HOUGHTON, Mich. -- It was once the land of the Ojibwa Indians. A low, mountainous tangle of volcanic activity at the time the earth was formed.

Today it is the Keweenaw, the northernmost tip of Michigan"s Upper Peninsula jutting into Lake Superior like a huge rocky thumb. At its base a 27-mile long waterway cuts across from east to west, a natural gash in the rocky landscape which for hundreds of years was a highway for the Objibwa.

Then it was discovered by the French voyagers, a shortcut carving hundreds of miles off a dangerous canoe journey as the fur trade gained momentum. In the mid 1800s miners discovered the world"s most pure "native" copper protruding from the granite cliffs and rugged mountiansides. By the 1860s copper mining was in full swing and the finale quarter mile or so of rock guarding the west edge of the waterway from Lake Superior was cut out and water extended full across the peninsula.

This provided safe harbor for vessels combating Lake Superior"s violent storms as well as a port which saw shipment of over a billion and a half pounds of copper from the Keweenaw mines.

Today, the copper mines long ago exhausted, the Keweenaw is a destination for tourists. The history, natural beauty, waterfalls and lakes are the summer attraction. When winter descends, dropping 200 inches of snow some years, skiing and snowmobiling are the big draw.

Although the area abounds in fishing opportunity, it appears the Keweenaw is one of the last great frontiers for the angler.

The spotlight of national attention focused on the Keweenaw Waterway a few years ago when the In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail held their national tournament in Houghton. The waterway, made up of Portage and Torch lakes, gave up her walleyes reluctantly, but the spark was borne and the nation learned that these lakes hosted huge populations of trophy walleyes (up to and over 16-pounds biologists report), smallmouth and northern pike.

My wife Fran and I were there when the pros competed for championship honors and spent nearly a week conducting our own prospecting, sightseeing and fishing. We found the area intriguing and vowed to return.

We headquartered at a waterfront motel in Houghton and trailered our boat back and forth to a ramp in Chassell just six miles to the south. That ramp puts you right into Portage Lake, the main body of water in the waterway. It"s here that the walleyes roam across miles of 30-foot deep flats and shorelines edged in sand.

We began our hunt for walleyes by cruising the open water looking for baitfish and it didn"t take long to find them. Huge schools of bait literally covered some areas for over a mile in length. We trolled these open areas looking for suspended walleyes. Planer boards spread our lines out to each side of my boat and we ran two longlines out the back. We tried a big variety of tried-and-true crankbaits to tempt these finicky open water fish, eventually running some of them behind snap weights to gain added depth, but to no avail.

It wasn"t until I pushed towards the shoreline and trolled the edges of shallow, sandgrass flats that I began to pick up walleyes.

Fish relating to weeds and weed edges are usually in a mood to feed and that was the case here.

But these weren"t the big trophy fish that are found in the deeper water. Yet, the few I caught ran in the two to two-and-a-half pound range.

Smallmouth, however, were calling. The waterway is widely-known for excellent smallmouth fishing and not even walleyes can keep my attention when I"m fishing a lake filled with smallmouth.

Our search began on the eastern edge of the waterway, literally less than a half mile from Lake Superior. With a lighthouse in view over our shoulders, I began casting small jigs tipped with Power Bait minnows into the shoreline along the narrows.

It didn"t take long. A 16-inch smallie inhaled the jig and went airborne. A couple of casts later added another.

These fish were shallow, less than four feet deep on a rock rubble shoreline in an area that looked to me to be a prime wintering spot for these fighting fish. The water temperature was 63 degrees, and we were probably a week or two early to catch the big migration of smallmouth to the channel but some were there just the same.

Northerns are also plentiful here with fish over 15 pounds readily available. We didn"t fish for them intentionally, but caught plenty in 11 feet of water along the weedlines.

Eventually, we fished our way all across the waterway and the final evening of the trip found us sitting on Lake Superior just outside the waterway enjoying a fine sunset.

On the way back I stopped at a bed of curly leaf cabbage on a sandgrass flat just off the main channel. We began casting Frenzy Firestick crankbaits. Fran hooked up immediately and a fine smallmouth rocketed into the air. It was a beauty and as she held it, the fading sun ricocheted hues of gold and green from the flanks of the bronze fish as she turned it back and forth.

"That"s it," I said. "We can"t have a better finish than this."

The fish went back with a splash and its big tail powered it into the depths. I cranked up the big motor and sent the boat hurtling back towards Houghton five miles away. Tomorrow it would be back to the cornfields of Iowa.

Larry Myhre is editor of the Journal. Reach him at (712) 293-4201 or email at larrymyhre@siouxcityjournal.com.

Larry Myhre is outdoors editor of the Journal. Reach him at (712) 276-5965 or email at: lfentfish@msn.com