PICTURED (left to right) after a fun camping and fishing trip to North Manitou Island are Mike and Daniele Okma, and Tammy and Matt Okma.

The Okma families ran into what could be considered a tactical problem on Lake Manitou last week: Four people, two fishing poles.

“I did pretty good — I caught two,” said Tammy Okma, who lives in Hamilton, Mich., with her husband, Matt. “I had to fight for a fishing pole.”

The Okmas had just returned to the mainland after camping on North Manitou Island. The four of them — Tammy and Matt were joined by Daniele and Mike Okma — enjoyed their time on the island. Especially their time fishing and observing wildlife on Lake Manitou.

“We saw quite a few people, but we didn’t see many fishing,” said Mike, Matt’s brother. He resides in Traverse City; both Okmas are graduates of Suttons Bay High School. “The lake was awesome. You could catch all kinds of fish.”

If you enjoy wading in shorts on a remote lake regulated for trophy smallmouth bass, with a good chance of observing a bald eagle soaring by, then Lake Manitou is worth the ferry ride and 2-mile walk inland.

Manitou Lake

Actually, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore offers inland lakes on both Manitou islands. Neither attract much of a crowd — it’s hard to compete with miles of gorgeous Lake Michigan beaches generally reserved for sea gulls and a few rare piping plovers — but both are easily accessible for anyone who can put a pair of hiking boots to use.

If you want to fish and watch eagles, stick to Lake Manitou on North Manitou Island. For other uses — and here swimming, sight-seeing and simply moseying on rarely-used paths come to mind — Florence Lake on South Manitou Island will serve just as well.

Both are longer than they are wide, with Manitou Lake decidedly the larger of the two. On a plat map Manitou Lake appears to occupy about one-half of Section 32, located halfway between east and west Lake Michigan shorelines on North Manitou closer to the north than the south shore.

Lakeshore biologist Ken Hyde puts the lake’s actual size at 256 acres. Florence Lake on South Manitou, found just one-half a mile from the southern edge of the island, is just 78 acres.

Rangers assigned to both islands are familiar with the personalities of their inland lakes, and agreed to share them with readers.

Manitou Lake

Stu Curtain said fishermen who do nothing but peer into the depths of Manitou Lake may miss an aerial show.

The North Manitou bald eagle population is exploding, and the state’s largest bird of prey loves soaring above fish-filled Manitou Lake.

“We’re seeing staggering numbers of eagles out here,” said Curtain from a cell phone. “It’s remarkable.”

Perhaps in a testament to its remoteness, only one eagle nest has been verified on North Manitou. It’s located on the island’s northwest corner miles from Manitou Lake, and has produced three eaglets.

The tree supporting an eagle nest in a swampy area just south of Lake Manitou has fallen over, and scheduling problems prevented National Park Service personnel from flying over the island last winter to spot other nests.

Curtain said the nests must be there, somewhere, to explain all the eagles. And he wouldn’t be surprised if they are near Lake Manitou.

The lake is generally self-contained except for about a two-week period each spring when snow run-off raises the lake level to create an escaping trickle. It’s deepest point at 45 feet is found in the north end. The southern portion is dominated by a wide, sandy shelf allowing wading far from shore.

You’ll find a few reed patches along the shore and plenty of dead falls that help provide safety for fish recruitment. The treeline generally extends nearly to the water’s edge.

Most fishermen wet wade the sandy shoreline, casting to smallmouths spawning in the shallows until mid-June. Later in the season smallies are easily reached near the drop-off.

Special regulations ban the use of live bait and allow only one smallmouth larger than 18 inches to be kept. Curtain has heard of smallmouths caught up to 25 inches, and occasionally finds an angler knocking on the ranger station door late at night hoping to keep a trophy catch refrigerated for mounting.

Manitou Lake also contains a fishable population of perch that is generally best pursued from a boat.

Curtain is proud that zebra mussels have so far been kept from establishing a population in the lake. People using the lake are asked to spray any clothing that has been submerged in contaminated lakes with a saline solution.

The solution is also used to sterilize canoes or “belly boats” that fishermen occasionally pay a fee to have hauled to the island aboard a ferry run by the Manitou Transit Service. Then the boat has to be lugged two miles inland to the lake.

Biologist Hyde reported few features that would separate Lake Manitou from similar average-sized, sandy lakes in northern Michigan except for one — a lack of inhabitants.

Curtin said one incentive offered settlers on the island was the right to build a boat house on North Manitou. Few took up the offer. No homes were built.

“The lake was always their private park on the island,” said Curtin. “They didn’t build any large structures around the lake. It’s actually pretty neat. They kept that (lake) to themselves.”

Island visitors generally begin at the National Park Service dock at the village, from which they have three trail options to get to the lake. The most popular path provides two offshoots, the first accessing the southeast corner of the lake and the second leading to an abandoned boat house named after former landowner Fiske just north of the midway point of the lake’s eastern shore. Hikers can also continue north along the trail to the main “Figure 8” island trail to the Stormer Camps, and turn south along a non-maintained trail that traverses the entire west side of the island.

Campers must set up at least 300 feet from the lake. “There are a number of camp sites that people have used year after year, so you don’t have to work as hard to find good camping spots,” said Curtin.

If you like snakes, and a few people fit into this category, you’ll love Lake Manitou. It’s not uncommon to find snakes every few feet sunning themselves on trails. Most are garter snakes, said Curtin, and present no danger.

“Snakes are everywhere. I can guarantee visitors they will see garter snakes every day,” said Curtin. Green grass and hognose snakes have also been documented.

One precaution: bring your bug spray.

“Yesterday was a very buggy day for mosquitoes,” said Curtin, who warned that lowlands north and south of the lake serve as prolific breeding grounds.

On North Manitou, though, visitors have to pick their poison. “Black flies tend to be worse around Lake Michigan,” he said.

Visitation is on the increase this time of year. In 2007, North Manitou hosted 560 visitors in June, 974 in July, 800 in August and just 278 in September, an ideal month to visit.

Curtin has his own favorite time to view Lake Manitou.

“Probably the prettiest time is at night. Everything tends to radiate and reflect off the lake. The stars and moon are very beautiful,” he said.

Florence Lake

Unlike North Manitou Island where the ferry stops once per day in the summer, day-long visits are provided through twice-daily ferry service to South Manitou.

And Florence Lake, which can feel like bath water compared to Lake Michigan, is only about a one-mile walk from the NPS dock.

Consequently, according to ranger Kimberly McCrary, the lake attracts its share of swimmers.

“There are quite a few visitors on South Manitou Island,” said McCrary. “It is quiet out there (on Florence Lake), which is nice.”

In fact, Florence Lake seems to take a backseat to other places of interest on South Manitou such as a lighthouse offering a stunning panoramic shoreline view, a grove of the biggest cedar trees remaining in Michigan and the remains of the shipwreck Francisco Morazon.

In the middle of all these attractions is Florence Lake.

“It’s not the center of attraction,” admits McCrary. “You go by the south end of Lake Florence on the main trail (to the Valley of the Giant cedars), so people see it. But it’s not the primary thing people are here for.”

Florence Lake is noticeably smaller and predictably shallower than Manitou Lake. It’s deepest point is just 25 feet.

Other differences: Treeline does not meet shoreline, and there are fewer fish. The two are related, according to Hyde, who said a lack of woody debris along the shoreline provides less-than-prime habitat. A survey turned up just four species of fish in Florence Lake: northern pike, perch, smallmouth bass and the Iowa darter.

“Those were literally the only species found,” said McCrary.

Fishermen, however, have no special regulations to follow. Live bait is allowed.

Trying to help fish populations is a den of beavers that has set up on the south end of the lake. The beavers are nawing through soft timber and dragging sticks and limbs into the water.

While not maintained by the Park Service, a trail extends along the west side of the lake. Swimmers generally avoid the north end of the lake, which tends to be mucky.

Whenever you visit Florence Lake, odds are good that you’ll have little company. That in itself puts Florence Lake and Lake Manitou in classes to themselves.