Where to Start? Successful Ice Fishing Tactics for a New Body of Water

Where to Start? Successful Ice Fishing Tactics for a New Body of Water

By Rod Woten

Ice fishing a brand new lake can be a daunting task. Apparently, it torments a lot of ice anglers because one of the questions I get asked probably more than any others when I present seminars is “how do I approach fishing brand new water?” Invariably, the first thing out of my mouth is, “it depends”. How I approach any new body of water depends on several different factors like what species am I after? Is it a pond, reservoir, or natural lake? These are just a few of the factors that affect where and how I get started.

Do Your Homework
If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written before, you’ll know that I’m a big proponent of learning to read lake maps. Mastering this skill means you can spend time studying a lake, identifying potential hot spots, and developing a plan of attack before you even set foot on the ice. It also means you can spend less time drilling holes because you already have an idea of what the bottom of the lake looks like, where certain depths are located and exactly what pieces of structure you want to fish. Doing your homework and having all this prepared before you even arrive at the lake means you’re not wasting precious fishing time doing so and you’ll be able to hit the ice running. If you can learn to identify points, funnels, weed flats, sharp breaks, and mud flats by looking at the contour lines on a lake map, you have the knowledge needed to start finding fish on any lake. If I can check several pieces of each type of structure when I get to the lake, I will find fish a pretty high percentage of the time.

Welcome to the Jungle!
85% of the fishing I do is for panfish so one of the first things I look for when checking a lake map are weed beds. Weed beds will often not only hold panfish because predators may not be far behind. Sometimes you will see walleye cruising the weeds early or late in the day in search of the baitfish that are hiding in the weeds. Pike are also synonymous with weed beds because they are pursuing the bluegills, perch, and crappies that are often contained therein. Areas where the contour lines bulge or are spaced far apart are a tell-tale sign of a potential weed bed. Depending on the clarity of the water in the system these “bulges” are typically either a weed bed or a small mud flat. In clear lakes, weeds will grow at deeper depths than in more stained water, so the clearer the water is, the deeper I look for the weed beds. Water clarity information is sometimes given on lake maps, but can also be found on state DNR websites or by calling your local bait shop.

Sometimes, even though we can locate a weed bed, it can be so expansive that determining where to start can be a challenge. This is when I start to look for edges. Predators will often patrol the outermost edges of weed beds, while panfish will often use smaller edges within the weeds, whether they be openings or travel corridors. These edges make great places for wary panfish to hide and intercept aquatic bugs as they travel the water column. One of my favorite places to setup is over a dinner plate sized hole in the weeds where I can see sandy bottom. You would be amazed at the number of bluegills, crappies, and perch that you will see stick their snouts out of the weeds into these holes to snap up a tasty morsel.

Wide Open Spaces
Certain species, crappies and perch specifically, will often show a strong preference for large open expanses of water, often referred to as “the basin” in the case of crappies, or “mud flats” in the case of perch. If I’m chasing either of these species, I will identify these types of areas on a lake map and then drill large groups of widely spaced holes. I try to cover a half-a-football-field-sized area at one time, moving quickly from hole to hole, only dropping a line in if my sonar shows a suspended mark (in the case of crappies) or movement on the bottom (in the case of perch). Much like weeds, I will look for edges in these areas to help me dial in exactly where I want to target my efforts. Rock piles scattered across the bottom create edges in that vast featureless basin. Small depressions and changes in bottom content (mud to sand, sand to rocks, mud to clay, etc.) can all be well defined edges that will concentrate fish. Once I start to find fish, my hole spacing will become closer, but as long as I’m in search mode, my spacing will remain ten, fifteen, or twenty yards apart.

Sticky Bottom Areas
These little areas can be absolute jackpots when you find them. They’re usually pretty easy to find on a map because the contour lines get very close together; the closer they are, the steeper the break is. More often than not, these areas are sandwiched on each side by the areas where the contour lines are wider…usually a weed flat above the break and a mud flat below. These areas have earned the “sticky bottom” nickname because of the way that a depth bomb, a lead weight clipped to your jig to measure depth in the days before flashers, would imbed in the bottom when dropped down and stick just slightly when retrieved. This bottom consistency is important because it is the ideal conditions for aquatic insects like mayfly nymphs, etc. to burrow into the bottom; not so hard that they can’t burrow, but just firm enough that their burrows don’t collapse. Because of this, these areas can be a smorgasbord for hungry fish. This is one of my favorite types of areas to find perch and bluegills, and can be especially productive later in the season as weed growth slows or stops and weeds begin to decay and use up valuable oxygen. As this happens, panfish that are in those weeds will often slip off into deeper water and hang out in these areas to feed.

Going Off the Map
These things I’ve mentioned are all fine and good, but what if you’re fishing a pond or private water that have never been mapped? Fortunately, all the things I’ve already discussed still apply, but there will be a bit more work to be done before you can put them to use. While it’s harder to do homework without a map, thanks to the power of the internet, there is still a little detective work you can do before hitting the lake. Satellite mapping sites like Google Earth will allow you to locate that body of water and are typically good enough, once zoomed in tight, to allow you to identify weed beds and the travel corridors, holes, and edges within them. Sometimes the photos are even good enough to detect transitions in bottom composition. You may also be able to pull up a USGS topo map of the surrounding land and make some general inferences of the contours beneath the surface based on that. You can also apply the same practice by looking at the lay of the land once you arrive at the lake. A steep slope that meets the shoreline probably continues below the water’s surface, whereas a gentle sloping shoreline probably means a very gradual incline beneath the surface.

Beyond that, exploring un-mapped water involves a lot of leg work and lots of drilling. I like to use an out and back drilling pattern starting from the shore, making note of the depth in each hole. Once I’ve drilled far enough away from the shore that I feel I have a pretty good handle on the contour below, I’ll step forward several paces and drill a parallel line of holes back towards the shore. Basically, I’m mapping the bottom of the lake as I go. I repeat this process until I see some type of depth change that signals to me that it might concentrate fish. Once I have some of these structural features identified, I put into practice all the principles I’ve already covered. That’s really all there is to it. In saying that, I don’t mean to over-simplify it, however. Exploring a lake this way is a lot of work, and can be very tiring. Sometimes it takes a couple of thankless trips before you start to make any appreciable catches. All that work can definitely be worth it, though. Un-mapped lakes like this are usually lightly pressured, so the fish in them will probably bite readily, and may be larger than fish in a similar body of water that gets heavily fished. Rewards come to those that are willing to put the work in!

Fishing new water can be intimidating. So much so, that many avoid it. I relish the challenge however, especially if the popular sentiment is that the fishing there may not be worth the effort. I make it a personal goal in those instances to find worthwhile fish that many might overlook. When learning a new lake and trying to unlock its secrets, the prospect of pulling up a trophy and the anticipation of what might bite next drives me to keep drilling, searching, and fishing. I’d take fishing new water and enjoying the anticipation of discovering the next hot spot over fishing the same old-same old any day!