Lakes that are good open water, but no good at ice time.

Fish a lake that has good numbers for walleyes (for a metroish lake at least) big crappies & cats. Lake is small and a pure bowl, no points, humps, and the basin is like 45′, little deeper than I like for a basin bight, water is dark, think the weed thing is not happening. Should I skip this lake? Do you have pannie lakes that are not good hard water lakes?

I have a lake that I fished for smallies this past open water season and had caught a couple 13-14 inch crappies and a 13 inch perch on a paddletail. Figured, this is gonna be a great ice fishing spot. Went out there for the first time last week. 3 hours 7 different spots and not one mark.

Figures.

tim hurley wrote:

Do you have pannie lakes that are not good hard water lakes?

Most of the lakes I fish during the open water season suck during ice fishing.

The fish are still there, they just don’t eat nearly as much. Fish are cold blooded and their metabolism slows way down.

Good example would be Mille Lacs. It’s pretty easy to catch walleyes out there in the spring time but apparently it’s tough right now.

I dont understand why you wouldnt try the lake.Get up early stay late,spend a whole day there.You get some fish or you dont either way you learned something new.

Generally the lakes that I fish in summer that are great fishing lakes are typically terrible in the winter. I think it has something to do with water clarity. These lakes seem to have poor clarity and when covered in ice and snow the fish seem to just shut down completely. Probably lower oxygen levels, etc I am guessing.

I think many lakes don’t follow the script and it’s a matter of cracking the code. I’m as guilty as anyone else for not working my butt off to figure a lake out.

I have a couple small gem lakes that took forever. Spent countless days making Swiss cheese out of them and blanked. On the One them a buddy talked me into pulling an all nighter on a hunch the crappies were a night bite. Magically around 10:30 they just appeared. After many nights we figured their patterns out and know where they are at. Took a hell of a lot of work and honestly not what I want to do on every lake

Sounds like a prime ice fishing lake to me, you just need to find what the “it” is, as they will likely be relating to “it”.

Clearwater in Annandale

Fish don’t stop eating in any lake bc it’s cold, eat less yes, but not stop.

Biggest factor I’ve seen is how large of shallow backwater areas there are that baitfish and yoy hide in all open water season, only being forced to exit come ice dumping all that forage into the system which makes tough bites for anglers.

Pretty much every good walleye lake in northern Minnesota is a low light only bite during the ice season, but you can catch them all day long with a little chop on the water.

Thanks for all the imput- my other concern is the access is a narrow winding river, think I could take a spud bar stay close to the bank and be ok, I would want to see tracks from someone else or go to the plan B lake in the area.
Thanks