Struggling

I see posts here every day of proud catches and strong success on recent trips. I am having one of my toughest ice fishing years ever! Wondering if I am alone or are there others with me?

Just checking?

I’ve had some good days fishing this year but many more days with coming home empty handed. It has been a very slow year everywhere from who I’ve talked to so your not alone.

A lot of bad days, a few good days. We need some stable weather so the fish can get into a pattern! Warm, cold, snow, sunny, warm, sunny, cold, warm, snow… All those high/low pressure systems make the fish constantly change.

A few times this year I’ve got into a 2 day pattern where I found the fish two days in a row and caught them good both days, then on the third day the conditions changed and the fish were gone.

Wow, something I actually agree with Kevin on I think he hit it quite well. Your getting nearly the exact same weather patterns I getting here by about 12 hours. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard “Clipper” so many times in the weather forecasts. Those fast moving blasts really shut fish down.
Not everytime, but often enough it can still be worth putting your time in. This is where I like staying on home waters where I know the patterns the best. It may mean the gills have moved deeper or tighter lips, crappies may be near belly to the bottom, but many will still bite.

Back before I fished plastics I learned a valuable lesson on cold fronts sight fishing gills on lake Mendota here in Madison. Laying on the ice, looking down the hole I could see nice gills sitting inches off the bottom tucked up in weeds. Lower a spike or wax worm and you might get a looker and they sunk to the bottom. A guy next to me had wigglers and chicken skin. He dead sticked the wigglers and schooled my with the skin. Razor blade and cut a long very skinny strip of skin about 1-1/2″ and had it on a rocker style jig. I watched him very closely as he had the most subtle cadence in his jigging. Over time he ground out a nice batch of fish as the majority of us nearly blanked. The action of the skin is very similar to wedge type plastics. Lesson learned was to start using a variety of plastics and re-educate myself of my jigging habits. Over the years, that one trip has made me a much better ice guy.

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Wow, something I actually agree with Kevin on I think he hit it quite well. Your getting nearly the exact same weather patterns I getting here by about 12 hours. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard “Clipper” so many times in the weather forecasts. Those fast moving blasts really shut fish down.
Not everytime, but often enough it can still be worth putting your time in. This is where I like staying on home waters where I know the patterns the best. It may mean the gills have moved deeper or tighter lips, crappies may be near belly to the bottom, but many will still bite.

Back before I fished plastics I learned a valuable lesson on cold fronts sight fishing gills on lake Mendota here in Madison. Laying on the ice, looking down the hole I could see nice gills sitting inches off the bottom tucked up in weeds. Lower a spike or wax worm and you might get a looker and they sunk to the bottom. A guy next to me had wigglers and chicken skin. He dead sticked the wigglers and schooled my with the skin. Razor blade and cut a long very skinny strip of skin about 1-1/2″ and had it on a rocker style jig. I watched him very closely as he had the most subtle cadence in his jigging. Over time he ground out a nice batch of fish as the majority of us nearly blanked. The action of the skin is very similar to wedge type plastics. Lesson learned was to start using a variety of plastics and re-educate myself of my jigging habits. Over the years, that one trip has made me a much better ice guy.

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Randy I think you just smashed (not hit but smashed) the nail on the head here. With the weather being as it has been this winter I think the fish are going very lethargic, sure you can and will get into smaller pods of active fish from time to time but as a whole I think this weather really has the fish screwed up. When they get that way its easy to say “oh the fish just are biting” because we are stuck into very old habits that we have whether it be fishing baits the same way all the time or fishing the same baits whatever it maybe. Its time like this that we need to look at our presentation and really thinking about what we are doing. Are you seeing fish and they just aren’t biting, are you not seeing fish at all?

I know personally when things get very slow on the ice I start getting frustrated and instead of pulling back and taking a minute or two to think about the situation I get frustrated and just start popping more holes and fishing more aggressively even though I am not seeing anything on the screen. When really I should be taking the time, look at a map and find a new area to fish going deeper instead of staying in the same depth range, going shallower, finding a different type of structure; whatever the case may be. Same thing when i am marking fish but not getting them to bite instead of changing the style of fishing that I am doing I just change from one bait to another, throwing different colors to them. When actually changing fishing styles would probably get them to bite, slowing down and fishing a smaller bait, fishing more aggressive with a bigger bait, changing jigging cadence etc.

When the weather is the way it has been you really find out who the fisherman are and who the guys are taking advantage of the conditions and a steady readily available bite.

Weather plays a huge factor, I also learned at a very young age… if they are not biting.. go smaller… get the smallest jig you have with the smallest minnow you have… 2 lb line…etc. deadstick too…

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Weather plays a huge factor, I also learned at a very young age… if they are not biting.. go smaller… get the smallest jig you have with the smallest minnow you have… 2 lb line…etc. deadstick too…

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I wouldn’t say that completely. There have been more than a few days where I was out that I couldn’t get them to bite on anything and out of pure frustration I threw on the biggest thing I had in my jig box a 1/4 ounce Northland Mimmic Minnow and fished fairly aggressively and it was the ticket. Sometimes going bigger even in crazy weather conditions works, not always and I will admit I will tend to go smaller first but don’t discount really upsizing your bait too.

I have killed the gills all winter but it’s been a lot of finesse, size 12 all the way down to 16 marmooskas and chicken skin with ASSO 1lb flourocarbon, randy if you check out a post on I think the bluegills/panfish forum that was called “strips for bluegills” I posted some of the different things I do with chicken/duck skin as far as dyes, scents, cures… that combo of a 45 deg micro marmooska and chicken skin produces so consistently that I’ve kinda been using it as a crutch, over the months of December and January I left the ice with less than 20 fish only once and only fished later than 10 AM once, I’d say if anyone has struggled this winter go to the places you marked and couldn’t convert and drop down to the smallest gear you can find, keep in mind a size 16 jig requires no hookset just a pause and a steady lift opening the hook gap a lil helps too

We can never say anything “completely” when it comes to fishing… that’s just what works best for me most of the time (I also learn alot from having a camera down in slow times)

I have had all bad days, but that is with a limited number of trips and fishing high pressure lakes. So you are not alone, but by the end of the season, I may be.

Pug if you didn’t mind a little drive the amery area is really something the big lakes like round, bone, balsam and wapogasset get a lot of pressure but white ash, magnor, Blake lakes and the trade lakes get a little less and black brook flowage, apple river flowage and one other I can’t talk about get very little pressure and all have phenomenal panfishing some even have pretty decent pike opportunities

That’s not too bad of a drive. Its about the same distance to get to the central Minnesota lakes that I know have good panfish opportunities. I just haven’t been able to get up there.

Pug, you’re not alone. Up to about seven small perch, a drop on a tip-up and a bite-off in eight or nine times on high-pressure lakes. Time to fuel up the truck and find a new lake!

After that last snowfall yesterday, the fish turned on! Today the fish were on fire, bluegills bass and crappie firing up 5-6 feet and smacking the jig as soon as I drop it down. Hopefully they bite again tomorrow. 45º and sunny today, 30º and snow tomorrow, yet another weather change….