When I was younger I used to go ice fishing with dad on a local lake but usually fished for only trout. Dad would be sitting on a bucket jiggin a castmaster or a swedish pimple and I was supposed to be watchin the tip ups. I would do that for about a hour and then I would go messin around on the ice like any kid does after their attention span dwindled. I haven't been ice fishing in atleast 10 years might have been longer. what sparked my interest was earlier this summer I was telling a co worker about some crappie and bluegill I had been catchin in the local creek. He started tellin me about his adventures with his brother ice fishin a local lake for pretty much anything that would bite.
so now that fur season is kinda wrappin up and nothing is really in to hunt I have turned my attention to ice fishing. I dug the old wooden box with runners on out of the shed and took inventory yesterday. I have three jigging rods and a ton of tip ups in the box along with two strainers and a hand auger. Now I have a few lakes in driving distance of me. I have a ton more farm ponds in the area I can fish as well.
on the way home from hunting yesterday I stopped at a sportsmans liquidation store and picked up one of these for 5 bux.
(http://www.overstockbait.com/v/vspfiles/photos/LK2-2.jpg)
and a ultra light eagle claw ice fishing rod for 15bux.
as you can imagine the line on all the ice fishing equipment is pretty much shot. memory out the rear and it needs replaced anyhow. I picked up a 8,000 yd spool of 6lb line for 10bux for to fill my other rods and was wondering if this would work on the tipups and the jiggin rods. also what is the tackle and techniques for fishing through the ice for panfish? the fish I will mostly be targeting is going to be bluegills and trout. but I have lakes that have it all in driving distance. one that is extremely big is lake marburg.
Now my biggest problem is where do I start? when I fished with dad we always fished were we did well out of the boat. we never moved just fished that spot. sometimes we would move to one other spot but it always got hit hard because it was the easiest spot to get to from the parking lot. the lake that we ice fished is now drained for em to do work on the dam breast. I do not really know depths and cannot spend much money on a bunch of gear. I do have a fish finder that I tie on the end of a line and pitch out during summer. I use it to find structure on the river for catfish while catfishing from the bank. it wouldnt be hard to just use that for depth and to see if fish are down there. but I still need to drill a hole. I could as well just walk till I find a bunch of old holes that were drilled in the ice before? But would rather know kinda what I am doing.
Also what kind of bait? when we fished before we used power bait in various flavors and colors on the tipups and then like I said earlier dad would be jiggin a spoon of some sort. I cant recall what worked better though. I have been reading a bit on the subject and have seen where some are using minnies, grubs, wax worm tipped jigs, along with all sorts of other darting jig heads. also what is you jigging technique? is there a pattern to putting out tipups?
Thanks for any help you guys can provide. I got prob a good month and a half till ice gets unsafe. prob more along the lines of a month but I do not really have anything to do now or scheduled even.
I've been wanting to do this, too, BB, and will be watching this post.
I don't have an auger, though. If anyone could give advice on getting through the ice w/something other than an axe? Digging bar? round pin/heavy hammer? Something I don't need to spend $ on (I'm cheap). The ice where I'd like to fish is maybe 4 to 6 inches.
Thanks
You'll probably get different answers from each person that posts to this cause there is no wrong way really.
I use small tear drop jigs for panfish. Which is all I fish for around here in the winter time. A few years ago a bunch of us took a trip to Canada, and Walleye fished in 34 feet of water, which was awesome and we used horizontal jigs, where a tear drop would be considered a vertical jig.
My favorite tear drop...shhhhhhhhh :huh:....the glow in the dark pictured below. I'm convinced panfish think it's a lightning bug :eyebrow: This one has put 34 fillets in my freezer since last week.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish006.jpg)
Around here the river gets over fished. And because of that pressure it takes a lot of finesse. I see a lot newbies walk out onto the ice with bobbers that you'd use on Lake Michigan fishing for Salmon, and weed eater line on their poles.
I dont use bobbers. I use these spring bobbers cause you can detect the slightest of bites, plus it dont get froze in the hole like a bobber does.
The one below simply goes into the end eyelet and the line runs through it.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish005.jpg)
The next one down, mounts further back with the line going through and a nibble obviously pulls it down towards the tip of the pole.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish010.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish007.jpg)
What your fishing for kind of dictates the bait you want too, Along with how far along your season you are. Up here we start with wax worms.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish009.jpg)
Later into the season, late February into March we'll switch to tiny redworms, or fishfly larvae.
Poles...When I went to Canada, I bought some little poles that were much heavier, had reels on them and I installed line counters. I'll grab a pic if you think you need one later as they are out in the garage. But here I just use light short jiggin poles with little stands under them so they are up off the ice and I can watch the spring bobbers.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish011.jpg)
Some people stand by the hole the whole time and jig real slow with a much longer rod and a similar spring bobber type deal on the end. Actually there's looks more like a twisty tie off a loaf of bread. Much longer then what I use. And they lightly jig the lure down to the bottom and then back up again, over and over and over and over. They move so slow that unless you actually stand there and watch, it doesnt looking like they are even moving.
I cant ice fish like that :nono:
I'll jiggle mine and set it back. Once in a while I'll lift it out, and very slowly drop it back in, and I do just fine.
If there's any Crappie where your fishing 90% of your strikes will be while your lowering it. I'm not a Crappie fan and now you know why the others do what they do.
If you toss a wax worm in your hole and watch it sink, there's a good chance it'll get sucked up before it hits the bottom. If you pay close attention to the speed of that free falling waxworm, thats how fast you need to jig up and down if your going to do that. I honestly think the fish can tell if something is free falling or not cause the dumped in waxies ALWAYS get swallowed up, it's a riot to lean over, look down in the hole and watch.
Almost forgot. If you buy an auger and you by anything blue, your buying junk.
It'll cut holes but it';ll kick your arse doing it.
The best auger on the market, came out a few years ago, made by Strikemaster and is called the Lazer®.
Mines out in the truck and I aint going out there to take a pic of that either...right now anyway :nono: but here's a link. http://strikemaster.com/lazer_hand.html
They aint cheap! they run around $80 bucks.
Take care of your blades and dont let just anyone run your auger. I'm very anal with mine and it's because I got tired of buying new blades for it cause some fricken morons like to bang on the last 1/2 inch of ice instead of drilling :doh2:
Blades are $30 to $40 bucks a pop!
Stikemaster has an exchange service, if you send in your old blades they will send you a new pair, for $25 but then there's $5 shipping.
And lastly DO NOT ATTEMPT to sharpen your lazer blades yourself. I dont care who you are, or who you talked to, it cannot be done. You even mention the word sharpener near your Lazer auger and you'll ruin the blades.
I spoke with Strikemaster directly on this and they told me themselves that these blades have a three stage edge accomplished during manufacturing. They cant be sharpened. Exchanged blades get melted down. Which are stainless by the way.
There's is a Lazer blade hand held sharpener for sale in a lot of sporting goods stores for like $8 :innocentwhistle:
It's a farse, and when I mentioned it to the guy at Strikmaster he laughed. :laf:
where bouts you buyin them thar glow in the dark jigs? we got a bass pro close by but no decent fishin shops close by.
the auger I have is my fathers. he made it himself. not sure if it is the fastest or not but that's what I got. maybe if I really get into it this year I will buy a better auger for next year. the season is too short to be buying a bunch of stuff on a impulse buy at this point.
These are Demons, from JigsandSpins Inc. Which is right across the river from here in Coralville Iowa.
http://www.customjigsandspins.com/icefishing/hardspoons/demon.html
They sell em real cheap on their site, but to avoid waiting and shipping or driving I buy them at Cabelas which is only a half an hour away. Naturally at twice the price.
I use the #12's
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icejig.jpg)
I was gonna mention too...depending on what your after, you might find that your 6lb test is a bit heavy. Meaning, it's really hard to hide from these lethargic fish. I use 2lb or 3 lb test at the most.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RiverBoy/misc/icefish014.jpg)
Edited to add link
I'll have to head to bass pro then on thursday and check out if they have any of them thar demon jigs. I had been reading and heard of the demons but there are so many different types of jigs and rigs out there. thanks for narrowing the selection down for me.
is it really needed to buy ice fishing specific line? or can I go buy 2lb florocarbon line and be done with it?
I should have had Jim come and talk at the last Fish and Game meeting. He would have done great.
Jerry
Quote from: bigben on January 18, 2011, 09:47:56 AM
is it really needed to buy ice fishing specific line? or can I go buy 2lb florocarbon line and be done with it?
I honestly dont know Ben.
I've never even seen (never looked either) fishing line that was 3lb or less, NOT called ice fishing line. I think if it's that thin it's just called ice fishing line because not many people in their right mind would put it on a spinning reel or a baitcaster.
ok thanks
Quote from: FinsnFur on January 18, 2011, 02:15:56 PM
not many people in their right mind would put it on a spinning reel.
You really do enjoy picking on the dumber members, eh :argh:.
Jim,
Thanks for taking the time to write it up. I think I will have to give it a try now that I have specifics on lures and line (I'd probably use minnows, though).
BTW, what kind of fish did those filets belong to?
A lot of folks up here use Minnows too Dave. But they are fishing for Crappie.
Those fillets (http://forum.finsandfur.net/index.php?topic=13750.0) belong to mostly Bluegills, which is what I target in the winter. Well......everyone up here calls them Bluegills. CCP called and told me they were Groupers or Rims, or something :shrug: But everyone up here calls them bluegills including Fish and Game :laf: :shrug:
well I went to bass pro. picked a spool of 2lb vanish up because they had no ice fishin line. then found the ice fishin stuff. hardly anything there. I picked up a few moon jigs that glow in the dark. black and white and chart green and white. and then picked up some ratfinkees. no demons there. but there is another shop I want to stop at on the way home from fishin this weekend. they might have some.
Keep us posted.
I'm headed to deeper waters in the morning. Ice on the Mississippi is getting so thick we gotta start walking closer to the channel to find any water.
Couple more weeks and I'll be putting everything away and trying to shoot horny coyotes till March again.
will do jim. I did pick up some of these in aluma glow. http://www.berkley-fishing.com/products/soft-bait/gulp-alive/fish-fry-gulp-alive and some of these in char color. http://www.berkley-fishing.com/products/soft-bait/gulp-alive/minnow-gulp-alive and some of these as well. http://www.berkley-fishing.com/products/soft-bait/gulp-alive/maggot-gulp-alive from reading on other boards they are claimin they are better then live. hard to believe but I figure if it works as good as power bait then so be it. if they don't work I will report back.
Went fishin this afternoon for a bit with some friends on a farm pond. Caught 50 between each of us. I had fun.
Any pics? Now that Dave/Golfrtrout is done in FLA, I need to keep seein some fishin pics. I'm guessing all panfish?
I caught one, it sucked :sad:
sorry no pics. yep all panfish.
well sat and sun didnt go no where near as good as friday. sat morn me and dad got up and headed to the lake. but got there late. actually got too the lake at 8:30. we tried drillin a hole with dads auger and after 10 minutes I got frustrated and went over the the friendly neighbors and borrowed theirs. Punched 4 holes through 12" of ice and dropped lines. we fished for 3 hours and then headed home after no hits. I called around looking for an auger and found some at a gander mountain. It isn't a lazer but it drills holes pretty darn quick. I actually used a lazer on friday when I went fishin with a friend. very nice. but couldn't find one within 50miles.
sun morn I went to a local pond and punched some holes till I found out in the center the ice was only 3 inchs thick. got skeert because I was alone and didn't want to be a story line in the local newspaper and left. ate lunch and headed back to the lake we were on sat but tried a bunch of different spots I remembered from summer that had underwater structure on. fished em for 3 hours and not a nibble. punched prob close to 40 holes through 12" of ice and the auger didn't falter. I then headed over as daylight was fading to an old ore hole that was left over from mining. I had seen where someone was ice skating on it sometime thurs or friday. but didn't want to drill it without someone else there. but it just so happened that someone else was thinkin the same thing. we punched some holes and found good ice. I had heard there were crappies and big gills in there but never fished it during the summer. I was about 10 ft from the bank because I knew it was deep. 10ft from the bank it was 20ft deep already. we fished till dark and didn't catch anything. got a couple bites but we were too busy bs'n with each other to notice em. it was a fun weekend but hopin to find some action around home like it was on friday.
jim do ya got any tips for where to look for gillz under the ice? or do you just punch holes till ya find em? also when do you believe to be the best time to fish for these lil slabs of pan fried goodness? oh and here is the sun setting on the lake sat night. I know your a sucker for sunsets.
The trick to finding them is using a Vexlar, or a camera. :eyebrow:
They shut off here too but a lot of it has to do with the water dropping. Mississippi is going down a little each day here now, and the barometric pressure is fairly high, it just shut right off.
I can tell you that this year is the first time I have ever witnessed in my life the gills staying so tightly grouped. There's a couple spots up here I watched guys catch fish in a 5 foot radius. No one else catching a thing, they move closer and closer and still cant get nothing until they get either right smack next to this honey hole or fish right out of it.
I seen this happen on three different spots so far, all 5 or more miles apart
I talked to a guy at work today that said he witnessed the same thing a couple different times so far this year, on different bodies of water.
I dont get it :confused:
For the couple years I lived in northern Indiana, I used a depth finder to find the fish. I wire 2 6V batteries together for 12V and mounted my transducer to the end of a broomstick. On clean ice you could just walk along with the transducer skimming the top of the ice and find the fish. On snow covered ice, drill a hole and stick it in the water to look down or even sideways to find them. Then just drill over them. Worked great.
The bluegills would always be bunched up deep. And it seemed like the crappie were always at 10' no mater how deep the lake was.
we just got back from a seminar on ice fishing and I believe dad is gonna buy a vexilar. I learned a good bit and definitely worth the drive. jim do you use a vex? I really don't have a bunch of money to be spending on much more gear.
I got an old fish finder out in the shop, Weed. You got me to wondering :wo:
No I dont own a Vexilar, Ben. I have a buddy that lets me borrow his when I think I need one, but I personally dont think they are worth the money. Especially around here where we ice fish in fairly shallow water. I'd rather not even mess with it.
I used one up in Canada once and loved it up there, but we was in 30 plus feet of water.
The fish finder worked great for me Jim. If you turn the sensitivity up you can see your jig all the way to the fish. I put the main unit in a bucket with the batteries with the transducer wire taped to the broomstick and mounted on the end. If you didn't see a fish straight down in your hole, just look to the sides with it to see them. Then you have to use a lil kentucky windage to figure where you need to drill over top of them from the angle you're looking at them. I used an old Hummingbird flasher style to start with, then upgraded to the LCD screen Hummingbird. They both worked.
Kentucky windage :laf:
Quote from: weedwalker on January 24, 2011, 04:40:01 PM
For the couple years I lived in northern Indiana, I used a depth finder to find the fish. I wire 2 6V batteries together for 12V and mounted my transducer to the end of a broomstick. On clean ice you could just walk along with the transducer skimming the top of the ice and find the fish. On snow covered ice, drill a hole and stick it in the water to look down or even sideways to find them. Then just drill over them. Worked great.
The bluegills would always be bunched up deep. And it seemed like the crappie were always at 10' no mater how deep the lake was.
I put a new fish finder on my boat and the old one (still works fine) is now an ice fishing finder. I put the transducer on an old broom handle and power it with a cheap little jump start box from Kmart.
Let me guess 5shots :confused: ......Montana Windage? :laf:
I did end up catching a 12" largemouth yesterday jiggin a kastmaster.
Did ya keep it?
We cant keep em that small.
I threw him back. I actually thought it was a left over trout when I first hooked him. it was pretty neat though. I am headed to the same pond we were at last friday. might stay a bit after dark though and see how it is.
I think I have a flasher now. :biggrin: we inherited an old boat that had an old flasher unit on it. I got the idea of ripping it off and seeing if it worked. I mean it is free basically. it is a lowrance 2330 a flasher. I understand from researching that they were the cats meow back in the day. I found the transducer which was inside the boat hull and then brought it up home and hooked it up. sure nuff it worked. now I got to clean out the dang hornet nests that is in there and then get it rigged up to fish on the ice with it. I am happier then a dang kid at christmas now. :biggrin: :yoyo:
Them old flashers work great Ben. They are actually better than the new LCDs at finding fish on the bottom.
I just hope I can get it all cleaned up without damaging a bunch of stuff. there is a lot going on in there.
thinkin bout making one of these.
(http://www.sportsmensdirect.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Accessories.jpg)
I still liked my transducer mounted to a broomstick rather than just dropping it in the hole. I did a LOT of looking sideways on an angle with it. I had my bucket and seat on a home made small sled that I pulled around while looking for the fish.
I'm assuming with the broom stick you dont leave the transducer in the water at all like you would a Vexilar?
Thats the only way I can get the broom stick to even sound handy, what am I missing? :biggrin:
No, I just use it to find the fish mostly. Sometimes I would stick it down the hole while I'm fishing just to see if my jig was at the right level. I've been out of the ice fishing zone for a few years now. So all I can tell ya is what worked for me back then. They probably got all kinds of new fangled gadgets out there now. :biggrin:
Yeah but I'm a tight SOB too....and I got a fish finder laying around. :innocentwhistle:
With the broom handle you can angle the transducer and turn it to help locate fish a little ways away from your hole. Kinda like side scanning sonar.
I am not sure how we are going to rig this one up. prob a float to watch the jig all the time. I was thinking about buying one of those cameras from cabelas for 100bux. but not sure if they are worth it?
pics from yesterdays expedition.
Wow, guess you found the spot!
Love seeing these type of pics, so keep us updated. Thanks
My back hurts just thinking about cleaning all those alone :laf:
FISH FRY @ BEN'S HOUSE!!!!!!!!!
:yoyo: :yoyo:
actually about 2/3's of them are bait for the channels this summer. I cleaned the big ones and froze the small ones. I did revive the one perch and got him in an aquarium. hes pretty cool. waitin for him to eat the small sunny that is in there though. :huh:
well yesterday I woke up a bit late but had a late night on sat night throwin a few back with friends. I got the flasher I found put together and soldered the terminals. went to a local pond and seen if it registered in the water. it did but I couldn't find my jig. so I went for lunch and after lunch helped my father with some things. Then hit the ponds at our local sportsman's association. the small pond is only 4ft deep with a foot of ice on it. I drilled a bunch of holes and dropped the jig. normally they picked it right up or nothing. caught a few small dink bass and a small sunnys. went across the road to a larger pond and drilled a few holes. attached a depth finder to my jig and found the deepest hole. fished it for about a half hour and only a few light taps. I decided to get the flasher back out and try it again. got it setup and reading bottom. I started out by dropping the jig half way down the hole and upded the sensitivity of it till I seen it. this flasher isn't as nice as a vex and only shows red lines but hey better then nothing. plus it was virtually free. I let the jig go to the bottom and then brought it up about a foot. and started jiggin heavy. I had a kastmaster on with a 3" tag line and a small moon jig on tipped with meal worms. I was watching the flasher and was pretty happy that a foot of the bottom I could see my lure. there was a small gap between my lure and the bottom. well the gap went to solid and I felt a heck of a jerk. I set the hook on the lil ultralight and pulled up a nice bass. threw him back and was tempted to leave but stayed a bit more. I ended up catching 2 more nice bass and three monster gillz. I never knew they were that big in there. atleast 7-8"
now your prob wondering where the pics are. well my camera was at home and my cell phone was too dead to start up the camera on it. so I was screwed. It was nice being able to know what the fish liked. I would jig hard for a few minutes till a line would show then stop and lightly jig. about a 2" rise of the tip and from watching it up close it only jigs it a wee bit. and would end up with them hitting it multiple times. Prob gonna head back there again this week sometime. prob thursday. and this time I will be bringin the camera. :wink:
Interesting :wink: But the camera, not buying it :nono: :laf:
I havent had a chance to dog out my fish finder yet, and look it over.
It's worth a try jim. and I don't really care if ya buy it or not. :wink: but if ya ever want to give jiggin a try again setup a rig like I mentioned once if ya haven't already tried it. we catch more on that rig then just a regular jig. unless they are feeding hot and heavy like they did the other day then a regular jig is fine.
Oh I'll be jigging again :eyebrownod:
They gots some killa jigs here:
http://www.yourbobbersdown.com/index.html
and here:
http://www.jrstackle.com/icefishingtackle.html
Jimbo will love this:
http://mapper.angling-technologies.com/atom/pmap.php
Bait Tip, hit your local pet shops they have tons of good bait cheap! Crickets meal worms, mousies, etc. Sometimes they are deadly on panfish and a switch from minnows all the time. I go to petsmart and petco here.
Not sure aboot where you live but the NH fish and game web site also has a list of 400+ water bodies with species and depth: http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Fishing/bathy_maps.htm, your department might also.
Out on the ice its hard to pinpoint and go back to hotspots season after season so if you have a gps they are very handy to save coordinates of where you hammered em and you can build up your own database of hotspots....just dont let your buddies get it !!
Cool site:
http://www.iceshanty.com/
my father a friend and I headed north to fish for some stocked trout at a george b stevenson. ended up catching a few. threw em all back. they stocked some nice sized fish. my father and friend caught more then me. late on saturday I got to thinking about how you said that if you drop some bait down the hole and watch it sink it will prob be sucked up before it hit bottom. I was fishing in 4ft of water and it was clear as a bell. I dropped my old bait off the hook in the hole and watched as it slowly dropped to the bottom. about 6" from the bottom it was promptly sucked up. I muttered to myself why you little. I had just got a grab bag of jigs from jammin jigs and was trying a few. prob why I didnt catch as many as dad and my buddy. they caught most of theirs jiggin kastmasters and rapalas. I remembered seein these plastic jigs in the grab bag and they were supposed to be a neutral buoyancy. so I quickly tied one on tipped it with a waxie and dropped it in the hole. as it made its slow decent to the bottom I watched as a rainbow nabbed it. I only caught one using this technique but it was late in the day on saturday but missed a bunch more because I was watching them take it instead of waiting till I felt a tug on the line.
link to the jigs I mentioned. http://www.jamminjigs.com/sections/product_group.php?category_id=15&group_id=76
and some pics.
Yeah 9 times out of 10 you arent going to feel a tug. Thats why I like those spring bobbers. You gotta watch em. :laf:
In fact the ultimate is when you start getting small droplets of water freezing on your line, just above the water line. Now you got a fail safe instant gauge as to when your line moves and how much. Works like a charm. :eyebrow:
Dropping the bait in the hole. :eyebrownod: Oh yeah....if you could jig like that you'd get a lot of fish. The only ones I've seen be able to do it consistently here is the old men. And like I said, unless you stare at them you'd never know they were even moving at all.
I just cant keep staring at old men though. :nono: :laf:
Thats the thing though. with those jigs ya just need to worry about the upswing being slow enough. they fall about the same rate as free falling bait does. I have a spring bobber on the one rod I was using. but its not a good one. I need to buy some better ones next year. with the warm up this week I am lookin to the river unfreezing. :yoyo: