Late ice. For me, this is truly a time of mixed emotions. I love the feel of warming sunlight on my face, the ability to fish without having to wear gloves–at times, perhaps, not even a jacket…and often the increasingly aggressive nature of fish as temperatures rise certainly adds to the thrill. At the same time, the sun’s increasing intensity also brings the realization my days on the ice are numbered, invoking an emotional emptiness that’s hard for me to explain.
Yet each year, I make the most of this special season. I keep a close eye on the weather, spending as much time as possible on various systems, monitoring fish movements and activity levels, experimenting with a variety of tactics and techniques to see what’s producing best, always trying to discover new patterns.
The trick to late ice success is recognizing and evaluating key areas. Then working to determine which species are beginning their pre-spawn movements, how far along they are in this progression, what they’re feeding on and how deep. And of course, experimenting to determine what it will take to make them bite. Fortunately, this process becomes somewhat easier this time of year, now that improving conditions and heightened, pre-spawn feeding activity generally cause them to become considerably more aggressive.
Environments
A number of favorable environmental factors occur simultaneously during this portion of the season, bringing additional contributions that help make late ice such a great time to fish. As the snow melts, for example, light penetration increases, stimulating photosynthesis and improving oxygen counts, increasing fish activity. And once the weight of the snow atop the ice is removed, the pack eventually “pops”, draining snow melt away and causing fresh water to flow into cracks and old holes, an event which seems to rejuvenate fish, draw forage and further inspire increased activity.Most importantly, pre-spawn fish need to build reserves for the impending rigors of spawning, and to meet this need, will often feed more aggressively during late winter.
Just keep in mind that by the time “late ice” arrives, game fish season has already closed on many waters, so the emphasis becomes pan fish—not a bad thing, considering popular species such as sunfish, perch, bluegills and crappies gradually begin moving toward classic, shallow water spawning areas, concentrating and feeding in relatively easily identifiable locations—often within the same or overlapping areas, allowing the potential for tremendous mixed bag catches.
In fact, when ample green vegetation is available to produce additional free oxygen, provide cover, and most importantly, attract and hold a reliable, preferred source of forage, the action can be terrific—perhaps the best of the entire winter!
Weather & Fish Behavior
Of course, weather patterns play a key role in these movements, often determining how fish position themselves, and how often and aggressively they will feed. A severe, late season cold front bringing bright, high skies can make things quite challenging. The presence of predators may cause fish to hold tighter to cover, or at times, reduce feeding activity to specific areas or during very limited periods. Fishing pressure, the amount of noise, flickering shadows and buzzing activity produced by ice anglers atop the ice may also have a negative effect on late season fish behavior and must be considered as well.
While filming various portions of this episode, all these factors and more came into play, yet our strategies weren’t complicated. We started by simply focusing on locations best known to produce consistent late ice action. By recognizing commonly productive late ice features, most pan fish lakes consist primarily of dark bottom, shallow flats, bays, and channels offering cover in the form of vegetation, downed timber and wood, stumps or man-made structures. The same areas you’ll find pan fish concentrating to spawn after the ice thaws in spring—we began fishing on a typical, natural Wisconsin lake offering an abundance of just such habitat and known for supporting strong populations of bluegills and crappie.
The key to consistent late season success is spending time on the ice, utilizing a quiet, concealed approach to carefully monitor movements and activity, to see if these fish had begun their migration from deeper water basins and breaks toward shallow water spawning areas. Then working to determine where the largest concentrations of fish were and deciphering windows of peak feeding activity.
We open this episode fishing one such location, searching several areas for a mixed bag of bluegills and crappies within some classic shallow water weed beds, associated pockets and adjacent weed lines. Since such areas offer premium habitat, it’s not unusual to hook into bonus fish such as sunfish, perch, bass, pike or walleye—and this trip is no exception. Adding to the excitement of the day, I even hook into a surprise fish of a species I had never caught through the ice before, causing some excitement, so be sure to tune in and see that!
For a simple change of pace, we then take some time the next day to hook up with Wisconsin guide John Reddy to fish another southern Wisconsin lake in search of late ice pan fish, and while doing so, get talking. During the course of our conversation, we decide it might be fun to travel to some other waters offering a sampling of varying late season conditions, challenging ourselves to fish some of these different situations.
South Dakota
The first of these was a mid-depth, relatively featureless lake in South Dakota. In such waters, we’ve found late ice fish frequently suspend, or given few other structural alternatives, often move into shallow water areas and hold along the edges of bottom content transitions where hard bottom substrates such as rock or sand turn to marl or mud, or simple depth breaks such as slots, pockets or holes in the midst of otherwise shallow flats. Find a location where all of these variables meet—say a deep, hard bottom slot of confined open water extending into a shallow, vegetated soft bottom flat, for example, and you’ve likely pinpointed a primary location likely to attract and concentrate late season pan fish.This particular lake, however, was a basic bowl shaped entity, without any well defined structure or cover. We had done our homework and knew the lake held a very respectable population of crappies, but also recognized the lack of structure and cover could mean a population of scattered, roaming fish holding over wide open basins—and due to the clear water, we suspected they likely would adapt to feeding primarily at night. We wanted to come up with an effective strategy to meet this challenge.
We approach the situation by heading onto the ice early in the afternoon, well in advance of what we feel we comprise the best fishing time, to set up a fish house. Once the house has been positioned, we spend some time taking things into our own hands and stack the odds by surrounding one entire end of the house with holes drilled in a semi-circle. Then we proceed to arrange “Real Weeds”—artificial plants attached to strings incorporating weights on the ends–which we lower down into each of these holes and into the desired position, with the hopes these will attract and hold fish. Arranged in a horseshoe shape around the ice house, it’s our thinking this set will emulate an inside turn and draw crappies into place directly beneath our holes.
We then duck comfortably inside of one of today’s largest and plush portable ice shelter designs, a unique, trailered, “home away from home!” It comes complete with built-in rod holders and gear storage, cupboards, chairs, beds, table, counter space—and thanks to a portable generator and power, a thermostat controlled forced air heater, lights—even a microwave! Setting up our lines, waiting for darkness to close in and the fish to arrive, we attempt to use these unique forms of man-made cover to attract crappies and incorporating a relaxed, sedentary, wait ‘em out approach to try improving our late season catch.
Back in Wisconsin
Finally, we return to Wisconsin to fish a heavily pressured Wisconsin pan fish lake, where heavy traffic on the ice and strong fishing pressure has made the bite within the classic shallow vegetation a challenge. To deal with this situation, we visit with local angler Brian Ebert, who not only demonstrates some tricks he uses some alternative forms of man-made cover, specifically, fish cribs.
Brian is very familiar with these structures, as he has been leading members of his local fishing club in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over the last several years, working to obtain the required permits, then constructing and placing a series of these structures on his home water, which happens to be a quite heavily pressured south central Wisconsin lake. He’s spearheaded this project with the hopes of providing another source of cover and forage to help boost the lake’s fish population–while secondarily, providing another option anglers may explore when trying their luck.
We begin by fishing some classic weed beds found using his GPS and underwater camera before traveling out to some deeper water to try fishing around several fish cribs.
Brian also has some newly built cribs on top of the ice, destined to drop into position once the ice melts. He takes us in for a close-up look at these structures, showing us the design, how they’re built, the reasoning behind their construction, what they’re fashioned from, how these materials are assembled and explains the rules and regulations that must be followed in order to obtain permits to place these structures in public waters…then using an underwater camera, Brian shares underwater footage of the cribs his fishing club has built and positioned in past years so you can get an up close glimpse of how they’re being utilized by fish.
Perhaps most importantly, Brian demonstrates what species are using these unique forms of cover and how each is relating to them, along with providing a few tips and some information you can use when fishing these unique forms of cover. As well as how they can best be used to your advantage to help improve your late winter catches!
Throughout each of these segments, we’ll follow the process of searching for late ice pan fish to see what stage of the pre-spawn movement they’ve entered. In traditional situations, we’ll determine if the fish have made the transition into regions of classic shallow water regions–and if they haven’t, check the deeper edges just outside these areas searching for staging pre-spawn fish, always watching carefully for the presence of suspended fish positioned over adjacent deep water basins.
When natural cover is lacking, deeper, man-made structures such as fish cribs are potential fish attractors that may draw and hold fish, and as you’ll see, these structures should not be overlooked!
EFFECTIVE LATE ICE PAN FISH PRESENTATION TIPS
Always use a quiet approach. Minimize dragging sleds across the ice, clinking your cleats while traversing the ice pack, dropping items on the ice, etc.
- Rather than continually creating a disturbance as you work an area, try drilling multiple holes at each location immediately upon arrival, then let things settle as you hole hop searching for fish.
- Always wear light colored clothing that won’t be easily noticed by fish, especially when fishing clear or shallow water.
- If the snow pack has melted, stay back from your hole while jigging, and be careful to not cast a shadow or make abrupt movements directly over a fishing hole, which may spook fish below.
Consider using a longer rod—this allows you to position yourself away from your fishing holes in a much more easily concealed manner.
- On heavily pressured waters, be prepared to downscale your presentations. Use light, “micro” action rods, the lightest line you feel comfortable with, and downsized micro lures—one of my personal late-ice favorites are HT #16 Marmooskas.
When fishing pockets in heavy weeds, try using heavier bodied jigs, such as one of HT’s Marmooska tungsten models. While small, these designs still drop through the canopy and into openings below much faster and more efficiently than standard, lead based jigs.
- Try fishing plastic tails. The variety of designs and colors available in today’s soft plastics create an effective, versatile array of presentation options likely to help increase your late winter catch!
- Experiment with color. Often, changing from one color to another will help you pick up just a few more fish—and even if that means just one extra fish from every third or fourth hole, your totals will add up at the end of the day.
- Don’t get stuck in a rut with your jigging motions. Rather, be sure to continually experiment with everything from an aggressive, “pounding” actions to “do nothing”, dead stick approaches—better yet, always have a second dead stick line in the water whenever you’re actively jigging, then take advantage of the best techniques, always looking for patterns you can use to your advantage!