WildYooper Stories
Ride Out and Fish: A Snowmobiler's Guide to Ice Fishing in the Upper Peninsula
Spend a February Saturday on Munuscong Bay and you'll notice something: half the snowmobiles out there aren't trail riding at all. They're fishing transportation. Somebody's uncle has a shanty, the sled pulls it out in December, and all winter long the ride to the fish is half the point. If you've never ridden out to fish, you're missing the best two-for-one in the U.P. — a trail ride in the morning, walleye through the ice by lunch.
Where folks actually go
Munuscong Bay, east of the Soo, is perch and walleye water and an easy run from the Soo-area trails. The Les Cheneaux Islands off Cedarville and Hessel freeze early in their sheltered bays and fish perch all season — good first trip. Out west, Lake Gogebic is the big inland name: walleye and perch, with trails reaching its shores near Watersmeet and Bergland. Keweenaw Bay off L'Anse and Baraga grows lake trout and whitefish, but that's deep, serious ice — go with somebody who's been going for years. And the harbor at Grand Marais is a protected little starter spot right off the Trail 8 corridor.
The rules I don't bend
You'll never read the word "safe" next to the word "ice" on this site. Ice is checked, or it isn't. River mouths, currents, springs — thin all winter, every winter, no matter how cold it got. So: fish where the clubs and the locals report measured ice. Follow the marked routes where they exist. Wear your ice picks on your chest — look at the picture up top, the old boy's wearing his. Tell somebody where you'll be and when you'll be back. And have a current Michigan fishing license in your pocket; the DNR guide spells out seasons and limits lake by lake, and "I didn't know" has never once worked on a conservation officer.
The riding part is easy. It's the knowing-before-you-go that saves the day, which is why our town pages run ice notes right alongside the trail conditions all winter.