Ice fishing is one of those seasons like many others. It has its high’s and lows. Typically “first ice” and the first third of the season can be a really hot bite. Fish for the most part are still in their fall patterns. If you were smacking them in a particular area in late fall, chances are you will typically find them there in the first part of your ice season. This is a great time to have fish bite on a aggressive jigging technique. But what do you do as the season progresses and it gets colder? What happens when the fish get what some call “lock jaw” or seem not interested in your jigging baits anymore? You may have to switch up your game plan on how you go after the fish and where you find them. Walleyes, for example typically start off in the shallows in early season and as it progresses into the mid season lull, they push towards deeper water.
What To Look For…
I like to use my Aqua-Vu camera more and more as I get deeper into the ice season. What that does for me is two things. First, it helps me gauge the structure and what the conditions of the weeds are. Are they still a little green or are they dead? Green weeds give off oxygen and provide cover that the fish seem to like to hang by. This is a great spot to set up by for bluegill or finding bait fish for walleye. Is there some kind of structure around like rocks, fallen branches, steep drop offs, etc. The second reason I like to use the camera more this time of year is to study how the fishes behavior has changed. How aggressive fish will bite in the early ice season can taper off drastically as it gets colder and you enter the tough mid season bite. Success comes with being prepared for different fishing scenarios and adapting to their behavior. I can recall countless times that I have seen walleye come in and look at a bait only to stare at it forever. It almost seems impossible to get them to bite no matter what I throw at them. This is a key moment in how you have to change your plan of attack and is why I love my Aqua-Vu so much. These past few weeks while watching the fishes behavior on my camera, I knew I had to cool it with the jigging and change up my presentation in order to get them to react.
Technique = Specific Rods
I decided to switch up my technique and focused more in on dead sticking. In other words, SLOW IT DOWN. In Michigan you are allowed to have three lines in the water. My typical set up this time of year is to put out two snare rods (what I use for dead sticks) and still have one rod to jig with in the shack. I take my Marcum with me and drill holes on an inside turn or sunken flat. After drilling at least ten to fifteen holes in a line, I then drop my Marcum in the hole to find where there are different drop offs in my water depths. This allows me to not only cover more water but find those transitions in depths that fish typically like to hang by, especially walleye. I use technique specific rods called snare rods made by JToutdoorproducts. In my shack I am typically jigging with something that either makes a lot of noise or has flash that peaks the fish’s curiosity. Now that I have their attention the fish now has a few options in the surrounding areas to choose from. When they don’t hit the jig I find success in the snare rod (dead stick) which simply has a jig head and a lively minnow attached to it. By using the snare rods I can space out my depths and put them a little further away from my jigging shack.
JT Walleye Snare
How am I able to put my snare rod further away from my shack? This is a sweet feature and why I choose to fish with the JT snare rods. The rod is made up of a blend between fiberclass and carbon which give it a unique advantage. While in the JT rod holder, this technology allows the fish to take the bait without feeling any resistance and starts to swim away. The fish by now probably thinks it has gotten away with a free meal until it meets the point in the rod where the resistance begins. At this point the fish has likely snared themselves. The technology of the rod has given me the advantage to allow this snare process to happen further away from my shack, thus giving me time to get to the slowly bending rod. I cannot tell you how highly I recommend this technique using these snare rods.
Having gear like my Aqua-Vu camera, Marcum, and snare rods allows me to fine tune and adapt my techniques to the fish. New anglers that I take out fishing with me always say that it seems like I have a lot of technical gear. My motto is “I like staying ready so I don’t have to get ready”…..it is always nice to have options.
Cheers
LK
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