PRESSURE TACTICS
Too many ice anglers on your favourite lake? You can still quickly find and catch more fish than the rest of the crowd. Here’s how
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To target giant lakers, search prime locations until you find some actionTACTIC #1: POWER PATTERN
Fishing is always about developing an effective pattern as quickly as you can to match the daily conditions. During the summer, you would never hit a spot and sit all day casting or dangling just one presentation, so don’t do it in the winter. When I’m targeting gargantuan pike, king-sized lake trout and bunched up whitefish through the ice, for example, I’ll hit as many as 10 or more strategic-looking locations to find fish.
And here I’m not simply running-and-gunning for the sake of being mobile. Instead, I’m trying to solve the daily puzzle as fast as I can, looking for the best structure, critical depth and ideal presentation for catching fish, which I can then duplicate and refine as I move throughout the lake.
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When chasing lake trout, for example, I’ll in turn hit a main lake shoal, an underwater point, a rock saddle between two islands and a drop-off that plunges straight down, giving each spot 45 minutes at the most if I don’t get a bite, see a big chaser or land a nice fish. One trout through the hole is a start, but it’s not a pattern. Two suggests you may be onto something and three gets you pumping out your chest.