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Feb 20, 1998
Ice fishing suffers from its image as a macho survival ordeal. You can ski or snowshoe into remote lakes and sweat through snow drifted high on top of thick ice. You can turn your back to frigid snow and sleet. You can shiver out the day as line freezes to rod guides and fingers freeze to your reel. You can strain cold coffee through teeth chipped on frozen sandwiches. Macho masochists can even fall through the ice or drift out into the Great Lakes on a floe. However, if you only like to sweat in saunas and like ice best to cool drinks, you can take the easy way to fun fish on nice ice.
Author on a nice sunny day enjoying the ice.
PHOTO CREDIT: ANNETTE BIGNAMI
So, unless you like to suffer, start on a sunny windless day when sun block and sun glasses replace parkas. Pick a pond or a sheltered bay on a lake out of the wind. Find a safe spot with other ice fishermen who can help you learn the basics. Ask friends and tackle shop veterans about hot spots, the best lures or baits and, most important, safe ice.
Avoid ice that looks dark or is thinner than a couple of inches. Take special care over springs or in inlets that feed warmer water into the lake. Avoid ponds if water levels drop fast and shelf ice on larger bodies of water on windy days. So fish over shallow water; fish on days without wind and cast into open inlets from shore and "when in doubt, don't!" You don't need special tackle to catch yellow perch, trout and panfish either. Hand lines work. So does summer tackle. Limber twigs jammed into the ice suit the budget-minded where multiple store-bought tip ups are legal. Add light two- to four-pound test, which is less obvious than heavier line in the crystal clear water under the ice. Hide small hooks in red worms, meal worms, minnows and other bait and sink the bait with tiny shot.
If you like more action, jig tiny spoons like Swedish Pinples or Kastmasters. Vertical Rappalas that swim round and round when jigged work well too. So do all sorts of "glob on" baits like Berkeley's Power Bait®. Do carry an assortment and remember to keep baits reasonably warm. It's tough enough to try to get a tiny hook in a salmon egg when the egg's thawed. Frozen worms are difficult to thread on hooks too.
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