How to Catch Crappie, Bluegill, Perch and Other Panfish

In this post, I'll describe some easy techniques, tackle, and lures to use to catch crappie, bluegills, perch and other panfish.  This crappie inhaled a leadhead jig tipped with a plastic twister tail grub while casting for crappie.

Catching panfish is a fun, easy, and inexpensive way to enjoy fishing.  In this post, I'll describe the basics of how we catch panfish on a regular basis using artificial lures.  We'll cover what rods, reels, and tackle that I like to use, as well as a few easy techniques and strategies that will help you catch more panfish.

Later in life, I learned to fish artificial lures, mainly because I accidentally kept leaving my worms and other bait in the trunk of my Dad's car.  When the bait died, it stunk up his car, and I had no ride to fish in.  My choices to adapt were to either improve my memory or change techniques.  So, I decided to change techniques.  I forget why...

...Oh yeah, mainly because using artificial lures to catch panfish is relatively cheap, and it doesn't leave a mess.  Not only that, using lures rather than bait keeps me relatively mobile, generally speaking.  The more mobile that I am, the more fish that I will find to catch.  That said, sometimes I'll carry some live bait to tip my jigs with to tempt finicky fish during colder months, but we'll discuss that later in the post.

First, lets discuss the tackle that you'll need.  Personally, I have rods dedicated to this type of fishing.  If I fish for multiple species, I'll have rods rigged for those species with me too, but if there is a chance that I may target panfish, I'll always bring my panfish rig.  My basic panfish rig is a simple one, an ultralight six foot, six inch ultralight rod, with a small reel (2000 series), matched with light line, usually 4 pound test.  For tackle, I carry an assortment of bobbers, or floats, a box of with an assortment of jigs and jigheads, and a box loaded with my favorite small soft plastic lures.

You can see my rig in this picture, an ultralight rod with a Shimano 2000 series reel, teamed with light 4 pound test line, and a small jig.  You can't see the bobber in this picture, but I was using one.  The jig is a chartreuse panfish tube in chartrueuse.

Now, let's talk about a couple easy techniques, and we'll start off with one of my favorites, the "Bobber and Jig" technique.  Many of us started out catching fish with our Dad or other adult as a kid, usually tossing out a live worm under a red and white plastic bobber.  When fishing like that, we learned the basics of catching fish under a float.  We'd cast the rig out, sit and wait for fish to bite, then, when the float moved or went under water due to actions other than our own, we'd set the hook.  So, let's delve a bit deeper into this technique and adapt it to using artificial lures rather than live bait.

The Bobber and Jig rig can be simple or complicated, depending on how seriously you take this kind of fishing.  I'd say I'm semi-serious about it, because I like to keep things simple.  I usually use a simple red or chartreuse round styrofoam weighted bobber that is about an inch in diameter that clips to my line.  Under that, at whatever distance I think the fish will be, I'll attach one or two small jigs.  I make sure that my jigs are tied so that they sit horizontally in the water, as much as possible.  I believe that I get more bites because a horizontally presented jigs best resemble panfish prey better than jigs that dangle vertically.  You may have to adjust the jigs throughout the day to keep them in a horizontal position.

This is the basic "Bobber and Jig" rig that I use.  The amount of line below the float can be as much as five feet under the float at times, but most of the time, when fish are active, I'll keep the jigs about a foot to three feet down.  I cinch the jig up tight so that it stays horizontal, as pictured above.

Now that we understand the basic rig, let's discuss how to fish it.  You have many options.  One way is just to cast it out to a likely fish holding spot, and let it sit until a fish hits.  Another way is to do that, but if you don't get a bite right away, give a the rod a twitch or two to "pop" the bobber a little bit.  How much to move the bobber depends on how active the fish are.  If the fish are active, a few sharp pops may do the trick.  If they aren't active and want a more subtle presentation, I've even gently pulled the bobber over just a tiny bit.  That little action will bounce the jig underwater a half inch or so and maybe move the jig a few inches in a certain direction. That may be enough to induce a strike.  This technique is effective if you know specifically where the fish are, especially in colder weather.

If there is a little chop on the water due to wind, you can just let the wind do the work, allowing the ripple waves to bounce the bobber while the wind pushes your rig along the drift that you wish.  Using the wind to cover water is a great way to locate where the fish are.  Once fish start biting, remember where you had your bite so that you can make sure to achieve the same drift on your next cast.  Chances are good that, once you have bites at a certain spot, more fish are there than just one.

My buddy Bill, with a slab crappie caught while bobber and jig fishing.  I don't know if I took this picture or not, but this is not how to take a good picture.  I don't think Bill would like to see the top of his head missing.  But, it's a nice fish anyway.

If it isn't windy, and the fish don't like the lure just sitting there, and popping it in place doesn't seem to draw strikes, or your not covering water, you can try a very slow retrieve, maybe mixing in a few rod twitch pops along the way.  This and the wind drift techniques are effective when searching for fish.  And, of course, depending on conditions, you can try a mix of all of the techniques above to try and draw strikes...and you should!  But, the basic thing to remember is that, no matter which method you choose, if you see your bobber stop, go under water, bounce, or move in a way that neither you or the wind made it do, set the hook, because it's likely a fish.  Anything different, set the hook.

When fishing a bobber and jig, for open water, I may try tying on two jigs.  Sometimes, when fish are aggressive, you may catch two at a time!  If I'm fishing cover, I will only go with one.  I always start by fishing my jigs about two or three feed down at first, then adjust either deeper or shallower if I don't get bites.  If I see fish dimpling the surface or cruising around, I fish shallower.  It it's cold or I don't see activity, I may try fishing deeper.  Let the fish tell you what to do.

I usually also fish small jigs when bobber and jig fishing.  I'll start with one or two 1/80 or 1/64 ounce jigs tipped with my favorite soft plastics.  I also try changing up colors until I find one that the fish like.  But, if I had to state a general rule, I'd say bright colors in darker water or darker skies, and natural colors during sunny skies and clear water.  However, I also think that white and chartreuse are tough to beat.  A former Potomac River fishing guide once told me, that when fishing that river, "If it ain't chartreuse, it ain't no use"!  Try different things until you get the results that you want.  You'll find your favorites once you start catching fish.

These are some of my favorite jigs for panfish.  On the left, you can see the small 1/64 oz. tube jighead that I use, and a selection of tubes.  On the right you can see an assortment of jighead sizes and colors that I use, from 1/32 oz. down to 1/64 oz.  Not picture here are similar colors in the 1/80 oz. size.  In the center, the top two larger "grubs", or twister tails, can be fished with or without a bobber.  The two jig/plastic combos below that are from Custom Jigs n Spins tackle company, called Ratsos, in 1/64 and 1/80 oz. sizes.  Below that are Bass Pro Shops one inch Squirmin' Grubs in pumpkinseed and watermelon colors.  I find BPS tubes and grubs to be very effective.  They're inexpensive and have a good color selection as well.

Here's the deal though, it's a cheap way to get into fishing, but, expect to lose some tackle.  Bobber and jig rigs are not the easiest, most accurate rig to toss, and you might end up casting your rig into trouble.  Even when experienced at this, people will still find a tree to hang their lures in, or cast too far into cover, or, just snag on a log while casting and jigging.  It happens.  If you can't retrieve it, break it off and tie on another one.  If you're shore fishing, maybe you'll get lucky and the wind will blow your float back to you.  That's why I carry a good assortment of lures and floats.  It's a good thing that this stuff isn't expensive.

Oh, another thing to remember, is that someone else's misfortune could help you find a good place to fish.  Good spots always seem to have bobbers hanging from them, or from trees just overhead.  We had a spot that was so good that we found, it has so many bobbers in it that it looked like a Christmas tree!  Just a good tip that may help you find a good spot on a new lake.

Now, a quick word about floats...there are many types out there.  You don't have to be stuck on my favorites.  Try different ones out and see what works for you.  I like the weighed round styrofoam ones because they're cheap and easy to cast a long way, and they work great for me.

For fishing really deep water, you can try using slip bobbers.  Basically, the way that they work is that you have a piece of rubber, called bobber stop, on the line, say, 15 feet from the jig, that is wound into you reel.  When you cast, it slips through the guides easily.  Then, when the rig hits the water, the line feeds through the float until the float stops at the bobber stop, and your jig reaches the depth that you want, in this example, 15 feet.  You may need to add split shot above the jig so that the line feeds through and gets to the right depth.  Anyway, you can cast these deep water rigs much easier than trying to use a snap on float when fishing deeper than four feet.  I usually use the snap on ones when fishing five feet or shallower.

Also, there are more expensive floats that are very sensitive, if you want to refine your techniques.  Here, I'm just giving you basics.  Now, as far as float shapes go, in general, the more resistance a float has to the water, the more fish can feel it and the more difficult it is to sink under the water.  You have to match the amount of weight of your lures to the right float.  Thinner, cigar or pencil shaped floats are very sensitive and go under easily without fish feeling them.  Fat, round, large floats are best used for heavier baits, as they provide a bunch of resistance.  You may never see a panfish biting a lure using large floats like these.  That's why I like the one inch size.

Where are the fish?  They can be hiding in weeds, in deep water near a dam, hiding in a log jam, or on the back side of a windy point or current break.  Panfish are predators and will find places to ambush their prey.  They can be found in tidal or non-tidal rivers, lakes or creeks.  Most likely, you can find them in a body of water close to home.  Just think to yourself, if I were a panfish, where would I hide so that the wind or current might bring me a nice minnow snack?  These places may vary depending on the time of year.  During colder months, you might find them around deeper water.  During warm spells during that time, or when it warms up, try areas where shallows next to deep water warm up from the sun quickly.

Slab perch like these may be mixed in with crappie, bluegills and other fish.  We found a bunch of fish on this day fishing behind a point that provided a wind break.  The fish were stacked up on the backside of the island, as the wind created current that pushed baitfish to the predators in wait.

A nice location would be on a northern shoreline, where the southern sun shines and warms the shallows.  If you find some nice cover there, like a tree or brush, that is a great place to try and cast to find fish, especially if that cover provides a current break.  Sometimes, when fishing a northern shoreline, if a south wind piles up along the bank, it will bring warmer temperatures to that area and along with it, active fish.  So, during colder months, try and find the warmest spot on a body of water, the best cover that will hold fish, and try your luck casting there.  Most likely, you'll get into some panfish.

When my buddy Bob, and his son, Carson tried some winter panfishing with me, they had a blast catching slabs like this all day long while casting jigs with soft plastic twister tails.

Once you find some cover, like a bush or tree in the water, you don't have to always cast into the thick of it.  In fact, unless you become an expert at casting a bobber and jig, just try to get close.  These rigs are not as easy to cast as only having a lure on the end.  If you're close to the cover, most of the time, active fish will come out of the cover to check it out.  Only during tough cold fronts, when fish may not be active, you may need to fish tighter to the cover.  But try out a foot or two, if you can, first.

Large bluegills are extremely fun to catch using these techniques.  Just look at the colors on this fish!  What a blast you can have when you catch dozens of these guys.

Once you get the hang of finding and catching fish, if the fish you're catching are small, then you can start the process over on other bodies of water until you find some bigger fish.  When you find actively feeding panfish, you will start catching good numbers of these fish.  You may have hundred fish days or certainly enough action to keep you entertained.  Once you find your favorite "honey holes", you may have days when fishing is tough.  This is where tipping your lure with live bait, like spikes (or maggots), waxworms, or just about any bait may trigger some bites.  If they're not biting after that, you can try changing locations on the body of water to find a new spot, or change lakes.  Don't sit and wait for fish or you may get skunked.  Move, that is the key, and it may save your day.

Rodger will tell you that catching panfish like these can really be a blast.  The techniques and suggestions described in this post will help you find fish like these too.

Another technique is to just tie the jig directly on your line without the float.  This is very effective if you're fishing an area with less snags, it's not that windy out, and the fish are aggressive.  I usually fish 1/32 or 1/16 ounce jigs when casting, depending on how much wind there is.  Wind will put a bow in your line, so more weight counteracts the wind.  If it's too windy, you may find it best to add the float and let the wind do the work.  When not using a float, if you're boat fishing, you can vertical jig or cast to spots.  Most of the time, if you shore fish, you may have to cast, but sometimes if you have access to boat docks, piers, or bridges to fish, you can try vertical jigging.  Just drop the jig down into the water, and twitch your rod tip to make the jig dance.  Dancing jigs attract fish.

My buddy Howard loves catching slab crappie using these techniques!  We were fishing deeper water winter condtions on this day, using both techniques.  The fish weren't deep, but they were over deeper water.

When casting, you can try jigging it, but sometimes the fish will hit the lure on a slow fall.  If they do this, you will see the line twitch or move at the water line or maybe even feel the bite.  For this reason, it's very important to watch your line where it enters the water.  Often, you may not feel it, so, if you see anything different, set the hook.  And, of course, if you feel a "doink", set the hook.  Sometimes, after letting your lure sink a slow retrieve might work.  Like bobber and jig fishing, try different things to get them to bite.

When to use the bobber and jig vs. casting a small jig for panfish?  It depends on how active the fish are, how big the fish are, and the conditions that you're fishing.  For me, if I'm fishing when the fish are active and it's not windy, I probably would start casting a larger jig, say, 1/32 with a two inch twister tail.  If it's windy, I may try vertical jigging if possible.  If the fish are finicky, or it's too windy to cast, then I'll go with the bobber and jig and downsize to smaller lures.  If the fish are really finicky, then I may go as small as a 1/80 oz. jig.

One thing that I love about fishing small jigs like this is, that you never know what you're going to catch when you get a bite.  You can catch almost anything.  In addition to the panfish that I've targeted, I've caught everything from golden shiners, trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass, chain pickerel to even catfish and carp!  It's a lot of fun.  Give it a try!

Large golden shiners will hit these small jigs too.  Usually, on some lakes that we fish, we will find them mixed in with the panfish that we target.  I like catching just about anything that swims, and bobber and jig fishing can do that for you.

You never know what you're going to catch using small jigs while targeting panfish.  While targeting yellow perch, I caught this nice largemouth bass on a 1/32 oz. jighead tipped with a two inch chartreuse plastic twister tail grub.  What fun, huh?

If you aren't catching fish now, doing what you're doing, then maybe try the techniques above.  If you do, you're sure to succeed.  Good luck, and give me a comment back and let me know how you do, if this post helped you.

Hot Start to a Cold Winter...Hardwater Heaven!

Call it Polar Vortex, call it unusual, call it whatever you wish.  I call it winter, a normal winter that reminded me of winters past, where our local ice fishing opportunities lasted two to three months.  No matter what it's called, I'm thankful for it.  The mild winters of the past few years were painful to ice anglers like me, who had to travel further to find ice.  Now, my inner conflict, the open water musky angler in me, yearns for flowing rivers free of ice, but part of me is happy now!

As an ice angler, I couldn't have been much more happy about my first four trips on the ice.  I had the opportunity to meet new friends and fish with old friends.  And the icing on the cake, or on the lake, was that we caught a bunch of fish in the process.

My first three trips took place at the lake where it all started for me too many years ago to mention.  Yeah, I'm the guy that I used to call "old".  This lake was home to my first ice fishing adventure of my life, as detailed in my previous post, "Remember Your First Ice Fishing Trip?"  Jeff Redinger turned me on to this gem of a lake along with the sport of ice fishing.

My old friend Glenn Cumings met me up there, the same guy that hosted Jeff's ice fishing workshop that got me addicted to this past time.  Glenn is as equally responsible for my ice fishing exposure as Jeff is.  The ice was anywhere from four to eight inches thick where it looked “safe” that first afternoon.  The lake was drawn down about ten feet for the past few years because the dam needs
to be repaired.  The usual twenty something foot deep hot spots were now ten feet shallower.  But, the fish were there.

My first trip always seems like an orientation for me, not only to find the fish, but also to get the rustiness of not being on the ice a while out of me.  My hook setting reaction time seems to get slower each year, yet improves daily the more that I get out and fish.

I fished near an old spot where twenty foot depths were ten, hoping the fish wouldn't care about depth and remain on the structure.  I picked up a few fish here and there, but it wasn't a banner day for me. I finished with eleven medium sized crappie, seven nice bluegills, and five decent sized yellow perch.  I was only on the ice for just a few hours, so it wasn't all that bad.  In fact, it wasn't the fish, it was me.

One of my favorite rod and reel rigs for fishing soft plastics is my tandem Ratso rig.  I rig two Ratso's in tandem, one about eight inches higher than the bottom one.  The rod is an ultralight inexpensive fiberglass rod with a broken rod tip.  Being the cheap person that I am, I converted this to my ultralight jigging rod for these baits by adding a homemade “spring bobber” as a replacement tip top.  If you've read my other ice fishing posts, you know how much I rely on this rig.  It's my bread and butter panfish catching set up!

This rig really shines during that night time crappie bite.  Usually, when a fish bites, you see the spring move down with the fish pulling on the line.  Sometimes crappie will hit and the spring, normally loaded by the weight of the jig, actually rises and the line goes slack.  When fish hit like that, they’re pushing the bait up.  Crappie are notorious for that behavior.

Glenn introduced me to one of the guys on the ice, Tanner, who also frequents Iceshanty.  He fished with two of his buddies that had never ice fished before.  He let his buddies use his flip over shanty, tackle, and sonar units.  That's a true friend right there, hauling all that extra gear out just for them.

Since I didn’t arrive at the lake until about four in the afternoon, I didn’t bring my underwater camera onto the ice simply because of the lack of daylight.  I relied on the sonar to detect the fish and observe their behavior.  I may have missed some fish during the night bite because my lantern wasn’t working properly, and I didn't have the right tools to fix it on the lake.  Glenn and the other guys did well, maybe slightly better than I did, possible because of that.  I thought at the time it was because they were using bait, but that wasn’t the case.  I wouldn’t discover why my limited success until the next day.

All of my fish were caught on glow Ratso 1/64 jigs with blue glow 3/4 inch Ratso soft plastic finesse tails (stinger style) made by Custom Jigs and Spins.  On this lake, glow blue or glow pink are hot colors for some reason.  That day, blue worked much better than the pink.  As far as color goes, I'm not convinced that it makes a difference as it's more of a confidence thing, but the glow does make a difference in my humble opinion.  I think that how you work the lure and the lure size are far more important factors.  But it was a fun start for my ice season.  The fish weren’t big, but not quite dinks either…mediums I’d say.

It looks cold, but it was actually pretty toasty inside my shanty.  I had to peel off a couple layers of clothing to keep from sweating inside there.  The lantern provides both light and heat inside, even in frigid temperatures.

I fished the same lake the next day, starting around mid-afternoon.   The bite was slow at first.  I only caught one bluegill for the first hour.  I spent quite a bit of time searching for active fish, cutting holes and checking them with the sonar.  Every hole I cut seemed to be the same, eleven feet and featureless, and not marking many fish.

I dropped my camera down for a horizontal look around, and saw nothing but mud and a clump of algae here and there, with no fish in site.  I checked four separate holes where I caught fish the previous night and found nothing.  Then, I found one spot that was about two feet deeper and marked a fish.  I didn’t catch it, but did mark it.  I figured this spot was different.  Later, that hunch would prove to be the reason that the fish were there.

I dropped down the camera for a quick 360 degree scan, and saw several bluegills.  This was a good spot to set up.  I cut one hole for my flasher, one for my camera, and one to fish out of.  Within a half hour, I had a few nice bluegills iced, not great, but a start.  I set my camera to look down on the fish at about six feet from the bottom.  This way, I could see them approach from any angle.  I could see my jigs and the bottom pretty clearly.

I spent most of the afternoon fishing inside my shanty.  It’s easier to see the camera in a dark house.  Of course, inside the shanty, you're also comfortable and out of the elements.  Every now and then I'd flip my shack open to chat and not be an unsociable hermit.  Tanner had arrived with his buddies, Ricky and Chris.  They also began to take advantage of the late afternoon bite.

Pictured here are Tanner to the right, his buddy Chris in the chair, and Ricky inside the other shanty.  The guy furthest away is named Rich.  I met Rich the day before.  He’s a nice guy and really tore up the bluegills both days.  As you can see, not only can you catch a lot of fish, but it’s pretty sociable out there too!

While using the camera, when the fish moved in, I could see them inhale my lure, and I’d set the hook. That extra time made up for my slow old age hook sets and allowed me to land the light biters that gave me fits the day before.  Bluegills are notorious for being finicky light biters.  The camera helps to see them bite.

Later, even more fish showed up, and showed up in bigger numbers.  The fish chased down my jigs as quick as I could get them down there.  They competed with each other to get to them.  At one point, the bluegills pecked at my camera!  Then the crappie moved in.  They used my camera as structure!  I’d jig right up to the camera and a crappie would appear right there and inhale it.  They looked huge right in front of the camera like that.  They were extremely aggressive.  You can't see stuff like that on a flasher, which makes ice fishing with an underwater camera that much more fun.

I watched this yellow perch show up suspend right below the camera and engulf my offering.  You can see the Ratso firmly embedded in its upper lip.  Also, you can see my set up, the flasher and camera both in use.  During daylight, the camera was effective.  Deeper fish that were out of view had to be watched on the sonar until the camera could pick them up.  As daylight diminished, the camera's effectiveness did as well.

As we lost daylight, the camera became less effective.  My camera doesn’t work well at night.  The zooplankton are attracted to the camera lighting and they show up in huge clouds after dark.  Plus, it's an old undewater camera and the lighting isn't really all that great.  I've heard that the modern cameras work much better at night.  So, as it became dark, I had to focus on the sonar.  It didn't matter, as the bluegills and crappie stayed aggressive most of the evening.

This particular lake isn't open all night.  In fact, they will ticket you after a certain time.  There was a slow spell about an hour and a half after dark, but wouldn’t you know it, when it was time to get off the lake, the crappie showed up again, more aggressive than ever.  We managed a few bigger ones to close out the evening with some over ten inches long.  But most were mediums like the previous day.

Here’s a typical bluegill from that trip, measuring about six inches (average was 6-8”), with the Ratso in the upper lip.

That night, I finished with 44 crappie, 31 bluegills, and 5 yellow perch.  I caught my last crappie to round out eighty fish just in time to pack up and get out before getting ticketed.  Tanner was using maggots on a small moon glow jig and easily did as well as I did, and better than I did the previous night.  The difference for me between the two nights was that slightly deeper depression in the bottom that seemed to hold the fish.

The last crappie of the night, a small one.

Of course, after those two afternoons, visions of ice fishing danced through my brain all week at work.  I had the day off this past Friday, and went back to the same lake, this time toting Glenn with me.  We hit a local tackle shop for bait to pick up some spikes, just in case the fish were finicky.

We arrived at the lake and were fishing by about one in the afternoon.  A week after my first outing, the ice had more than doubled, now over ten inches thick.

Glenn heard about a spot that had a hot bite of bigger fish from a buddy of his, so we cut holes in that area and searched for fish.  I marked fish in every hole that I cut.  This area of the lake was nearly the deepest at fifteen to eighteen feet.  The fish actively checked the baits and nipped at then.  This behavior is typical of smaller fish, or very finicky larger fish.  You won't know for sure until you catch one.

After cutting a few more holes and having the same thing happen, I downsized to a tiny ice jig tipped with one maggot.  I had to catch one to see if they were worth fishing for or not, just to be sure.  I caught one fish after another on that rig, but they were literally three inch bluegills and four inch yellow perch, confirming my suspicion.  So much for the magic hole.

I didn’t want to waste time feeding baitfish, and moved further up the lake to the more shallow thirteen foot depth that had been productive the week before.  Again, every hole marked fish, so I had to fish them to see what those fish were.  I wasn't satisfied with my catch, so I kept moving, cutting and checking holes. Up until then, I had a dozen fish under my belt that wouldn’t have weighed half a pound collectively!

I moved toward the creek channel, out of the thirteen feet and and back to fifteen, but further up the lake.  My first drop resulted in good hit on my tandem Ratso soft plastic rig.  The bite resonated up to my elbow!  I set the hook and immediately pulled my flasher transducer out of the way.  I back reeled and the fish took drag, and I didn’t want to lose whatever it was, even if I was using one pound test.  Finally, I brought it to the hole, head first and lipped it, yanking it onto the ice.  It turned out to not be a monster, but a nice bass at fourteen and one half inches long!

This chunky fourteen and a half inch largemouth fell for my Ratso tandem rig.  Here you can see my modified broken inexpensive rod with my home made spring tip top.  Not bad for one pound test, huh?

Well, I figured that was the hot hole.  But, maybe there were more like him down there.  My flasher marked a lot of fish, so I dropped something that usually tempts the bigger fish like this one, a Salmo Chubby Darter, which looks like a lipless crankbait but is a vertical jigging lure.  You lower them to the bottom, then rip them up about three feet or so, then let them drop, keeping your light tight as it falls with the fluttering lure, but not so tight that it kills the action.

After jigging the Chubby Darter three times, my sonar showed the marks moving up for the bite, then, a big hit!  Fish on!  "Whoooo hooo", I’m thinking, "I figured out the bass here!"  But, only to my disappointment, it was a bluegill, albeit nice one. That gill thought he was a largemouth!

This bluegill thought he was a largemouth, jumping all over my Salmo Chubby Darter!

After that, the fish vanished and I stopped marking fish.  By now, it was the magic hour, four in the afternoon, and too late to pull out the camera and set up.  The week prior, this was the hot bite time, and it wasn't happening for me now, especially since the fish had vacated.  It was time to go in search mode again.  I thought, “What a difference from last week when they were so active.”

So, I moved up the channel a little ways, cut another hole.  This time, I marked fish from literally the bottom to about three feet under the ice, and it remained like that the rest of the afternoon and evening.  I dropped my Ratsos down there, and the fish were shooting off the bottom to hit them.  At first, it was bluegills, not big but bigger than before, maybe a six inch average, and some decent yellow perch, males mostly.  Mixed in were some medium crappies.

But the bite never stopped.  In fact, it intensified.  I hit the thirty fish count and pulled out my golf counter so I wouldn’t lose track.  I could remember in my head the perch and bass count, since they were less numerous.  All I had to do is let the golf counter count the total, and remember the crappie count, and deduct that to calculate the bluegills.

My jigs wouldn’t make it to the bottom without fish inhaling them.  They literally hooked themselves.  If I missed on a hookset, another would shoot up to bite before I could lower the bait down.  I caught two at a time on a few drops.  This action, out of one hole, took place from four until about seven in the evening when my lantern ran out of propane.  During that time, my fish count went from a dozen fish to seventy one in total!

My lantern ran out of propane during the hot bite.  On my way back to my truck for more fuel, I ran into Tanner, who introduced me to his Father and Uncle.  They offered me a can of propane to get my lantern working again, so I could get back on the bite.  Thanks guys!  But, by the time I had the lantern fired up, the bite had slowed drastically.  For the next hour and a half, I caught only five medium crappie, but did miss a few bites.  All of the crappie were seven or eight inches long with a  few nine inchers mixed in.

Of course, we had to be off the lake their closing time.  With a half hour to go, talked about packing it in.  Then, like clockwork, they turned on again.  Those fish knew that we had to get off the ice!  All of a sudden, they chased my Ratso’s again.  But now, the crappie were bigger, averaging nine inches, with two fat ones that were over ten inches long.  It was really hard to quit fishing and avoid getting fined, but we did.  I finished with 86 fish, 35 of them were crappie, the one bass, five fat yellow perch, and the rest bluegills.

It was one of the hottest bites in such a short time frame that I can ever recall, even better than the week before.

The next day, I set my sights on another Central Pennsylvania lake further North, to fish the hardwater with one of the best musky anglers, check that, anglers, that I know, the founder of Keystone Outdoor Addiction, Jeremy Tyson.  Jeremy has been ice fishing most of his life, but never really gave using electronics a try, so he wanted to check out my system and see what it's all about.  My friend, fellow angler Wayne Chmielewski, also met us there.  Jeremy's friend Jay was also to meet up with us.  I hadn't met him yet.

When I was setting up, this guy walked out on the ice straight toward us.  He wore a green jacket and black hat, sunglasses over the hat logo, with a backpack and no fishing stuff.  I'm thinking, "Well, here's the game warden checking licenses, starting out with us, the furthest out first."  I figured I'd get it over with so that I could set up and begin fishing.  I walk over to him and showed him my license.  He said that everything looked in good order and asked how the fishing was.  As I was telling him about the fishing, Jeremy yelled out, "Hey Jay, you didn't just check his fishing license, did ya?"

It was Jeremy’s friend, Jay, who was coming out to fish with us…If I was an ostrich, I would have stuck my head down one of the hole in the ice to hide!

Usually, the panfish at this lake are on the larger side but more difficult to find and catch.  The trick is to find fish.  When you do, the size will come.  At least that's been the M.O. of this lake for many years that I've fished it.   We found fish, but nothing big, and they would turn out to be very picky all day.

We were fishing thirty four feet of water.  I gave Jeremy and Jay a tutorial on how to use the sonar as neither had used them through the ice before.  The fish were active enough to effectively teach them about the electronics, but the bluegills and crappie were much smaller than what I’d caught during my previous trips.  We did manage a few nice fat yellow perch though.

I also showed the camera set up to Jeremy and Jay, gave then each turns at attempting to catch fish with it.  They had fun with the system, but I think that they didn't want to infringe on my fishing.  I didn't mind, I was out to have fun.  Them having fun was rewarding to me.  But I admit, it's very easy to close the shanty and sit there and watch the camera and fish. It's mesmerizing, and time goes by.

At one point in the late afternoon, the fish showed up on the sonar in big suspended schools.  I then saw them on my camera.  They were crappie.  I'd watch them zoom in and miss my lures and aggressively attempt to eat them.  They’d surge to attack and miss, often, like they were blind!  But, it was deep, probably nearly thirty feet down down over thirty four feet of water, right under my camera, and there was snow on the ice.  It was dark down there.  I think that they had a hard time seeing the bait.  That does explain why at night they will follow and not always bite.  They may be trying to eat the lure all along and simply miss.

Later, I watched my jig while trying to entice a crappie below, when a big flash of a fish swooped in and engulfed my jig.  I set the hook and the fight was on.  It wasn’t as strong as the bass from the day before, but the fish was much bigger than I had been catching all day and I didn’t want to lose it.  Fortunately, it didn’t wrap around my camera cable, and I was able to get it though the hole.  As it turns out, rather than the big fat perch that I had hoped it was, it was another bass, but it was significantly smaller than the bass from Friday at about ten inches long.

Here's the little bass that attacked my Ratso rig, with Jeremy Tyson in the background.

Here's a picture of Wayne, searching for fish down by the dam.

Jeremy called it quits before dark. It was a good call, because his arrival at home earlier saves him brownie points with his wife for future trips, and these dinky fish weren't worth it.  We stayed in hopes that the bigger crappie would appear.

After dark, my flasher lit up like a Christmas tree with fish.  Looking at the round shape of the sonar in the picture below, the bottom is at about 8 o'clock.  All those marks to the right going counter clockwise are fish.  The bottom group were mostly tiny bluegills.  The ones the the right, at about ten to fifteen feet were small  to medium crappie, the biggest that we caught were nine inches, but most were only six inches long.  The fish about ten feet down over thirty four feet of water were the more active fish, suspended like that.  The ones toward the bottom were suspended and active too, but were too small to get even the tiny jig hook in their mouths

My sonar was lit up like a Christmas Tree!

I hoped the lake would have produced a hot bite with bigger fish.  There was enough action to keep us interested, but fish fish were very picky during the day and, other than the perch, were on the small side.  I finished with a six bluegills, two yellow perch, a largemouth, and twenty two crappie.  Not bad, but not great, and the size was a real disappointment, especially for this lake.  We could have stayed and caught more, but Wayne and I had a long drive home.  So, we made a pact that we'd each get one more and then call it quits.  It took about fifteen minutes, and we succeeded in fulfilling our pact, and packed it up.

My first four trips were a huge success though, because I fished with Jeremy and Wayne for the first time on the ice, and met some new anglers (Tanner, Jay and Rich), and spent some time with an old friend who is partly responsible for my ice fishing addiction, Glenn Cumings.  And, two of the four trips had some of the hottest action that I'd ever experienced in such a short amount of time!

I'd say that was a hot start to a cold winter, wouldn't you?

On the Hardwater - A Short 2013 Season

Now that I’m an old man, one of the things on my bucket list was to visit my buddy, Jim Cumming, for some ice fishing.  So, on Friday, I made the trip North after stopping and paying a visit to my friend, Geoff Cerrelli in Pennsylvania, who graciously gave me some maggots.  I added that period for humor’s sake, maggots are also commonly known in the ice fishing world as spikes, which make for a very effective bait to tip lures, spoons, and ice jigs with to catch hungry panfish through the ice.  Since then, I’ve passed on the maggots to their new owner who will get some use out of them, my Maine host on the trip, Jim Cumming.

The ice conditions were sloppy to say the least.  It snowed every day, not much, but enough to be annoying, especially when I left my tennis shoes at home and wore Crocs during my leisure non-fishing time up there.  Temperatures ranged from the upper twenties during darkness, to mid thirties throughout the day with periodic snow squalls and light winds.  Fifteen miles per hour plus winds in Maine is considered light apparently, and about the only thing good about slush and snow on the ice is that your portable shanty won't blow away.  On the ice, we found a good five inches of snow on top of about four inches of slush, on top of about twenty inches plus of mixed white and clear ice, all of which made mobility very limited.

Mobility is the key to my ice fishing strategy.  Meaning, if you aren’t on fish, you move to find them.  First, you have to get to the area that you’d like to fish, then, in theory, you cut a bunch of holes until you find the fish.  Then, when they stop biting, you repeat the process.  Usually, productive holes when the bite stops will once again be productive after a short while, especially with yellow perch as their schools move around quite a bit.  You can bounce from hole to hole and keep on the school that way.
 
However, the conditions described above really do limit your ability to do much of that.  This is especially true when you’re old, fat and out of shape like me.  First of all, to get to Jim’s prime spots, we had to trudge through all that slush and snow while dragging our sleds that were heaped full of ice fishing gear gear nearly half a mile or more.  Needless to say, I had to stop and rest several times, even taking a seat to catch my breath and the scenery at the same time.  I guess you could say that I found the scenery breathtaking! 

Jim, on the other hand, is like the energizer bunny, and scampered out to his spot in no time.  All I could do is watch him pull away, and try to stop, rest, and regain my ability to breath before gathering up enough energy and will to trudge forward.

That's Jim off in the distance.  As you can see, you'd think that I couldjust follow his footprints for easier walking, but Jim apparently doesn't believe in walking a straight path!  Actually, sometimes you have to improve your own mobility by finding less sloppy stuff to walk through, and that's what he was doing.

Like many guys, Jim’s approach is a varied and effective one common to many ice anglers, to set tip ups, or “traps” (as they are referred to by Mainahs), to catch larger predatory fish, and when time permits, use a jigging rod to catch smaller panfish or anything else that wants to bite while waiting for “flags”.  Although this limits mobility in some cases, it does allow the ice angler to fish the best of both worlds. 

For those of you that aren't familiar with them, tip ups basically wooden or plastic stand fitted with a line filled spool that fits across the hole in the ice, with the line having a leader, perhaps a weight, and a baited hook dangling to tantalize potentially hungry fish.  The tip up has a spring loaded mechanism that, when a bite occurs, allows a flag to shoot up and alert you that a fish has taken your bait.  The videos below show Jim in action working tip ups to catch some nice predatory fish, filmed on our first day this past Saturday.

My approach is a bit different, I prefer to jig.  Although I lack experience in using them, I’m open to using tip ups.  In fact, I actually did try them on our second day at a trout lake.  Jim showed me how to use some and I promptly caught nothing on mine.  In fact, that day, we both got skunked, so not much detail will be provided except that the sloppy conditions were a bit better, only we trudged twice as far to get to the spot where we were skunked, and I was twice as worn out at the end of the day.  Jim summed up that second day quite nicely, the fishing stunk, but the company was awesome.  The cool thing about tip ups is that you really never know what you’re going to catch.  Any predator that lives in the lake could be on the other end of your line, in that lake, it could have been pike, brown trout, brookies, splake, lake trout or big bass.

On that first day, I think Jim caught fifteen warm water predators (chain pickerel, largemouth bass, and smallmouth bass) on his “traps” and jigged up about as many other fish in between flags.  Those other fish included yellow and white perch.  I caught about half as many fish jigging, a mixed bag between yellow perch and white perch, and one other species that I’d never caught before, a smelt.  It was my first fish of the trip.

My first Maine fish through the ice...a minnow!  As it turns out, this baitfish is also a highly coveted delicacy, the smelt.  People try to catch these guys by the bucket full, bring them home, smoke or fry them, and feast.

Here's Jim working a tip up.

While Jim kept watch of his tip ups, I jigged.

The tip ups do catch big fish, the pictures below are evidence of their effectiveness.

Jim sports a fat Maine chain pickerel.

Jim with a chunky iced largemouth bass caught on a "trap", released to fight another day.  Jim uses circle hooks that greatly reduce deeply hooked fish and allow for clean healthy releases.  They nearly always are hooked in the corner of the mouth.  Don't "set" the hook in the traditional way.  Instead, apply steady pressure on the fish as you hand line them up, which moves the hook to the corner of the fishes mouth.

Jim's tip ups brought many fat bass like this to the icy surface on our first day.

Day three, March 4th, measured up to what I had hoped, and basically turned out to be my ice fishing season.  Honestly, I'm not picky about what I catch through the ice, as long as I can get on a good jigging bite and the fish put up a decent fight on my light tackle.  As it turned out, I couldn't ask for a better day, with a great bite, on the same lake as day one, but with a much closer hike to his spot.  The bad news was that the sloppy conditions on the ice were even worse. 

Snow insulates the slush and water between it and the ice, and the weight of the snow pushes down on the ice, allowing water to seep up through holes cut in the ice throughout the lake, making it even worse.  Despite the sloppy conditions, higher winds, constant snow, rain or drizzle all day long, the fish didn’t care and bit all day long. 

Jim, early on, stepped into and old eight inch hole that someone had cut perhaps a few days prior, and had a wet foot which could have ruined his day had temperatures been a bit colder.  There's nothing more miserable while ice fishing than cold wet feet.  Warm insulated boots and wool socks that even insulate when wet helped Jim remain somewhat comfortable.  But, even after that, and also having to battle a stomach ache, he hung in there and stuck the day out.  Good fishing can put some of that at ease, and that was the case.  This was our two hundred fish combined day, a mixed bag of bass, pickerel, perch, sunfish, and fallfish. 

It was my kind of day though.  We found fish quickly, and I think that I cut three holes all day long, and it was all that was needed.  In addition to trudging through all that slop, cutting a hole with a hand auger through twenty plus inches of ice can wear and old fat guy like me out quickly.  Well, I actually cut seven holes, because once I was on fish, I had to cut holes for my electronics too.  I do this to keep the fish from tangling in the camera cable or transducer cable of my sonar. 

I was able to handle the elements easily, tucking myself inside my cozy Fish Trap portable ice fishing shanty.  Not only does it protect me from the elements, it also allows me to view my camera monitor much easier, providing a dark house of sorts, with just enough light inside to see what was going on.  My Fish Trap also has windows where I can view what is going on outside.

Shown here is my hiding spot, out of the wind, comfy, and able to easily view my underwater camera screen.

I offered as often as I could to invite Jim to either join me or take my place inside to warm up now and then, and to try out my electronics (which he did for a bit) especially since he wasn’t feeling well.  But, Jim’s a tough guy and put up with what Mother Nature dealt him, and having good fish bite all day long helped him cope, I’m quite sure.  He seemed to be more focused on me having a good time than his personal well being.  What a great host and a great friend!

This is the view of my set up while inside my comfy portable ice fishing haven.  The hole on the right was for my electonics.  In this picture, my sonar wasn't being used to conserve the battery as fish were moving into camera view for a long period of time.  This hole was home to my camera cable, with the actual camera down the hole positioned to look down on the fish toward the bottom, where you can see weeds scattered alogn the bottom.  In the center of the screen is my jig.  Where you find weeds while ice fishing, fish are usually nearby.

I typically use my sonar to locate the fish, checking hole after hole until they are located.  Then, I’ll drop a jig down the hole to check if the fish are active and will bite.  On the sonar screen, you can actually see your lure sink toward the bottom, and see the fish rise off the bottom to your bait (or move in from the side).  Once the bar on the sonar (flasher) representing a fish moves even with the one representing your lure, you take your eye off the sonar unit and focus on your rod tip and watch for any movement of that rod tip.  If it twitches, set the hook and you most of the time will catch a fish.  Sometimes the bites are very subtle, and all that might move is your line.  If anything weird like that happens, set the hook.  Crappie are notorious for doing that.

Actually, to be effective on the ice, sonar is really all you need.  You can most certainly use the sonar all day long to put you on fish, watch your lure and the fish, and get a sense of how they are reacting your entire day.  Sonar can give you enough information, but it can't tell you everything.  What you don’t know is what kind of fish they are or how big those fish are.  You can read the sonar to determine the type of bottom, hard or soft, and even read weeds or other cover.  If you are on a good fish bite, this is where the camera comes in handy.  You can see what the bottom is like, even what kind of weeds are present.

Personally, I view the sonar and the camera as separate tools with different purposes.  The sonar puts me on fish, the camera refines and improves my ability to catch them.  They are simply effective tools to fish.  Do you need them both?  No, but they both really do improve your odds.  In addition, I find it extremely fun.  You can drop the camera down, see the fish, how big they are, what the bottom is like, what kind of weeds are there, stumps, branches, whatever.  And, you can watch the fish actually inhale or bite your lure.  Not only that, you can see the fish that aren’t after your lure at the time too. 

It’s so much fun, like watching an interactive TV show with you and the fish as stars.  I'll sit there and watch the fish inhale my lure and then set the hook and the fight is on, all day long, with me giggling like a kid the entire time.  The advantage the camera gives you is that you know exactly when to set the hook.  There is no doubt when you have a bite, and even the most subtle bites aren’t missed unless you’re too slow to react.  The result is that the hookup percentage is higher.

Pictured here is a medium sized yellow perch that fell victim to my set up.  The fish was released unharmed after his photo op.  This was my last spot, my third set of holes on the day, that proved to be the most productive spot.  You can see on the camera that this spot showed less weeds than that other spot in the previous picture, and it was a mere fifteen feet away.  You can't see the fish in this picture, but they were moving through often, like a highway following the weed edge.

I landed sixty nine yellow perch, and at least fifty of them were between ten and thirteen inches long.  In addition, the sunfish were active.  Jim caught a ton of them, and I finished with twenty one of chunky sunnies, a mix of pumpkinseed and red ear sunfish.

Here was my biggest sunfish of the day.  All of them were nice, but this one was a brute. 

In the picture above, you can see the camera on the ice.  I had to pull it, my line, and the fish out all together because this guy wrapped himself around my camera cable.  You can also see the sonar or flasher at work here.  Sometimes it helps to use both, to use the flasher to see what’s outside of the range of your camera, to gain a clue that fish are approaching.

Jim didn’t have much tip up action that last day, but did manage to land a dandy fat largemouth bass.  It took a lot of line too, as you can see it strewn across the ice in the picture below.

Nice bass Jim!

While Jim jigged away catching sunnie after sunnie, I hammered perch like this one all day long.  I'm sitting on a modified bass boat seat installed in my Fish Trap, pictured here with the shanty in the open position.

Of course, jigging is an effective way to put panfish on the ice.  But, you can also jig up predators.  I also landed two small chain pickerel and three largemouth.  At one point when the perch action slowed, I was watching my Berkley one and a half inch Gulp Smelt Minnow on my 1/32 ounce Ratso glow jighead, putting myself in a trance while jigging.   I set my rod down to take a drink of my Pepsi Max, when, what looked like a submarine appeared on my camera moving right up to my jig.  I picked up the rod and gave it a twitch, and the submarine opened its mouth and sucked in my jig.  It was a massive largemouth, at least for ice fishing in my world, and probably was in the four pound range.  It took off, taking drag while I was backreeling.  I fought this fish for quite a while as I didn’t want to break this fish off.  I had to be careful because my perch jigging rod was set up with only one pound test.  Things were going well but I took one hand to pull the camera and cable up and out of the hole to keep the fish from wrapping around the cable, while the bass took drag, and it broke me off.  Well, that explains why the panfish dissappeared!

Not too long after that, I had a repeat performance, only this time I successfully landed the fish, a largemouth bass, not quite as large as the first one, but a healthy fish that was eighteen inches on my measuring tape.After a quick photo shoot, I released it back to the depths under the ice.

Here was my biggest fish of my trip, a nice eighteen inche largemouth bass.  Not bad for using a perch rod and reel combo spooled with one pound test!

So, that was my last day on the ice, and it made my ice fishing season.  I’d say, in fact, it was my ice fishing season.  Jim and I had hoped to get out on Tuesday for one more go at these fish, but the approaching storm caused me to reevaluate my plans and cut my trip short one day.  I just couldn’t risk leaving my wife stranded at home without power.  I considered staying an extra day to wait it out, but the storm was due to hit New England the next day, so that option was out.  Nevertheless, my first ever visit to Maine to visit my good friend Jim proved to be very memorable.  It wasn't much of a season, but it was one that I'll never forget.  Now I want more!  I will be back.  And, in addition, next time I hope to meet up with some of my other Maine Iceshanty friends.

I can’t wait to get back up there again on the ice or open water.  I purchased a yearly Maine license, so more than likely it will happen.  I owe a huge thank you to Jim Cumming for being such a gracious host, fantastic guide, and most of all a great friend.  Also, a big thanks go out to Geoff Cerrelli for helping me out with some last second bait.  It was great to meet up and talk with him again, and we will hit the softwater together before long.  Perhaps that adventure will result in a future blog post!

On the Hardwater - Jigging Spoons and Blade Baits

A basic staple of cold water fishing is to toss chunks of metal into deep water where flash, vibration and flutter draw a reaction strike from some sort of predatory fish.  Many years ago, a resourceful angler, Julio T. Buel invented a fishing lure called a spoon, somewhere around 1821 and finally became the first to commercially manufacture them in 1848 (see footnote 1).  It's believed that he fashioned his first spoon lure from an ordinary tea spoon, possibly by severing the handle and attached a hook to it.  Spoons have been catching predatory fish even since, especially through the ice.  For the most part in ice fishing, we use two types of spoons, slab style spoons that wobble and flutter, or blade baits that vibrate in a similar manner to a lipless crankbait.  Both are affective through the ice.

Of course, spoons come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and styles.  I'm going to touch on some of my favorites simply because I can show you physical examples of them.  By all means, there are many brands out there that are equally effective.  Of course, the spoons that will work for you depend on the species that you target.  In this post, I'm going to cover spoons that work on lunker panfish as well as larger predatory species like bass, walleye, pickerel and pike.  I'll also cover some tactics and tips that work with these lures.

Ken Askins, a.k.a Bean on  Iceshanty , sports a nice walleye that was fooled on a Northland Buck-shot Rattle Spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Jigging Spoons
The most popular spoons used through the ice are collectively known as jigging spoons, and as the name suggests, are designed for vertical jigging.  Jigging spoons are equally effective  when fished in open water by fishing vertically or cast and jigged on the retrieve.  In this post, the focus will be on techniques used with these lures that are effective though the ice.

Larger spoons like these will take big fish through the ice.  From left, two Luhr Jensen Crippled Herring, Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon, Hopkins Spoon, Hopkins Shorty, Hopkins Smoothie, and a Bass Pro Shops XPS jigging spoon.  Use these to bounce from hole to hole and cover water.  Big spoons catch big fish.

The results speak for themselves, just look at this fat walleye caught by my good friend Mark Sirko of Pennsylvania that fell for a large jigging spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Mark displays a pike that fell for a large jigging spoon.  Catching pike while jigging spoons through the ice is a real thrill.  Nice fish Mark!  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

The spoons pictured above are similar in design to the original one invented by Mr. Buel in 1848.  They are, in simplest design, a slab of metal with a treble hook on one end, and a line tie on the other, then painted or finished in such a way as to attract strikes when jigged.  Some are concave, others are thin, others thick, and each type will have a different action.  They come in many shapes that also affect the action.  It's up to you to determine which shape or style will work for you.

These smaller jigging spoons are popular with ice anglers as they catch both panfish and predators.  When searching for big crappie, jumbo yellow perch, and plate sized bluegills, try one of these.  Top row from left, Northland Eye-Dropper Spoon, Lindy Techni-Glo Rattl'n Flyer, two Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoons (showing rattling chamber), Northland Forage Minnow, Hali Sukkula Jigs (showing different chain droppers).  Bottom row, Bay de Noc Swedish Pimples, Acme Kastmaster, and Bass N Bait Rattle Snakie spoon.

Mike Bushey, a.k.a. adkRoy on Iceshanty from New York poses with some fat jumbo perch that took a Hali Sukkula Jig.  These jigs are hot for panfish and predators alike.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Jigging spoons work well because they give off vibrations, flash, and some sort of fluttering action on the fall, to provoke a reaction strikes from aggressive fish.  However, tipping them with bait will also draw strikes from fish already on the feed.  Some jigging spoons sport internal chambers that contain shot or beads that rattle, adding to the attraction that may provoke strikes.  Others are painted in bright colors or even extremely realistic fish imitating patterns.


My buddy Ken posing with a huge crappie that nailed a Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon.  That is one slab crappie!  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Blade Baits
These spoon type lures are designed for a horizontal presentation fished vertically, with the line tie on one side, and two or more hooks on the other.  Most of the time, the line tie is merely a snap inserted through a hole in the blade (spoon).  Some models have multiple holes that provide different action on the lure depending on which one you choose to use.

When you jig these lures up off the bottom, you'll feel the lure vibrate rapidly on the pull.  On the drop, these lures flutter or spiral down.  When sitting motionless, they resemble a fish or a minnow.

Blade baits are great for targeting big predatory fish through the ice, but also work well on jumbo panfish.  From top to bottom, left column, Silver Buddy, Luhr Jensen Rattlin' Ripple Tail; middle column, Heddon Sonars; right column, Reef Runner Cicadas, Bass Pro Shops XPS Lazer Eye.

Fishing Spoons and Blades
When on the ice, I carry a couple rods that are slightly beefier than my panfish rods to jig small spoons and blade baits.  I use four to six pound fluorocarbon line with a small snap tied to the end, or a No-knot Fast Snap, so that I can change spoons easily until I find one that the fish will hit when targeting panfish.  For bigger spoons, my set ups are on eight to twelve pound line depending on the lake, species that I'm targeting, and the weight of the spoon.  Typically, I'll have one that has a rattle rigged on one rod, and a totally different style rigged on the other rod, like a blade bait.  This way I can try different presentations until I can get some sort of response from fish, perhaps bites or reactions that I can see on my camera or sonar.

When fishing jigging spoons or blade baits, most anglers prefer graphite rods with some backbone so that they can easily feel the strikes, and also work these larger lures a good responsive action.  If the rod is too "whippy", the lure action, especially in deeper water, isn't responsive enough.  In other words, your rod tip may be moving and working much harder without the result you're expecting thirty feet under water.  If you want your spoon to travel a foot on your jig, you won't want to have to work your arms and shoulders three feet to get that result.  More importantly, when a fish hits, you want to have a good hook set and a whippy rod won't effectively do that.

Here's a jigging rod set up with a Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon that allowed Ken to ice this fine walleye.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Another thing that ice anglers do to draw strikes from inactive fish is to tip their lures, or sweeten them, with some sort of bait.  You can use waxworms, spikes (maggots), minnows, and where legal, fish eyes, minnow heads or belly meat.  In addition to tipping them with bait, you can also use Berkley Gulp Minnows or Minnow Heads. 

This jigging rod is rigged with a Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon tipped with a Berkley Gulp Minnow Head.

There are a couple ways to work a jigging spoon or a blade bait.  You can fish them aggressively or finesse them.

The Aggressive Presentation:
Drop the spoon until it hits the bottom, then reel up the slack until the line is tight.  Then, raise the rod tip to the eleven o'clock position quickly to draw the spoon off the bottom, then lower the rod tip slowly and let the spoon fall.  It's important to drop your rod tip at the same rate that your spoon falls to keep the line tight.  Watch the line closely because if it goes slack or twitches, set the hook.  Fish often hit these lures on the fall.  Sometimes, if fish are on the bottom, they'll hit as your lure reaches the bottom.  You may not see these hits, but you'll have a fish on when you raise your rod for the next jig.  By raising the rod, sometimes you actually set the hook on a biting fish. 

When you find the school and the fish are aggressive, spoons are good choices because, after catching a fish, you can get them back down quickly to target your next one.  When the schools move often, it's important to get that lure back down there before the school moves off.

Try first without tipping the lure with bait.  This gives the spoon it's best action which will draw reaction strikes from big panfish and predators alike.  Sometimes the strikes are quite violent!  When doing this, you can hit a bunch of holes and not really need your sonar or camera, assuming that you know the depth that the fish are holding.

If the fish aren't hitting the technique above, after a few jigging patterns, let the jig sit on the bottom of your jig for a second, maybe shake it a little bit.  Try different things until they strike.

When the fish are agressive, they'll hit a jigging spoon without bait.  Presumably, when finding your ice fishing spot, you've cut some holes and checked them with your sonar until you've located fish.  Then, you've opened up the area by cutting a series of holes, not just one.  Bouncing from hole to hole with a jigging spoon is a good way to get some quick bites on big fish and pick off the more active predators.  I've caught some of my biggest slab crappie this way along with walleyes, bass, chain pickerel and every now and then a pike.

I spend a lot of time jigging smaller baits and plastics for panfish, and sitting at one hole for any length of time tires out the old caboose and causes my feet to fall asleep.  So, every now and then I'll get up to stretch my legs and walk around.  You can either do this and not fish by visiting your fishing buddies on the ice to see how they're doing, or you can carry a jigging spoon rod with you on the way and hit a few holes.  You have to keep your lure in the water to catch fish.  So that's what I like to do when I need that type of break, to bounce around and hit some holes with my jigging rod, maybe catch a couple fish, and then visit my buds to see how they're doing.

Finesse Spoon Presentations
If your aggressive approach doesn't provoke strikes but you know that the fish are there, then it's time to try a more finesse spooning approach.  First, try adding a bunch of spikes or a minnow head to a treble hook and slow down your jigging.  Try shorter hops with an occasional larger jigging movement, then let the lure sit, maybe shake it a little.  Try different things to get them to hit.  This is when the camera or sonar comes in handy where you can see how the fish react and then adjust.

Mike teased his favorite fish, the rock bass, into hitting his Swedish Pimple.  Jigging spoons catch just about any willing fish through the ice.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Even smelt will hammer jigging spoons!  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

If you notice that fish are attracted to all of the jigging commotion but just won't bite, try changing the type of spoon, or color, or size, to see if that might draw a strike.

Sometimes aggressive jigging actually scares fish away.  You can see that on your camera or sonar.  When that happens, try a much more subtle jigging action.  If you've tipped your lure with bait, try jigging them as you would an ice jig with maggots.  On lakes that have larger panfish, jigging spoons worked this way might be worth starting out with, especially with perch and crappie when they're schooled up and moving around.  Often these larger baits will ice the biggest panfish in the school first, or at least the most aggressive ones.

Mike shows off a perch that he nailed on a Hali Sukkula Jig tipped with bait.  Perch just love these things and you can jig them aggressively or fish them like you would smaller ice jigs for finicky biters.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Also, spoons are great for drawing the school in because of their visibility.  If the school moves off, jig your spoon aggressively to draw them back.  The flash, vibration and action in clear water under the ice often will attract schools of fish that are aggressively feeding.  If you don't attract the school in a reasonable amount of time, then maybe it's time to bounce around from hole to hole until you find them again.  Bring the sonar with you and your jigging spoon rod, check the hole for the school and if it's there, you can get that lure down quickly to hook up.

Mark shows that jigging spoons will catch a wide variety of fish through the ice.  He landed a jumbo yellow perch and a nice hybrid striper using a jigging spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

I can't tell you how important sonar is in this type of fishing too.  They aren't called "fish finders" for nothing, they will locate the schools for you.  Not only will they locate what hole to fish, but also they tell you the depth to lower your spoon to especially if the fish are suspended.


Mark shows that using jigging spoons will ice big fish like this fat walleye.  If you currently don't include jigging spoons in your ice fishing strategy, you may be missing out on your chance to ice some of the biggest fish in your lake.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

If you don't have jigging spoons in your ice fishing arsenal, then you may be missing out on some terrific ice fishing action.  These lures can ice fish quickly when the fish are aggressive, even fish that seem finicky when fishing smaller jigging presentations.  In other words, sometimes bigger is better.  Try them!

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Ken Askins (Bean on http://www.iceshanty.com/) and Mike Bushey (adkRoy on http://www.iceshanty.com/) for their contribution to this blog post.  Both of them have also contributed some great info on Iceshanty, helping to make it the premier ice fishing web forum on the internet.

Footnotes
1.  Old Fishing Lures and Tackle:  Identification and Value Guide by Carl F. Luckey and Russell E. Lewis