Why You’re Not Catching Fish Through The Ice

Why You’re Not Catching Fish Through The Ice

By Rod Woten

Even the best of us have a day when we just can’t seem to catch fish. Either we can’t get them to bite, or we just plain can’t find them. This is especially frustrating with ice fishing because we can get right on top of the fish, see them on our flasher or with our underwater camera and see them NOT bite. For the days that we can’t find them, at least we can troll around during the open water months. During the winter months we have to drill, drill, drill in order to even come close to covering as much water as we do open-water trolling. Many times, it only takes the simplest of things to turn the day around. Here are some of the most basic fixes to those days when you just can’t seem to connect with the fish.

You’re ignoring what the fish are trying to tell you…
The beauty of the modern electronics that ice anglers have at their disposal is that, in addition to showing the jig and the fish, they also show the mood of the fish. Are fish coming in to your presentation, but then swimming away? Maybe you’re jigging too aggressively? Maybe they’re not seeing the color that they’re looking for? Whatever the reason, your flasher is giving you this invaluable piece of information so don’t ignore it. Any time the fish seem hesitant…neutral or negative…it means they’re seeing something they don’t like. This is your cue to start changing things up…colors, profiles, jigging cadence, jig size…experiment until you find what’s working. I have seen LOTS of ice anglers only use their flashers for the video-game of fish meets jig in total oblivion to the other data that their flasher is ALSO telling them; probably most important of which is the mood of the fish.

You’re not focusing on ACTIVE fish…
I’ve seen it time and time again. Anglers sit and work the same fish or group of fish for hours, thinking they will turn those sniffers into biters. While our flashers can do so many great things for us, they also give us the false hope that just because there are fish under us, they HAVE to be biters. Unless these fish are actively feeding, you can jig at them all day long and they still aren’t going to bite. Rather than waste hours on fish that probably won’t bite, you are much better off to go looking for fish that ARE actively feeding. I don’t like to spend much more than 5 minutes…10 minutes MAXIMUM…in any hole that I’m not catching fish out of. This is especially true if I’ve tried some other colors and jigging cadences with no changes in the outcome. It’s soooooo easy to sit in one spot and continue to fish if your flasher is still showing fish down there, even if they’re not biting. It’s always hard to leave fish to find fish, but you’ll have much more success if you get out of those holes and find new ones with willing biters in them.

You’re not doing your homework…
Getting to the lake without a game plan forces you to burn valuable fishing time developing a plan. It also means you spend a lot more time drilling holes and eliminating non-productive water. There are several great resources to help you develop a plan of attack like lake maps, weekly DNR reports, stocking reports, creel counts, netting surveys, and word of mouth information from places like bait shops, social media sources, etc. The information gleaned from these sources can help with everything from determining exactly where to fish on any given lake to helping determine WHICH lake is the one you want to fish. Using creel counts, netting surveys, and the like you can even predict which lakes should have the biggest specimens of each species within the next year.

Learning to identify a few key features on a lake map is one of the best things you can do to take your fishing to the next level. Weed flats, basins, inside corners, funnels, sharp breaks and mud flats all tend to concentrate fish for one reason or another and learning to pick them out on a lake map will allow you to pinpoint specific spots on any lake where fish should be concentrated. Putting together a list of these prior to your fishing trip will allow you to know exactly where you’re going as soon as you get to the ice, and which spots to head to if your first spot doesn’t pan out.

You’re not drilling enough holes…
This is directly related to finding active fish that I’ve already mentioned. If you’re on top of sniffers, the only way to find biters is to drill more holes. If you come home with the big skunk on your back and only drilled a few holes throughout the day, then you have no one to blame but yourself. Conversely, if you come home empty-handed and feel that you have more than adequately drilled out the areas you wanted to fish, then you can at least sleep at night with the knowledge that the fish just weren’t biting that day on that lake. The thing that always amazed me in all my years of tournament fishing is that regardless of how tough the bite was, how elusive the big fish were, or how void of fish the entire lake was, at least a few of the teams ALWAYS find the bigger fish and bring in stringers. How do they do it? They drill holes until they find the fish they’re looking for. It’s no coincidence that the teams that always end up finding the fish drill more holes than most of the rest of the field.

Each hole we drill through the ice is equivalent to a cast when open-water fishing. Typically, the more places we can cast to when open-water fishing the more luck we have, so it is logical that the more “casts”…HOLES…we can get through the ice the better our luck will be.

You’re chasing the wrong species…
When the barometer is high fishing can be very tough. If you’re chasing fish in the shallows on these bluebird-sky days, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. Typically, these shallow fish would be panfish, possibly bass, maybe pike or a few other select species. Truthfully the problem isn’t that you’re chasing the wrong species when the barometer is high, rather you’re fishing the wrong depths. With less of a water column above them to “cushion” them from the high barometer, those shallow panfish and gamefish go into a funk due to the interaction between their ultra-sensitive swim bladder and the high barometric pressure. Fish that are typically found in deeper water, like perch and walleye, have much more water above them to cushion them from the high barometer, so they are much less affected. Long story short, if the panfish bite is tough when the barometer is up, go perch or walleye fishing.

You’re not sitting still long enough…
Wait, didn’t you just tell us that we needed to stay on the move and chase the active fish? Yes, I did…but that’s only if you’re on fish that aren’t actively feeding. If you’re on top of fish that are actively feeding and are the size that you’re looking for there’s no need to move until one or the other changes…either they stop actively feeding or size starts to dwindle. There’s another scenario when this also applies however. Sometimes when you land on a travel route, the fishing can be very good for a period of time. One example would be fishing a weedbed. Often in this scenario, fishing those travel corridors can be some of the best fishing in the entire weedbed. There may often be periods when there are no fish under you, but if you start to notice a pattern of the fish appearing every 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes, then you’re definitely on a travel corridor; DON’T MOVE! The same can also be said of perch fishing. Perch are almost always on the move, so if you’re constantly moving when searching for them over expansive mud flats the chances of you and the perch landing in the same spot at the same time can be pretty slim. It’s like trying to find a moving needle in a haystack. If you can find a spot that has good perch activity, if you stay put other perch will often cycle through after one group moves on. A very popular walleye tactic is to set up on a well-known travel corridor before dusk and wait for the walleyes to move shallow to hunt as the sun sets. As long as you’re on a travel corridor that the walleyes are using, you can have action well into the night and then again at dawn as the walleyes slide back off into deeper water. What separates really good ice anglers from everyone else is their ability to know when to stay put and when to move, so BOTH tactics must be part of any good ice angler’s arsenal.

To some of you, any or all of these may seem like ice fishing 101. If so, you are probably the ones that will out fish all your friends. Often, it’s the simple, small details that put fish on the ice. Often those are the exact things overlooked by most. If you find yourself struggling from time to time to put fish on the ice, it wouldn’t hurt to stop and ask yourself if you are guilty of any of these. Every group has “that” guy that always seems to catch fish, or always seems to catch the biggest fish. If you fish with someone like that, watch them and see if they are guilty of any of these. I think over time you’ll find that they avoid these common pitfalls. Sometimes they’ve had to make a conscious effort to avoid them and sometimes it’s just the instincts of a good ice anglers that helps them avoid them. Either way, there is the proof in the pudding that paying attention to these small details and working to avoid them is what makes the difference between caching fish or not.