Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Michigan Out of Doors.

I'm Jenny Selig and we've got a exciting show headed your way.

Jordan will take us out on the Detroit Rive chasing after walleyes with hand lightning gear.

You won't want to miss that story.

They had a banner day out there.

And speaking of fun fishing adventures, Jamie's got another one in store for us this week.

Well, that's right, Jenny.

We do have another fishin adventure on this week's show.

If you really want to get int the fish this time of the year, head to Lake Michigan and go about as far south as you can for some great coho fishing that's happening right now.

You won't want to miss that.

And I think we're going to have time for a couple of breaking board picture as well.

I'm Jimmy Grotzinger.

You stay tuned.

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There's a shift in the air.

The quiet hunt for spring sheds that first open water cast.

Whether you're chasing turkeys or waiting for that first walleye strike, we know the feeling.

Last week, I was able to spend an evening on the Detroit River with a couple of anglers targeting walleye.

But instead of usin a traditional rod and reel setup for this trip, we would be headlining a fishing technique that's been around for nearly a century.

It's still very much alive and well today.

We are hand widening this evening on the Detroit River down to the Trenton Channel.

It has been decent the las couple of times I've been out.

We were able to get them pretty good Saturday night or Friday night.

And then the other evening when I wen out, got out them pretty quick.

So hopefully we do the same thing tonight.

They've been hand lining on the Detroit River for over 100 years now.

They used to be the only way to catch fish out here.

Everybody did it from Peach Island all the way down here.

I knew it was kind of a niche thing just for this area, because back then the river was.

But the current, the depth and the clarity you needed to get something down there to get it in the walleye, you know, in the town, it is the where you're going to see it.

Some headlining was born, but around, I'd say the eighties, with the advent of the trolling motor and people finding out tha there were walleye in the river before nobody knew about it was just all the locals.

Everybody started jigging and then the only people left that were headlining were the old timers, the locals, people like me.

To me, it's a very effective way to fish.

It's a lot of fun.

I enjoy this more than I do jigging.

I cannot remember the last time I actually caught a walleye.

Well, it didn't take us long to put our first walleye in the boat.

And soon after we had our second one on the line.

Hey, Lining can be a little intimidating if you've never done it before but the setup is pretty simple.

So hand lining consist of a basically a boat mounted, constant tension reel in on that reel, you're going to utilize either a copper coat or a coated copper or coated steel line.

And off of that line based on your depth and currents that you're fishing, you're going to run one very large weight off the bottom of what we call a shank.

And that weight can range anywhere from three quarter of a pound all the way up to £2.

Again, based on the depth of water you're fishing is.

A quarter pound.

Up that shank.

We run two or three leaders.

A lot of people run only two and can get away with three.

And off of those we Mark and I here we choose to run repos, pencil plugs, work spoons, work any floating or works as long as it doesn't dive.

And the leaders coming off of the shank, the shank anchor points on the shank called collapses are staggere or spread out on the shank and you are your leaders are basically a length determined off of that.

We run a eight foot, 20 foot and 40 foot leads.

I always want to make sure that the largest was on top.

So if you're running nine, 11 13, make sure the 13 is on top.

The buoyancy factor with the larger lower, if you have it on bottom, will cause it to float up into your leaders above it and cause an absolute mess for you.

All we're doing, we're just bouncing it alon when the weight hits the bottom, you just feel a touch You just let it up a little bit.

But we're basically jigging it, but we're doing it while we're trolling and we're all we're jus letting it touch for a second.

We're not dragging it.

We're not doing something way up like this.

We're keeping it all down in the strike zone.

You know that the laws are withi a couple of feet of bottom fish.

They go now when we get one.

Walleye are notoriously lousy fighters, so head on.

We can get a fight out of a wall.

Yeah.

Hey, Landing was literally made for so we just.

We just bring it in hand over hand.

Then we get within a couple of feet of the boat.

Just open.

So one of the things I always say about the weight is a love when they unhook like that, don't drag bottom, bu know where bottom is at right?

So I'm just as I'm going, I' just touching it and bring it up the line as necessary letting out more as necessary.

I know Zach and Mark both know what they're doing when it comes to hand lightning but for Mark, it's in his DNA.

His great uncle invented the shallow trolling rail right here in Detroit, and there's few anglers that know more about the history of hand lining than mark.

Back before outboard motors.

What everybody used to do on the river they called chugging.

And basically they took telephone wire that they acquired.

Right.

And they would tie a weight o to it like a window slash weight and then they or tie their leaders out of that.

And what they would do is they would roll out to a spot on the river.

Usually the St Clair River was deeper drop anchor and just chug, which is kind of like what whipping is now eventuall when the upward motors came out, now everybody could they got mobile so they're like, okay, we can do this.

And the guys started experimenting with taking the old Victrola record players.

They would remove the turntable, then they put a spool on it and wind it all up to give attention.

They fill up all full of the wire now, so when they're now headlining, they could do like this and the Victrola box would keep the wire under tension.

So now they're what?

That back then was headlining.

But these boxes were cumbersome.

They didn't yet they had to bolt it down.

Otherwise they fall of the seats and stuff like that.

So around the late 1920s, early 1930s, guys started experimenting with coming up something more portable, somethin they just clamp on to the boat.

And around that time, my great uncle Ed and his younger brother Hank were messing around with the design for what was eventually become the or trolling rail, the one you get the early gol when you were on the left there, they came up with that rail 1930s early 1930s.

The original ones had a wooden spool and the whole clamp itself actually came off a grinding, sharpening wheel.

There are the handle like thi and it's fun to will never use to sharpen their knives.

Well, they took all that stuff off.

They replaced a grinding rail.

What the spool and the spring housin was where the handle used to be.

Now, according to the family, Hank was actually trying to figure this all out on his workbench one day and he couldn't do it.

Ed was an engineer and his older brother literally picke everything all up in his arms, took it home, got it to work, and started making the rails.

After World War Two ended, he moved out to Detroit and moved up to Algona, and that's when he started making the aluminum ones, the kind like Zach has here.

When they had the aluminum casing.

William Spool.

But it was still the same design.

So he was like one of the first ones at that time and started making a real St Clair fever and a few other people were messed around.

Throw gold cap, red cap.

They all started making reels too.

Eventually, Katzman Riviera got into the mix.

The only ones making a real now are s. Very few people do this anymore.

I refuse to let it die.

Yeah.

Zach has been.

Zach reached out to me years ago.

I actually don't remember how we met, but I think somebody gave him my email address or my phone number or something, and he reached out to m one day saying I got questions on hard landing.

I'm like, All right, what do you got?

And he proceeded to bug the snot out of me for the next ten years or so.

But I've been showing him, you know, getting him going and stuff like that.

And Ian kind has been I told him, I said, if you're going to, I'll show you everything you need to know how to do this and how this all works, but you have to pay it forwar and pass it on to somebody else, which I have to say, he's done a pretty good job of it.

There's at least three or four different people I know of that he's introduced us to.

Absolutely.

And it sucks that.

Mark's done.

Along with that.

I don't want to talk about it.

These guys make it look pretty easy, but there's definitely a learning curve when it comes to mainlining.

The hard part with the headline, Getting started is getting making sur you got the initial setup right.

If you don't have that set up right, you can.

I don't car what color law you're running.

I don't care where you're at I don't care what you're doing.

You're not going to catch a whole lot of fish.

You got to get that set up right.

And it's a lot of trial and error, as that will attest to.

There's a huge learning curve.

Yeah, it's a big learning curve, and it's hard to figure out what you're doing wrong when you're not catching fish.

Yeah, see wood called me up and said, Man, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

And I told them, I said, Look, on day you're going to go out there quick, you're going to pound the snot out of them and you're going to realiz everything you're doing right.

And from then on in, it's gravy.

And that's pretty much what happened.

It's like one night he actuall texted me like 11:00 at night.

He's like, Oh my God, Levi.

And I hope we wrote down our limit like an hour and a half.

This was so often and they went.

Downhill ever since.

Yeah.

And it's been the next nigh he went out and he did it again.

And ever since then, he's been, you know, just he's been dead on with it.

That's one of the things I've found that keeps people away from getting into this, is it can get Western on you in kind of a hurry and, you know, you lose $40 over $4 in one shot plus eight, $10 weight and the shank and all that can get pricey in a hurry if you're not not careful.

But the the learning curve is the biggest thing, really, having Mark all this time to pick his brain and show me and teach me everything that he's that he has is honestly been nothing short of a blessing in that regard because at this point I don't want our fish for walleye any other way.

90 years later in the shallow system is still putting fish in the boat, just like it did back in the thirties before the night was over.

I even did a little hand lining myself and manage to put a few walleye in the box before I hit the road.

Even though these reels hav been around for more than twice as long as I have, they performed flawlessly and it's easy to see why guys still use them.

Thanks to Zach and Mark for inviting me down for a fun nigh on the water here in southeast Michigan.

Well we sure do have a lot of great fishing opportunities as Michiganders here in our great state from the Detroit River, which you just saw all the wa up to the west end of the U.P.

and everywhere in between, one of the places that's hot right now is to head to Lake Michigan, g about as far south as you can.

And that's where the coho are biting.

Well, we're about a mile.

Well, I call it I call it salt.

But the people who live here call it west of New Buffalo.

It's from when you grow up.

Either way, it's hard to get away from the.

North and sout when it's.

Really east and west.

But we're just yesterday we fished the mud and killed the coho.

So we're going to have the same thing.

Okay.

How deep?

What are you targeting?

We are in 16 foot been like 15 to 20 foot the last couple of days.

I'm really.

You know, real shallow.

Now, what do you run for, Coho?

Whole time, it's been mainly the thin, the bread stone fence.

But we've been doin all these it on the little code.

Dodgers and Raptor gold flies.

And then yesterday we caught some fish on the new fuzzy bear custom make spoons nice forgotten truck Trucks got a line of customers.

Fuzzy Bear's coming out just for his store.

And we've been playing with them and they're working well.

And how long was this one for?

This fishery?

Stay here.

Oh, in here.

Shallow.

Probably a couple more weeks.

And then they'll move ou once the water warms up in here.

Once we got outside the pier and started to set lines, we had fish hit right away.

These fish were pretty much just outside of the channel in the muddy water, at least to start the day.

It was fun to learn about this coho fisher and just how old these fish are.

Oh, that's probably what what they're considering like a two or three year old.

It's still coal up to three.

So chances are that fis is probably going to be 7 to £10 by the time it get to Augus and September up at Platt Bay.

Okay.

Now, you've been fishing this water for a long time, right?

Oh, yeah.

Started my charter, learned how to fish here, actually, during BCD.

So I learned lot of silve fish off shore, primarily coal.

In the spring, they go steelhead fishing.

There's only one right here.

I'll somebody come catch this.

We're going to catch the fish Credit reports.

Not we just kept finding fish and old Fuzzy Bear here.

Well, he is an expert on these fish and filled me in a little bit more about this fishery.

Well, the call came.

They come in all winter, essentially they the winter off shore a little bit, but they're looking for something to eat.

So as ice goes away, the coho show up in that skinny water.

And most that are at the harbor towards warmer.

And then once the bait starts showing, they'll show up.

Then the kings will follow them within a week and you start seeing some little pods.

The bay within a week.

There'll be some kings on it and there's about a few kings got it ready, which is a little scary becaus it's early by about two weeks.

Okay, But they're just scattered.

KING So like they had a small cabin fever tournament on Michigan City imported this weekend and there's probably a handful caught that were weighed and that many missed.

And that's just out of for that one tournament.

So it's just a matter of time before they show up.

We have good stable other than we'll get kings.

But if we get tore u from big north, winds down here any length of time to three or four days, the north wind, it'll tear the side of the lake up at a bit, times in with the bait showing up.

Then the Kings will bypass Portage, Michigan City, and then they'll come to New Buffalo, to Saint Joe where there's deeper water for the day.

It was going great and we had a lot of fish in the boat.

It was also fun to learn a little bit more about some of the gear that these guys use here in the southern part of Lake Michigan.

Big John Sideline is usually a Willie board.

I like to use them for cold and they got beads in it.

Okay.

And a lot of times in the sprin we're fishing dirty your water and go coho aren't they aren't sound try they'll come on the ball We've got diver that are 1015 feet off the boat.

They'll get smoked by going.

So they're not boat shy.

So I feel this.

This noise keeps them active and keeps them coming to the board and they see the bait coming behind.

And the only thing I typically do if I go offshore to fish steelhead in cold, clean water, I'll go to a quiet board.

Okay.

You know, it's personal preference, just, you know, and then we'l transition to the bigger boards.

You know, the ninja border storm drain, we were they have a small walleye size and a large one.

And I like to use both of those.

That's on a raptor fly.

You know, And that's the stubby dodger.

The guys in Wisconsin are using them quite a bit.

Or Jensen's not making them anymore, huh?

They start making a little orange dodge, which everybody uses thousands of them every year.

But the fly and dirty water is good.

Rat just tied that up to the fish.

Yes, they are best eaten of the year.

That's why we like to come get them ourselves.

Let's just go to this game.

Let's.

That's acting.

I've got this duster.

Right now on the other side.

Oh, we've got a king on or.

Yeah, Chester Music.

It's music.

It's a little stubby Dodger.

Lock yourself in, buddy.

I got to.

Hear the net earnings over here.

You got the big.

One of the questions that I have wondered about is why southern Lak Michigan gets this push a fish, but not as much up north this time of the year.

Warmer water temperature.

Okay.

You know, out of Michigan City, you need five miles to get to 60 feet.

You have your first 60, then yo know, seven miles to 100 feet.

So our water warms faster, you know, and it absorbs the heat because it's dirtier with the north wind.

So it just warm faster and i shows faster to the bottom line.

They have to have something to eat.

Well, Chester was doing his best to battle this king.

We also had Dom Ryan and Trevor on board today, and we were all hoping we coul get this dandy king in the net.

Hey, that's a guy that he does all of.

Us praying to look.

At that.

Guys, is a big fish.

That's our big fish expert there.

Chester first King of the year.

Thank you.

John.

That's a dandy beauty.

20 pounder on a wolf.

I love it.

Oh, what a fish the guys say later in the season, this fish would be most likely about a 30 pounder.

It was nice that all these fis were holding so close to shore.

Same spot, same spot as yesterday.

Right in front of them, righ up to the center of the channel, though pretty nice for.

The price of gas.

And they spot fish.

Not that we're cheap or nothing.

We had a lot of doubles today and even a triple or two.

It's not like this on every trip.

But when Brant called me the day before and said, Get down here, well, he was right beside you.

We had a great day.

We had 23 Coho, one Dandy King and a nice steelhead as well.

It was quite the day in the skinny water finding nothing but silver fish, thanks to all the guys.

And if you want to head to Lake Michigan, head south should be some good fishing yet to come here in Michigan's out of doors.

Thank you so much for joining us this week four Michigan out of doors make sure you come back in upcoming weeks.

We've got a lot of great things headed your way this spring, including some turkey hunting action, some more springtime fishing, including a trip to the Upper Peninsula.

If you'd like to see where we are and what we're up to on a daily basis or a little history about the television show, you can always check us out online.

Well, that's right.

Any online is a good way to see what we're up to.

Instagram and Facebook are probably the best two ways to do that.

But you can always check out our website at Michigan Out of Door TV can full episodes of the show there recipes, some of our new merch, lots of cool stuff there and make sure you are getting out and doing everything your state has to offer.

And hopefully if we don't see you in the woods or on the water, we'll see you right back her next week on your PBS station.

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When I want to fire 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 scene.

Like rainbow trout and a hidden stream whitetail deer in the town.

Pine trees.

I am a michigan man.

I am my name Michigan.

And that's where I'm from.

And I show you my hands Lord above love this land.

I am a michigan man from the Keys.

In order.

To Saint Joe Kalamazoo to.