Ice-fishing Friday: 7 expert tactics for catching fish on busy, pressured lakes

TACTIC #2: READ THE FISH

There’s a huge difference between using your sonar in the winter and using it during summer. When you’re mobile in a boat, you can use 360-imaging, forward-facing sonar and side-scanning out to 80 or more feet. Even without those features, the fact you’re moving allows 2D-sonar and down-imaging to highlight suspended fish, bottom details and balls of bait. You can still do that on the ice, but you’re much more constricted by having only a few holes to peer through. Where sonar does shine during winter, however, is when it comes to interpreting the mood of the fish.

Early last January, for example, I located a pod of slab crappies milling around the edge of a drop-off in about 24 feet of water. I hovered a 1/30th-ounce jig tipped with a two-inch soft-plastic minnow a foot above their heads, but they acted like it wasn’t even there. So then I lowered the offering, shook it subtly in front of their noses and watched them circle, but still resist biting. With that, I quickly reeled in and changed to the smallest Williams Ice Jig (in Glow Pink) and dropped it down. Before the spoon had even cleared the bottom of the hole, I watched a trio of broad-shouldered crappies on my sonar rush up to intercept it. Having clearly determined their mood, I spent the rest of the day ripping lips, never once relying on the finesse presentations that were frustrating everyone else around me.