WINTER RAINBOWS
Everything you need to know about location, tackle and presentations
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You often find rainbows cruising just under the ice, even in deep waterLOCATION
The first thing I look for is a shallow, weedy bay when I’m ice fishing on a rainbow trout lake, or on a body of water that rainbows share with brookies. I’ll typically catch brook trout on the fertile flat, and nab rainbows at the mouth of the cove. If the water is only eight to nine feet deep, the rainbows will be cruising in the middle of the water column. And if there’s a distinct breakline near the mouth, you’re likely to find the pot of gold. The same goes if the lake ends in a shallow, finger-like shape.
Several years ago, my good friend Doug Stange, host of TV’s In-Fisherman, revealed another secret winter rainbow hideout. We were filming an episode of his show when he told me how he looks for any spot on the lake where deep water cuts into a large, shallow area. The intrusion can be 20, 30 or more feet deep, and the rainbows will gather in the corral, roaming between five and 15 feet below the ice.
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“I look for the drop-off, then get 50 paces away from the edge, but the fish can pretty much roam anywhere in the corral,” Stange said. “They cruise up and down the drop-offs, so points are potential hot spots.” And as Stange and I discovered that day, the best points are typically not the obvious-looking ones. For some inexplicable reason, short, non-descript secondary and tertiary points tend to produce more fish.