Once hunting seasons close down in the north, there’s not much for outdoorsmen to do until spring. They could, of course, spring for airfare and head to Florida, the Gulf Coast, or even Hawaii. But for those more inclined to stay closer to home, ice fishing is the name of the game. And if you haven’t tried it, you should. With sonar, power augers, snowmobiles, plus ice-fishing shanties that have everything from stoves and heaters to televisions sets, ice fishing doesn’t mean you have to freeze your butt off. It’s even civilized! And on some lakes, like Mille Lacs in Minnesota, ice fishing villages pop up on the ice as soon as it’s hard enough to hold enough weight. In the north, they know how to party hearty in winter.
Here you’ll find a variety of tips and tactics that will help you catch fish through the ice. You just have to get there!
“Ice-fishing isn’t so much a sport as it is a way of positively dealing with unfortunate reality. I mean, you can wake up in the morning depressed because it will be months yet before you can fly fish in real, liquid water, or you can leap out of bed thinking, ‘Oh boy! It’s the height of ice-fishing season.’ Or if not, ‘Oh boy,’ then at least, ‘Okay.’”
—John Gierach, The View from Trout Lake,
Simon & Schuster, 1988
“Fish congregate under the ice, and do not spread out over the lake as in spring, summer, and fall. The deep holes are best, but these deep holes do not necessarily have to be in the middle of the lake.”
—Charles J. Farmer, Sports
Afield, “The Sound Approach to Ice
Fishing,” January 1975
If you spot a bunch of ice fishermen all jigging in the same general area, you can be sure that fish are in the area. Time to join the party!
“The most common error I have seen in ice fishing is angling too far from shore. Think of the ice-covered lake as you would if you were covering it in a boat. Chances are you would not fish the middle of the lake, but rather you would cast to points, the drop-offs, and where streams enter the lake.”
—Charles J. Farmer, Sports Afield,
“The Sound Approach to Ice Fishing,” January 1975
As the winter deepens and the action slows on your favorite areas along the banks for catching panfish—bluegills, yellow perch, pickerel—you may not have to chase all over the lake looking for them. First check out the deep water just adjacent to the areas where you caught panfish in summer and then at the start of winter’s ice fishing.
“Smelt are hard to get and hard to keep. They can’t take sloshing around in bait buckets and will not be alive just when you need them most. Some anglers put baffles in their bait buckets to stop that from happening.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“The snowmobile and power ice auger made ice fishing what it is today. In the days before these devices came along, ice fishing only called to the strongest and most hearty. All the equipment being used today—from power augers to rods, reels, and jigs—is amazing in what it can do to help you have fun days out on the ice, instead of drudgery and plain hard work. Check out the gear on the Internet, particularly at places like www.cabelas.com, www.basswpro.com, and www.gandermountain.com.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Checking traps frequently can produce action with the bait that leads to strikes. Lifting the bait to check it gives it movement, action, attracting fish. Once attracted, they may start biting.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Landlock salmon move around the lake only a foot or two below the surface. Fish for them more shallow than other species.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Best bait for lake trout (togue, to Maine folk) is a golden shiner or sucker, about 3 to 4 inches long. Make a cut just where the gills meet at the belly where there’s an artery that will bleed. Find the bottom, then lift bait about a foot off it.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Basically, you want your ice-fishing reel to have little or no drag. Often when fish mouth the bait and feel tension, they will drop it. Fishing with no drag, you can set the hook after they’ve run a bit and taken the bait.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Use 6 to 8 feet of leader for deep fishing, less for the salmon, which move about only a foot or so below the ice. Use a swivel connected to line and use a No. 6 hook (or 4 sometimes). Use split-shot.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
“Smelt will swim around and around and twist line. They will come to the top if you don’t have sinker.”
—Tom Hennessey, outdoor columnist
for the Bangor Daily News
Imagine an ice-fishing lure so effective it gives you the ability to “cast” under the ice. Sounds pretty good, don’t you think? So do writers Ted Takasaki and Scott Richardson, who wrote on the tactics of ice-fishing guru Dave Genz in the article “Ice Spoonin’ Walleyes” in the Articles section of the Lindy Tackle Web site, www.lindyfishingtackle.com. Genz especially likes first-ice walleyes when the oxygen levels and temps are more to their liking and they’re more aggressive. He goes after them with Lindy’s Rattlin’ Flyer Spoon, with the look, flash, and sound that brings in walleyes, especially late in the afternoon when other lures are losing their effectiveness. The design of the Rattlin’ Flyer, say Takasaki and Richardson, like its predecessor, the Flyer, allows the lure to have a gliding action when dropped into a hole, covering the water much like a cast. Genz uses a stiff-tip rod (limber tips won’t give the lure action) and suggests on fishing the lure: “Don’t lift it and let it pendulum back below the hole. Drag it. Twitch it as you drag it. Now, you’re almost fishing like you would fish in summer.” If you’re a serious icefisher or a serious wannabe, check out all the details in this excellent article and many others at the Lindy site.
Points that lead to drop-offs have always been known as prime walleye spots to put your ice auger to work on. Some experts tweak this idea with a further refinement: They choose the spots where the drop-off is the steepest, and is leading to the deepest part of the lake.
The word “jigging” seems to be synonymous with ice fishing, and everybody seems to do it differently. Common knowledge, however, says to let the spoon or jig go all the way to the bottom, then lift it with a couple of cranks on your reel and keep it at that level as you make it flutter up and down.
Bait fishermen with their tip-ups catch a lot of fish through the ice, but the method that’s the most fun is jigging with a short rod. You can sweeten your jig by adding a minnow, hooked through the lips. The same rig is very effective in crappie fishing.
“Jigging spoons usually have the hook on the fatter end and you tie your line to the thinner end. Reversing that will cause the lure to flutter more and keep it from dropping too fast.”
—Larry Whiteley, OutdoorSite Library,
Bass Pro Shops, www.basspro.com
“Don’t let your fish freeze out on the ice unless you have a way of keeping them frozen. If they thaw out and you refreeze them when you get home, they will lose a lot of their favor.”
—Larry Whiteley, OutdoorSite Library,
Bass Pro Shops, www.basspro.com
In an excellent article on the Bass Pro Shops OutdoorSite Library, Jason Aki explains his tackle for consistently taking bluegills. “An ultralight to light jigging pole between 2 and 3 feet coupled to a micro spinning reel with line-holding capacity of 100 feet of 4-pound test … “
Continuing recommendations from Jason Aki in his article on jigging bluegills through the ice: “First off, line your rod with the lightest fishing line you feel confident in using, and then tie on a small spoon with the treble hook removed. Onto the bottom of the spoon tie a 10- or 12-inch leader of monofilament line and a small curved-shank hook. Onto the hook spear two to three wax worms or a dorsally hooked crappie minnow. The idea here is to have the spoon attract the bluegills’ attention from a distance and the scent of the bait to get the fish to bite.”
—Jason Aki, “Jigging Ice for Bluegill,” OutdoorSite
Library, Bass Pro Shops, www.basspro.com
“Small moves are tweaking your position on a piece of structure. They’re 5- to 20-yard changes … Large moves are used to cover big distances…. Often it’s better to move and try to find active fish than spend a lot of time with finicky fish. Sometimes, a few short moves will put you into biters, while some days are just tough bites.”
—Tim Allard, “Ice Fishing a New Lake,” OutdoorSite
Library, Bass Pro Shops, www.basspro.com
We’ve mentioned the Gander Mountain mail-order and resource center elsewhere in this book, but their ice-fishing coverage deserves special mention. Tackle, gear, and information: it’s a complete coverage. Check it out at www.gandermountain.com. The articles and tips are in their Resource Center.
“The sonar available to the modern ice angler is nothing short of amazing. In fact, many anglers don’t even drill holes through the ice unless they first spot gamefish with their sonar. How is that possible? By simply pouring water on solid, clear ice and placing the transducer in the water, the unit can transmit and receive sound waves through the ice, allowing you to see the depth, weeds, and even fish.”
—Gander Mountain article,
www.gandermountain.com
Yellow perch are a universal ice-fishing joy. They’re great on the table, they usually roam the waters in schools, and they are widely distributed over North America’s best ice-fishing destinations. While perch can be easy to find at times, they can also be difficult, zigging while you’re zagging and vice versa. Before you can catch them, you have to find them—and it’s not always that simple.
In an excellent article on the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor Library, angler Tim Allard says he divides his baits between “search” baits, which are relatively big jigging baits and “finesse” baits, for subtle jigging on holes where he knows there are fish. Allard tries to attract perch with relatively big jigging baits like Northland’s Buckshot Spoon, Blue Fox’s Rattle Flash Jig’n Spoons, Bay de Noc’s Swedish Pimples, and Lindy’s Rattlion Flyer. For subtle jigging he names ice jigs like Lindy Little Joe and Northland’s Super Glo.
