Winter in
Canada is far too long to waste cooped up inside—just
think of all the great hardwater action you’d miss. In
fact, the
fishing for panfish, pike, sauger, trout, walleye and whitefish
can be the best you’ll find all year, especially if you’re
equipped with these surefire expert techniques.
1. START ON THE SLOPE
The first question on the minds of most eager ice anglers is
where to start fishing when the hardwater season begins. The
answer’s the same whether you’re targeting panfish,
pike, sauger, trout, walleye or whitefish: start where you left
the fish in the fall. Since I normally don’t put my boat
to bed until the snow and ice drive me off the water, I’ve
learned that the best late-fall, open-water locations are also
typically my best first-ice spots. If you didn’t fish
the open water late into the season, however, start by setting
up on the best-looking classic structure—underwater points,
rocky shoals and sunken reefs. Once you find these high-potential
areas, you need to zero in on the portion of structure closest
to, and with the fastest drop into, the deepest water in the
area. Remember, too, that the fish may not be on the actual
slope itself—they may be on the structure—but they’ll
never be far from the edge. Fish relate to these breaks because
they offer quick access to a variety of depths and food sources.
Essentially, the fish can simply slide up or down the break
to access their preferred conditions.
2 .GET TO THE POINT
I honestly don’t know why, but one thing I’ve learned
from drilling holes in the ice for 50 years is that long, tapering
underwater points are often the very best features to fish in
the winter. This holds true for crappie, perch, pike, sauger,
trout, walleye and whitefish. Reefs, humps, shoals and other
structures can also be good, but give me a series of underwater
points that lead to deep water and I’m a happy ice angler.
And it doesn’t matter if the points are attached to the
mainland or offshore islands—they all generally reign
supreme under a blanket of ice and snow.
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| Ice
time: The author with a lunker laker |
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3. HEAD FOR THE HOLE
From a structure perspective, the easiest lakes to ice fish
are shallow and flat-bottomed with little structure. These are
my favourite lakes for catching crappie, perch, pike, sauger
and walleye because the fish concentrate in just a few isolated
deep holes. Deep, of course, is relative—if most of the
lake is less than 12 feet deep, a cavernous, fish-filled winter
pocket may be only 17 or 20 feet beneath your boots. Note that
the fish in such featureless bodies of water tend to stick close
to bottom, so you often won’t spot them on your sonar
screen. But just drop a tiny jig tipped with a minnow, wax worm
or maggot into a barren-looking hole and you’ll see the
panfish rise up from the bottom to intercept it. The same goes
for the bigger predators, using a larger spoon or jigging lure.
In late March and April, on the other hand, these shallow lakes
are prone to oxygen depletion, so your sonar will often show
the fish hovering in the water column. When this happens, forget
about using live bait and adopt a much more aggressive jigging
approach.
4. SERVE UP THE OPTION
Most provinces permit ice fishing with two lines, so why not
maximize your chances by offering something different on each
line? When chasing crappie and perch, rig one line with a tiny,
1/32-ounce jig tipped with a maggot or wax worm, and the other
with a bigger, more colourful, 1/16- or 1/8-ounce jig tipped
with a lively emerald shiner hooked lightly through the lips.
For walleye and sauger, drop a lively minnow tethered to a jig
down one hole (use a tip-sensitive deadstick rod hanging over
a pail) and aggressively jig a spoon or swimming jig in another.
With pike, set out a foot-long, freshly killed ciscoe or sucker
on a quick-strike rig in one hole, then jig a spoon in a second
hole. Finally, for lake trout, jig with a rod in each hand—one
baited with a white, scented Exude or Berkley Power tube on
a 1/8- to 3/8-ounce jig (the best winter lake trout combination)
and the other rigged with a Williams spoon or airplane lure.
When you jig with two rods like this, you can increase your
odds of success even more by working different depths.
5. DROP INTO THE ZONE
Pike epitomize how most fish feed in the winter—by looking
for the silhouette of their prey against a light background.
This makes the underside of the ice a magnificent backdrop.
Indeed, pike are at their feeding finest when they can capture
soft-rayed forage swimming above them in the water column. Black
crappie, lake trout, perch and walleye behave similarly, so
it’s always important to present your bait or lure at
the fish’s eye level or above—never below. During
mid-winter, it’s equally important to monitor your sonar
for crappie, perch, pike, trout and walleye streaking upward,
particularly in lakes with free-roaming forage such as alewives,
ciscoes, shad, shiners and smelts. These baitfish graze on plankton—microscopic
plants and animals—that move closer to the surface in
the winter when thick ice and deep snow reduce the amount of
light that penetrates the water.
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