.

- [Eric] I might have you beat, Debo.

- [Debo] That's yours from earlier.

- [Chris] You better put that on a hook and use it as bait.

Put that in your fish tank.

(laughs) - [Fisher] Quick, get the gaff.

- Well that was a lot of fun fishing with those guys on PM Lake.

And for our next segment on this week's show, we're gonna stick with the ice fishing theme, this time in a part of the state that really hasn't had good ice conditions the last couple of years.

(bright music) - We're just southeast of Marshall, Michigan.

We're on Stewart Lake or Brace Lake they call it upper and lower, setting tip-ups, doing a little blue gill jigging.

We've been catching some good croppie here as well.

Just the other day we had a limit of croppie actually, and seen a few anglers here and there come through, but nobody wants to make the walk around.

So we have a little access on the upper side here, and see how the day goes I guess.

Well there's one down.

- [Jimmy] Let me through the band fishing set up here.

- This is a 36 inch Ultra Light Ice Blues Rod, standard reel that comes on it.

I shake a lot, so I like a longer rod.

More sensitive.

I don't use a spring bobber just because these are basically the spring bobber themselves.

I got three pound on.

And this is a tungsten, I don't know what the size of the jig is, but it's pink with yellow dots tipped with some red spikes.

Seems to be the color most years for myself, I like moon jigs as well, the pink moon jigs.

But this gets down to the bottom pretty quick, which when there's fish down there, you want to get down there as fast as you can so you can get that next bite.

Yeah, the screen's loaded right now, that's awesome.

- [Jimmy] The plan today was to set a handful of tip-ups in hopes of catching a nice pike.

In the meantime, the panfish were keeping us pretty busy.

And while we waited for that first flag, I asked Kodey how he got started ice fishing.

- Well my grandfather, he played a big role in it as a kid, he was a big gill fisher.

I mean he had a little, we call it the SS Minnow.

I've got it now.

And that's all he would do.

I mean, he had three or four little tackle bags, nothing but gill jigs and little hairline hooks and everything you could imagine for gill fishing.

And the only closest thing for me as a kid was a Saint Joe River just a mile from the house.

So I'd hop on the bike with a buddy, and a backpack full of snacks and a bucket of worms and a pole with a split shot and a hook.

And we thought we were on top of the world catching suckers and red horse or carp or a little smallmouth.

And the town I live in, Teconsha, there's a little dam right next to the Randall Beans there.

We'd spend, if we could, the weekend there.

It felt like it was only an hour, but we were there for 10.

And as I got older, a buddy of mine, his dad got us into the ice gig really.

My grandpa did a lot of that, but I never went with him for that part.

And I seen how a tip-up was set and I was hooked from there as a kid.

I actually did it as a show and tell project in school, believe or not, everybody's wondering what this guy's got this orange HT tip-up in class with a spool bunch of lion, that's me, and 10 out of 10, I recommend tip-up fishing for Northern Pike.

Nothing beats it on a cold winter day to sit in a shanny and watch flags go up.

Hanging out with the buddies, drinking coffee, or a few jigs here and there for gills.

It can be a good day.

Like I said, an hour turns into 10 hours real fast.

- [Jimmy] The first couple of hours came and went without a single flag, but thankfully the panfish were still biting.

- Bring that one out here, Scott.

Check this out, guys.

This is awesome fish right here.

Wow, look at the shoulders on him.

- Just jigging, he came in about the center of the water column at about four foot.

- [Kodey] Using minnows or just the jig head?

- No, that was two red spikes and a Wonderbread jig head.

I grew up in Albion, close to the Kalamazoo River.

My dad took me, my dad was the one that got me into hunting and fishing.

He took me down on the river a lot when I was younger.

We did a lot of smallmouth fishing, a lot of bass fishing, carp, sucker fishing.

Got into bow fishing on the river down there.

And then from there, when I got a little bit older, we started doing some bass fishing and pike fishing on the local lakes in Calhoun County, Jackson County.

And I just kinda got more interested in it there and got my own boats and started doing a lot more pike fishing and bass fishing.

Currently my main thing is walleye fishing, walleye and steelhead.

I do a lot of steelhead fishing down in Allegan on the Kalamazoo River.

And a lot of walleye fishing on the Detroit River.

Yeah, actually anywhere I can get into them at.

(gentle music) Oh, hello.

Look at that red here.

That's a nice red here.

I just like being able to get out and I can access a lot more water ice fishing.

I enjoy coming out.

Love running tip-ups for pike.

It's one of my favorite things is chasing flags.

Just happy to be out this year and have conditions that were good where we actually had some money.

I only got out three times last year and two of those times was up north.

So I'm glad that we're finally actually getting some good ice down here this year.

- Fish on.

Oh, he just, oh nope, he's still on.

Boy, that's in (indistinct) - Thought he spit it for a second.

- [Scott] Yeah yeah yeah, I seen it go slack for a second.

- Oh, there it is.

Nice.

Just a little guy.

- Even though the pike fishing was pretty slow, I think we were all just happy to be back on the ice in a part of the state that hasn't seen good ice conditions in a couple of years.

Thanks to Kodey and Scott for letting me tag along for a fun day on the hard water here in Southern Michigan.

(gentle music) All right, well we are here once again in Mount Pleasant at the wood Shop Social, Jim Wood, chef extraordinaire.

We've got some fish we're dealing with.

What are you doing here today?

- We're gonna do a stuffed walleye.

- A stuffed walleye, and we're stuffing the walleye with?

- Another fish.

- Okay.

How do you decide which one is the stuff and which one is the stuffee or how do you, could you do it backwards?

Could you do the walleye inside of the salmon?

- You could.

I feel like you're overly complicating this right now.

But to your point, you don't have to use any of this stuff.

You can use any type of fish really.

You could use crab or shrimp in place of the smoked salmon.

You could use raw salmon.

There's so many different things you can do here.

So I'm just giving you like a template.

- Well get us started here.

What do we do?

- All right, so we've got some cream cheese that's at room temperature.

And we're gonna whip that up good.

- You said you could do this with raw salmon too?

- Yeah, for sure.

Now if you use raw salmon, you're not gonna wanna make a dip out of it.

I mean, I guess you could, but rolling the dice on that one.

So after the cream cheese, and we've got some mayonnaise.

- So heart healthy.

- Yeah, sure.

- Perfect.

- Everything in moderation, Jimmy.

All right, so we've got some diced celery.

This is fresh dill.

Worcestershire.

Raw onion, red onion.

Fresh lemon juice.

- Little mustard.

- Some Dijon mustard.

Once again, this is just a template, if you want to use a different type of mustard, if you don't want to use mustard, I would say make this recipe first and see what you like, see what you don't like.

And we're finishing it off with some dill pickle relish.

And we're gonna mix that up.

I like to keep my chunks of salmon as whole as I can.

So instead of blend it, we're gonna fold it in.

- [Jimmy] All right.

And at this point, with the salmon already cooked, I mean this is basically, the dip is done, correct?

- [Jim] This is the dip, yeah.

- All right.

So what are we doing now, Jim?

- So we've got our walleye filets here.

The outside of the filet, the presentation side, we're gonna hit that with some salt.

(upbeat music) We're gonna knock her over, hit that side with some salt.

And then we're gonna spread our stuffing in.

- [Jimmy] Now are you gonna roll them or just stack them on top of each- - We're gonna roll them.

And what we're gonna do now is we're gonna put it in the oven, but first we're gonna hit it with a little bit of butter, melted butter, a little bit of paprika.

We're gonna cook it until the insides cook through.

So 135, 140, and then it's done.

- [Jimmy] Well, special thanks to Jim for letting us come in and do another recipe.

Everything he cooks is quite good, but this one I have to tell you, even though it seemed a little different, was absolutely out of this world, something you may want to try.

- Thank you for joining us this week for "Michigan Out of Doors."

Make sure you come back again next week.

We're gonna check out Michigan's shortest fishing season.

The Sturgeon spearing season happened last weekend on Black Lake near Sheboygan, and it lasted 17 minutes.

You won't wanna miss that.

We'll also have some more wintertime fishing for you and some rabbit hunting.

And we're gonna set our sights on Big Buck Night East, which happens in two short weeks.

If you'd like to see where we're at, what we're up to, or a little more in-depth look at the show, you can always check us out online at michiganoutofdoorstv.com or on our social media platforms @MichiganOutofDoorsTV.

If we don't see you in the woods or out on the hard water, we'll see you right back here next week for "Michigan Out of Doors."

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SCI supports and funds conservation programs in the state of Michigan.

Learn more how you can get involved at a chapter near you.

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The show features tackle, trips, boats, outfitters, the trout pond, and of course, Big Buck Night.

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

(upbeat music) ♪ 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 scene ♪ ♪ Like rainbow trout in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer in the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ I am I am a Michigan man ♪ Ask where I'm from and I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord above I love this land ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ From the Keeweenaw down to Saint George ♪ ♪ Kalamazoo east to Monroe ♪ To Saint Marie and back again ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ I am I am a Michigan man ♪ Ask where I'm from and I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord above I love this land ♪ I am a Michigan man (bright music)