The Bad Ice Angler

The Bad Ice Angler

By Rod Woten

Throughout my years in the ice fishing industry, I’ve fished more lakes than I can count from one end of the ice belt to the other. During this time, I’ve noticed several things that ice anglers do or don’t do that causes them to struggle. These things don’t seem to be limited to one region or the other or specific to anglers chasing one specific species or the other. Rather these seem to be universal things that plague ice anglers across the country. Realizing that you are guilty of at least one or two from time to time and working to fix these can have an immediate impact on your ice fishing success.

Not willing to leave fish to find fish
This is a tough one, and I’m guilty of it from time to time myself. It’s exciting to have fish coming into your jig…even when they won’t eat it. After this has happened a couple of times however, it’s time to try something different. More often than not, the best answer is to move and find fish that ARE actively feeding. It’s SO HARD to leave those fish, though…they’re right there, and they’re coming to your jig…maybe some miracle will happen and they will suddenly start feeding??? A similar scenario is sitting in the same hole pulling up dinky fish after dinky fish. Sure, you’re catching fish, but wouldn’t you really rather spend your time catching bigger fish instead of all those dinks? Again the answer is to MOVE. Statistically speaking, the largest fish to come out of any hole are the first few. This means that if you start catching dinks out of any given hole, the chances of caching a bigger fish become very small. It’s okay to leave fish to find fish, so don’t be afraid to do so.

An unbalanced jig-line-rod combination
All too often I see ice anglers jigging away with coils in their line that look like a Slinky. Not only does this mean that their jig is probably spinning like a top below the ice and scaring away everything that swims by, but on the off chance that they do get a bite they would never see or feel the bite through all those coils or be able to set the hook because of all the coils that must be straightened out before the line will tighten up enough to drive the hook home. A proper balance between line and jig will cause the line to hang taut. A proper balance between line and rod will transmit the bite and give the angler total control over the action of the jig, yet cushion the line from breaking when a hooked fish tries to make a run.

Bringing too much gear
This is one I was definitely guilty of in my early years. I used to bring double-digit numbers of ice rods with me, multiple bags of tackle, radio, cooler…you name it. It took me a few years, but I finally figured out that with that much gear, I actually spent as much time dragging it on and off the ice and rummaging through it looking for a specific item as I did fishing. I also realized that of all the gear I was dragging along, I was only using about 10% of it. One day I decided to start whittling it down. I put my gear into three piles as soon as I got home. The stuff I used constantly, the stuff I used a couple of times and the stuff I didn’t use at all. On my next trip, I left the third pile at home and repeated the process after my next trip. I highly recommend this approach. You would be amazed at how little gear you actually NEED to ice fish.

Not spending enough time on the ice
Practice makes perfect applies as much to ice fishing as it does to anything. I’m a firm believer that there is no substitute for time spent on the ice. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that all the good ice anglers I know put in loads of ice time every season. The more time you can spend on the ice the more weather patterns, lake types, fish moods, structure types, water clarities, etc. you get to experience. All of these experiences give you a better database to pull from as you fish, which makes it easier to figure out any given situation you might encounter on the ice.

Not fishing during the “golden hours”
The first and last hours of daylight of every day are often called the golden hours by ice anglers. That’s because during these precious few hours, EVERYONE becomes a better angler. The microscopic aquatic bugs that are the foundation of the food chain become very active in the water column during these hours. This activity trickles up through baitfish all the way to the top predators in the lake. It can be a virtual feeding frenzy and if you’re not fishing at this time, you’re really missing the boat. All too often I see anglers arriving at the lake at noon (during the toughest bite of the day) and packing it in by 3 p.m., completely missing one of the best fishing opportunities of the day.

Not doing your homework
If you arrive to the lake without a plan, you waste valuable fishing time figuring out where you want to start and where your next spots will be for the rest of the day. If you do your homework and arrive to the lake with a plan, you can quickly and efficiently move from spot to spot until you contact fish. This homework should involve looking at maps. Look for inside corners, funnels, points, depressions, submerged islands and the tell-tale sign of a weedbed or mud flat – bulges between adjacent contour lines. If you can concentrate on these types of structure it’s almost a given that you will eventually contact fish.

Ignoring your “mood indicator”
Your flasher will do a lot more than tell you that fish are down there. It also gives you a good idea of their mood. Do fish come racing in, slowly slide their way up to your jig, or hang on the fringes before finally coming in? Each of these are subtle clues to what the fish are wanting that many anglers overlook. For those hesitant fish or outright refusals, they are telling you that they don’t like what they are seeing. It might be as simple as a cadence change, but it could also indicate they are looking for a different color or wanting a smaller profile. At any rate, the fish are telling you to change something. If you change all of those a couple of times with no change in the results then it is time to re-visit my very first point and move to find fish that ARE actively feeding.

Following the crowd
I’ve never seen a sport with the follow-the-crowd- mentality that ice fishing has. It boggles my mind, especially when you understand how these crowds form. The thing with these community spots that draws these crowds is that the crowd forms because the word is out on the good bite. This often means that the best bite was two weeks ago and fishing in the group is now less than mediocre. One of the reasons that the fishing deteriorates is because many of the fish that were originally there have gone home in buckets. The other reason is that for the fish that haven’t gone home in buckets, the fishing pressure has been so great that they have retreated to other less pressured areas. If anything, this would suggest to fish AWAY from the crowd to see if you can track down those fish that have moved away from the pressure. It’s much better to be on the other end of the crowd….the end where you find the fish before the crowd forms (when the bite is the best) and the crowd forms AROUND you!

Ignoring the barometer
I strongly feel that the biggest driver for fish behavior is the barometer. Fish react to changes in air pressure because it presses down on them through the water column. Fish are especially sensitive to pressure changes because of their swim bladders which regulate their buoyancy. When pressure is high or rising, it presses on their swim bladder causing them to feel full and putting them in a neutral or negative mood. When the pressure is low or falling, it relieves this pressure and puts them in a more positive mood and makes them more willing to feed. That would explain when fish often take baits very well prior to or during a storm, which is always accompanied by falling or low pressure. It would also explain why fish are hard to catch on those bluebird sky days, which are always accompanied by a high barometer. Does this mean you shouldn’t fish on those high-sky bluebird days? Absolutely not, but it does tell us that we should be ready to work for them and employ smaller baits, slower cadences and be willing to be highly mobile to find the few active feeders. It also tells me that I should chase deeper fish rather than shallower fish. Fish in deeper water are already under the increased pressure of the water column that changes in air pressure are much less significant to them.

Keeping all the big ones
Who doesn’t like to catch big fish? I think just about everyone does! But it’s impossible to catch those big fish if they aren’t swimming in the lake to start with. One of the best ways that I know of to ensure that there are big fish swimming is to put the big ones back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against harvesting fish for the table at all…far from it, in fact. I like to eat fish just as much as (or more than) the next guy, but I target the medium sized fish for harvest. Once you return a big fish to the water, you are not only returning a big fish, but you are also returning the genetics that allowed that fish to grow to that size back to the lake. If we keep all the big ones, that leaves only little fish and little genetics in the lake for future years’ batches of new fish. Long story short, keeping the big ones condemns our fisheries to a future of small fish, and I don’t know anyone that wants that.

So…how many of the above are you guilty of? Being a good ice angler is all about the details and these are the details that I see most often negatively impact ice anglers across the country. I have to admit that once in a while my focus slips and I’m guilty of some of them. Nobody’s perfect, but I honestly feel if you can try to avoid at least a couple of the above habits that you are guilty of you will see an immediate improvement in your ice fishing success.