Winter fishing.
It doesn’t exactly roll
off the tongue with the same flare as fishing
under a blanket of blue ski with temperatures
hovering near 75 degrees and birds chirping in
unison. But if you make your home in colder climates,
ice fishing is often a way of life.
The same is true for anglers
in warmer climates. There isn’t ice to
cut, but the elements can be just as unruly.
Still, cold-weather angling can be awfully productive – through
the ice or in open water -- if you understand
a bit of fish biology.
Fish are cold-blooded creatures.
When water temperatures begin to drop throughout
the fall, fish will put on the feedbag, eating
all they can. Eventually, however, their metabolisms
slow, and their desire to feed begins to wane.
“In colder water, everything
for fish slows down,” said Tom Jones, large
lake specialist for the Minnesota Department
of Natural Resources. “ They swim slower
and don’t need as much food because they’re
burning calories at a slower rate.”
Early in the ice-fishing season,
however, walleyes and crappies and other panfish
can provide a hot bite. Some biologists theorize
this is a genetic response to falling water temperatures
and/or shorter days.
“The bite is typically
best just after first-ice, because when you find
fish, they’re usually in large schools,” said
Jones. “It contradicts what you might expect
with water temperature alone, but when you have
300 fish in the area, you may find 10 percent
that are willing to feed. That makes it seem
like there’s a hot bite, when in actuality
most fish aren’t doing much.”
Added Jones: “A lot of
this is theory. But that’s one of the fun
things about fishing – testing theories
on different bodies of water with different presentations.”
Ice anglers are all about testing
theories – and the technological frontier.
While ice fishing is still
primarily a leisurely, sedentary pastime, more
and more anglers have turned kinetic. The days
of resting your rump on a five-gallon bucket
and wasting away a blustery winter day jigging
for walleyes and crappies is becoming rarer and
rarer.
Truth is, ice anglers are more
sophisticated and mobile, using fish locators,
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), underwater
cameras, high-speed ice augers and portable icehouses.
“Ice anglers nowadays
are every bit as savvy as open-water anglers,” said
Steve Wegrzyn, public relations manager for Lowrance
Electronics, which manufacturers fishing electronics,
including the new Ice Machine series for 2004.
Here’s my advice: If
you are a serious about catching fish through
the ice, get equipped. I own a portable Eskimo
ice shelter and one of their high-powered ice
augers, both of which manufactured by Ardisam
Inc. The ice shelter gives me the freedom to
move at will and the auger allows me to cut numerous
holes quickly. I also use a Lowrance portable
sonar/fish finder, a real time-saver.
All theories aside, ice-fishing
success begins and ends by locating fish. And
today’s ice-fishing products make that
goal a lot easier than years ago.
But what about angling in cold
water? Ted Takasaki, president of Lindy Legendary
Fishing Tackle and a professional walleye angler
for more than 20 years, says cold-water angling
in open water requires a few subtle tactic changes.
As water temperatures become
colder, fish become more lethargic. As a
result, Takasaki says, anglers must slow their presentations to fit the
behavior of the fish.
“If I’m using a
Lindy Rig for walleyes or sauger, I’ll
troll it very slowly and sometimes down-size
my live bait (red-tailed chubs or minnows),” he
said. “But I’ll also move my rod
tip from time to time to create a reaction strike.
It’s a very subtle movement, but sometimes
that’s all it takes to trigger a response.”
If that doesn’t work,
Takasaki said, he’ll switch to bigger chubs
or minnows or troll crankbaits that have lots
of movement. “You’ll still troll
slow, but choose a crankbait that has more action,” he
said. Takasaki says fishing in cold water can
be difficult because most fish “ inhabit” deeper
water. “They start to look for deeper structure,
therefore they’re more difficult to get
at,” he said. But it has a lot to do with
the body of water fished and forage that these
fish are feeding on. What I do is look for structure-orientated
spots, in about 20 to 30 feet of water or deeper,
with livebait or slow-trolling crankbaits.”
But some bodies of water may
present anglers both ice-fishing and open-water
opportunities all at once. Case in point: the
Great Lakes, specifically Lake Superior. It’s
not uncommon for some to be cutting holes through
shelf ice while boat anglers troll spoons nearby.
It’s a bizarre sight, but the Coho salmon,
Kamloops and lake trout fishing can be awfully
good.
But as one fisheries specialist
told me recently, fishing the Great Lakes in
winter – or anywhere else for that matter – can
be dangerous. “When the water is cold,
anglers need to exercise extreme caution,” he
said. “And when it comes to ice, there’s
really none that’s completely safe.”
Words by which to live,
wouldn’t you say?
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