Mid-winter slump

I just returned from a four day fishing trip in northern Wisconsin (Spooner, Rice Lake, Hayward, Stone Lake region). To say it was a struggle would be an understatement. The crew that I go with has been doing this for 16 years and this was the worst trip from a fish-catching perspective.

We had numerous FFS systems and could find and see fish… they just wouldn’t bite. We had our three legal lines in pretty much the whole time we were out.

I even went to a bluegill spot, it looked like nothing was there on my LVS system, drop down a jig and 30+ gills would appear out of thin air. It just goes to show how sucked to the bottom fish were. They would not do anything but peck at the waxie. I mean for 30 gills to just sit and stare and not one would commit? I’ve almost never seen anything like it before.

I am a firm believer in the mid-winter slump; when water temps bottom out, oxygen is low, and fish’s metabolism gets real slow. I guess my personal take is that we just happen to catch the beginning of it this year and that it’s a bit earlier than normal. Lakes we could barely walk on last year at this time we were driving trucks on. We saw very, very few people out fishing. Even on Saturday/Sunday we were only seeing 2-3 shacks out on big lakes.

What do you guys do when the slump hits? Take a break? Bring more beer? Target different species?

From Mid-January to Mid February I spend far less time ice fishing than before and after this window. This weekend will probably be it for my ice fishing until late February. I like to get out of the area for a week or 2 (Palm Springs or FL) during the dead of Winter and slowest fishing times. When I do go out in the middle of winter with thick ice and few green weeds, low water oxygen, etc. I lower my expectations.

If I documented my best 10-15 ice fishing outings ever by sheer size and numbers of fish caught…it’d almost certainly all be in either December or March.

Mid winter Can be a challenge for sure. There are still plenty of fish to be caught. I find you have to watch the weather and pressure for sure. If the weather remains stable for a few days and the pressure remains fairly stable the fish will bite fine. Start of cold fronts and rapidly rising pressure is by far the worst. Catch period after a few stable weather days and possibly a slightly falling pressure and the bite can be grreat.

Dog days of winter are usually in February in my region. I’ve had a great season so far and have not noticed much yet but it’s coming with all the swings in temps. 40 today and -11 in a couple days. That’s definitely going to mess with the fishing. I have noticed very short bite windows this season tho?

Upsize. Sounds crazy but you may be surprised. Most of my panfish have been coming on larger baits this year. Small stuff has been ignored on a lot of lakes. I’d be happy to share some baits to try if you want to pm me.

Also, don’t use any meat. Many of my best panfish jigs are good for their profile. Adding a minnow or waxie ruins the presentation. I can’t remember the last time I had meat on a crappie jig rod. Sometimes it’s needed with gills.

If you’re on fish, switch the FFS off and use a regular ice-ducer

They’re a lot quieter in the water.

“We had numerous FFS systems and could find and see fish… they just wouldn’t bite.”

^^^This could be a clue to your problem.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of FFS – just not on the ice. My experience is the same as yours when using FFS. The fish sense the signal and when doing so it suppresses the bite. Not totally, but a lot. Do as B-Man suggests and your results should improve quite a bit.

fishthumper wrote:

Mid winter Can be a challenge for sure. There are still plenty of fish to be caught. I find you have to watch the weather and pressure for sure. If the weather remains stable for a few days and the pressure remains fairly stable the fish will bite fine. Start of cold fronts and rapidly rising pressure is by far the worst. Catch period after a few stable weather days and possibly a slightly falling pressure and the bite can be grreat.

What are you guys using for a barometer ? I need to pay more attention to one . Grandpa had a glass one on the wall I remember looking at as a kid . I know weather underground has one but looking for something better .

Usually just bring more beer and lower my expectations though ha .

BrianF wrote:

“We had numerous FFS systems and could find and see fish… they just wouldn’t bite.”

^^^This could be a clue to your problem.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of FFS – just not on the ice. My experience is the same as yours when using FFS. The fish sense the signal and when doing so it suppresses the bite. Not totally, but a lot. Do as B-Man suggests and your results should improve quite a bit.

I probably had my Livescope in the water less than 2% of the time. I used it to find weed edges and drop offs but then went to the Vex for jigging.

MN/WI looking at a cold front this weekend, does that have the same impact on ice as it doesnt on open water? I spend most of my time on rivers where the fish dont seem to care about weather.

DaveB wrote:

MN/WI looking at a cold front this weekend, does that have the same impact on ice as it doesnt on open water? I spend most of my time on rivers where the fish dont seem to care about weather.

I’ll report back after tonight and tomorrow morning. I expect it to make the bite really finicky

Yeah the one day trip i can swing this year and it’s looking chilly. I’m praying for anything to bite but will definitely pack a drink mug I can get mittens around. Gonna need a little extra firewater to keep me warm.

FinickyFish wrote:

Yeah the one day trip i can swing this year and it’s looking chilly. I’m praying for anything to bite but will definitely pack a drink mug I can get mittens around. Gonna need a little extra firewater to keep me warm.

You only have time to ice fish ONE DAY A YEAR???

I’d be dead or in prison if that were me

No one blaming the noisy gas auger anymore…

Ha! I meant my only overnight or full day trip. Hopefully sneak something in mid March. Gotten out here and there in the metro.

For a nice graph of barometric pressure check out WeatherUnderground look at “full forcast” and then 10 day. Everything is graphed for 10 days, pressure, wind direction/speed, humidity, etc.
I like finny’s idea to upsize.

This mornings bite has been fantastic. Started dieing off at about 1030ish but was hot from 7 to then.

Been out twice this year. The bite before Christmas was good, but experienced the same issues on New Year’s Day where the bite was very finicky. Probably will go out again after the cold snap and winds die down.

The boy and I are gearing up to go try the bite again this morning and hope for the same results as yesterday, she’s a cold biatch out there right now

snow gets squeaky at these temps, hate that and all the line freeze because I can’t stay in the shack.

She was a cold set up but we made it. -20 when we hit the lake.

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tim hurley wrote:

snow gets squeaky at these temps, hate that and all the line freeze because I can’t stay in the shack.

You wouldn’t have a option but to stay in a shack today. Perfect day to sit in the shack and hang out. This cold isn’t possible to fish out side for more then a few minutes

True

With the fish being cold blooded and the water temps under the ice fairly static, I think the feeding window in a 24 hour day is relatively small. They still need to eat, but not as much. I also feel that the barometer influences the bite window and how aggressive the fish may be.

When I still fished on the ice, I did as someone has mentioned and focused on those marks seen at mid-water column. Those generally were feeding crappies that hit pretty darned hard in spite of the barometer. I think too many people use bottom lock and stay zeroed in on the fish on the bottom when they are usually the ones with the tightest lips.

Another area that too many people fail to look at is immediately under the ice, in which case a flasher is useless. Dead and dying bugs will float up in the water column and lodge under the ice sheet. Crappies are opportunists when it comes to food and have no aversion at all to picking the dead/dying bugs off the underside of the ice and will often cruise within that foot to 4 foot of water under the sheet dining heavily on insect. Tyler Holm and I hit a backwater spot one day that had maybe 40 people fish it. We walked out with nothing, but our rods rigged with a glow red jigging spoon and a white Noogie plastic on it, and spent an hour fishing in vacant holes, catching crappie after crappie. None were small, all very decent eating sized crappies of 11″ or more. Nobody seemed to notice that neither of us “reeled” a fish up or that we never had more than four feet of line off the end of the rods. Our clue was the debris that was found in freshly drilled holes over maybe 30 feet of water. The debris was insect carcasses but noone took notice to that at all and everyone was stuck on a bucket looking at flashers zeroed in on the bottom eight or ten feet of water.

Tyler and I kept zero fish that morning. The biggest fish I think we saw landed by anyone else was maybe a five inch sunfish, or a perch of similar length. The moral here is that if one is not paying attention to the little things that come with even drilling out holes, or being in touch with the entire water column, it could very well appear that the fish are in a slump.

Absolute slobber fest today fish were very active.

Bearcat wrote:
Absolute slobber fest today fish were very active.
Any pictures?

I am not so sure I can relate ice fishing with “slobberfest”:???:

We have been out twice in the last week or so. Just 1.5 and 3 hours. I would say on the slow side but five 12 inch crappies and six 12 inch perch made it worth it.

Should have had more crappies but most were hitting minnows with a very slow bobber drop. Nothing there on a hook set. Caught two jigging a spoon but they hit it when it went stationary. A lake I only fish one in awhile. Last year they crushed a tungsten jig and waxie but were one size smaller

Been out 2x this week and would say the bite was fair one day and great the other. All on a 1/32 pinhead. Much needed bite after a dud of a guys trip up in ottertail last weekend.

When the weather dunks down and gets nasty you go to the river.
Absolute havoc on the river. My other pictures give away back ground landscapes so that’s all I’ll post. They were hot and heavy at times. Had multiple flurries of 15 20 fish as fast as you could catch. The 30 minutes of nothing and then absolute chaos for 20

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