First Time Seeing Fish Spook ice Fishing

Was fishing a local metro lake for crappies today. No snow but some cloudy ice in spots. Water was about 10’ and relatively clear.

I started using the livescope this year. When you made a noise you could watch the fish scatter 20 or 30’ in any direction. Most wouldn’t come back.

Was a huge lesson for me…the cleats on the ice must be like a percussion instrument down there. When they crunched within 30 or 40’ of your shack the fish would move. Early ice with little snow cover the noise definitely scatters them.

I never saw this with the old flasher. With the livescope it’s easy to see. Would’ve thought to keep hole hopping in the past. Hunkering down on a spot was the way to go today.

I too use Livescope. I was jigging walleye with a spoon surrounded by a school of tiny perch. I could see the perch scattering and knew a bigger fish was coming. Less than a minute later I hooked up. You see lots of interesting things when fishing.

I was laughing at all the guys poo-pooing noise spooking fish in the wagon thread. Topside noise absolutely affects fish – to what extent varies from lake to lake and the species of fish. New electronics are just helping more people learn that easier.

Ice cleats and dragging a sled on glare ice are the biggest, or most common, culprits. On early glare ice I always drill holes with ice cleats on and then take them off to hole hop with a bucket and a rod.

Fish 20′ below the ice are considered “deep” but still only a boat length away.

Definitely agree that noise can spook fish.

As you said, a lack of snow makes a huge difference on how much noise is transmitted.

Ever notice how you can hear a person dragging a sled literally a mile away on bare ice? Then throw 4″ of snow on it and you can’t hear them 100 yards away…

Sometimes noise is a good thing though. When fish are negative and not moving, I’ll hop on the wheeler or in the truck and do a couple laps around my tip-ups and shack. It stirs up fish that were just sitting there and gets them moving around (especially pike).

60% of the time, it works every time

X2 B-man, the outfitter on Lake Of The Woods would circle his shacks with the bomber and within a few minutes we were on fish. Noise definitely moves fish.

Use it long enough and you’ll find that LS also spooks fish. Some species are more sensitive to the sonar signal than others, but all species react negatively. Whitefish are particularly sensitive to the signal. From what I can see, the range at which fish begin to react is about 40’, whether that be forward or down. I caught quite a few more fish generally with my Vex than with LS. I think James alluded to this in his recent shoot. Much respect to him for speaking the truth on air in the face of pressure to promote sponsor products.

BrianF wrote:

Use it long enough and you’ll find that LS also spooks fish. Some species are more sensitive to the sonar signal than others, but all species react negatively. Whitefish are particularly sensitive to the signal. From what I can see, the range at which fish begin to react is about 40’, whether that be forward or down. I caught quite a few more fish generally with my Vex than with LS. I think James alluded to this in his recent shoot. Much respect to him for speaking the truth on air in the face of pressure to promote sponsor products.

That’s interesting. I keep the ice ducer with me so I can turn the LS off if needed and go back to regular sonar. I’ll have to experiment with that a little bit.

Try sitting in a spear house and shuffling your feet when there’s a pike in the hole. He won’t be there for long.

Livescope has shown all sorts of fish behavior that I would have never known.

Loons are fun to watch when they dive, but you can also see the fish all scatter deep. Now I usually leave the area when loons come in.

You’ll also really like it when someone comes off plane or uses their big motor driving by you. Live might lead to some fights when you can watch the school bust when they do that.

Years ago we used to make a big circle around our tip-ups and thump the ice with our spuds/ice chisels……. Then the flags would pop. DK.

Yup, If the Tip-up action dies, we “Shake ’em up.” Walk to each one, check each sucker, jig it a couple of times then on to the next one. Usually just that little bit of commotion is enough to trigger a flag or two within 20-30 min.

Also have heard of people drilling a hole within 10 ft of their tip-up hole and dropping a spearing decoy or hookless spoon down and jigging it for a few minutes. Good chance the adjacent rig goes flag-up not long after.

While the new technology of today may make seeing these things easier.
I find it hilarious that it’s suddenly such a revalation to some people.
Yes fish are scared of noises and movement above them. We learned this in the 90’s playing Odel Lake on a 6″ floppy disc in elementary school.

any high pressured lake with clear water and no snow cover will create issues. i think shadows spook fish as well as having a camera down there

Just like dropping something in your boat. Vibration, where as playing a radio will not bother them. Unless perhaps really loud or full of thump, thump bass. lol. Other days, it does not matter as much, especially if you are around cover.

Fished a few lakes with my Garmin that I would of chalked up as a loss with a regular flasher. Drill a hole over a school and they push away 30 feet. It’s amazing how fast they can even get out of your forward scan range when they are getting buggered. Crappies will hit bottom and go

Last week I was fishing allready skitish walleyes in 20ft of water,anytime a wheeler or sled came within a couple hundred yards the fish on the screen were gone.Even just the ice cracking like it allways does would send them back down to the bottom and long gone.Funny that people are now figuring this out and it took them a couple thousand dollars worth of equiptment to do so.This thread should be a required read for those guys that like to show up at prime walleye time and swiss cheese the ice around others,ruining it for everyone.If you cant get to the lake in time for the bite at least have the deceny to make noise and set up your house on a spot not occupied by those that arrived on time.

And yet guys swear to god that they catch just as many fish with the generator running as they do without. You will never be able to convince me of that.

Red Eye wrote:

And yet guys swear to god that they catch just as many fish with the generator running as they do without. You will never be able to convince me of that.

There’s days it doesn’t matter, but overall it does make a difference (in my experience).

When we go fishing in the wheelhouse I run it as little as possible, most of the time I just let it run at night to charge batteries. Even then it’s in the back of the truck and not on the ice.

Well, I guess I’m done cranking Metallica when vertical jigging on the boat. Lars hitting the double bass probably scatters them for miles.

When the crappies got slow… dad would have us fire up the Sled and do a couple laps around the house… then we would catch fish again. True story

Thanks for the insight.

I’m also wonder(more so, even) about light’s effect on fish. Some say certain species get spooked and others are attracted. Through ice in particular, I mean, btw.

I have seen times with no snow on the ice and a bright day fish did not like shadow of ice tent.

Steve Hix wrote:

I have seen times with no snow on the ice and a bright day fish did not like shadow of ice tent.

Interesting. I suppose the same concept applies to a boat shadow in open water. Then again sometimes muskies like to hang below the boat and use it as an ambush point after a follow…

At some community spots, when the late risers come out on the ice just as prime time bite should be happening and it gets shut down. Ah the days of those gas augers blaring on and on and on and on.

I would assume that since it is fishing, some days it makes a difference and some days it doesnt.

Chalk it up to laziness, but sometimes if I know I am in a good spot, I will just pop some holes and just sit and wait for the fish to come back. Also, I have noticed that at times if I have the window flaps up or down on the portable, the sunlight can make a difference.

In my recent thread about noise spooking fish many people poo-pa’d me…..now many people are saying, “Of course noise scares fish!”

lol

Anyone like me who has questioned weather the noise on the ice thing was exagerated, I say: so what! So many ideas, theories, and straight up superstitions in this sport (baseball too) no shame in wanting some actual proof.
Fished with a guy who believed that pike fishing in August is slow because that is when they shed their teeth. Sun goes around the earth? OK, thats what it looks like, no shame.

tim hurley wrote:

So many ideas, theories, and straight up superstitions in this sport…no shame in wanting some actual proof.

Matt’s observations on ice are probably one of many he has or will make as a Livescope user. For me, the last two years with that technology, fishing 200 days a year, has taught me more than a lifetime of blind fishing because – for the first time ever – you can see in real time how fish are actually behaving. Not just fish spooking on ice, so many ‘ideas, theories, and superstitions’ I held dear for so long have been blown out of the water, leaving me feeling I’ve been hood-winked all these years by so-called experts and my own naive beliefs. Seeing is believing!

The true power of forward facing technology is the ability to shed light on facts of the underwater world rather than theories, ideas, and assumptions.

Speaking of ‘the true power of forward facing technology’, Livescope’s 500 watts of power is equivalent to .67 horsepower. That’s seems like a lot of energy being transmitted in a focused way towards our intended targets. Could this be the reason that as fish get closer to the transducer, the more they seem to shutdown and turn away? I’m not a fish, so can’t say for sure but I’ve seen it 10,000 times if I’ve seen it once.

BrianF wrote:

Speaking of ‘the true power of forward facing technology’, Livescope’s 500 watts of power is equivalent to .67 horsepower. That’s seems like a lot of energy being transmitted in a focused way towards our intended targets. Could this be the reason that as fish get closer to the transducer, the more they seem to shutdown and turn away? I’m not a fish, so can’t say for sure but I’ve seen it 10,000 times if I’ve seen it once.

It’s 500 watts RMS, which doesn’t directly translate over to a horsepower measurement. The GLS10 black box pulls a max of 58W, and unless Garmin has found a way to create energy you shouldn’t be dumping more than that into the water. I think. It’s been a while since my electronics courses.

I got my livescope out for the first time last weekend, and it was awesome. Such a great tool. Watching a school of sunfish swim through and seeing pike follow them was amazing. At one point I had a few sunnies interested in a small tungsten, when I saw a pike stalking them off to the side. I pulled up the jig and threw a spoon down that I had set up on my other rod. That pike smashed it like a freight train, he moved so fast the livescope couldn’t even keep up with him.

On the ice definitely lean towards quieter then better. Been pretty surprised with one one my buddies who blasts the music
Muskie fishing in the summer and it doesn’t seem to affect anything other than annoying me.