When the allure of early ice has passed and the midwinter doldrums begin, some of us ask the question: Why fish now? We’ve hit that long transition period between early ice activity and the longer, warmer days of late ice when fresh oxygen and green weeds reignite the bite. You’ve got Christmas presents distracting you from the out-of-doors, so it’s just all-too-easy to sit around in the comfort of our homes futzing with a new cell phone or video game console when we should be walking the outdoors talk.
It’s a pretty tough time of year for fish – and just about any animal making a living for itself – in north country, too. After munching all the obvious forage through fall and winter, natural food sources are running very low. Cold water, snow over the ice, low amounts of daylight, and dead and decaying plants all contribute to a lack of oxygen.
If winterkill will happen on a given lake, the next several weeks likely are the timeframe when we’ll begin to see it. In fact, finding oxygen often can be the No. 1 driving force for fish locations this time of year. If fish are stressed from lack of oxygen, their top concern is to find areas that will have comfortable levels of this life-giving element. So let’s think like a fish.
In a lot of lakes, a fresh water source may provide the highest oxygen levels. Examples include springs, a creek flowing into lake, or smaller feeder creeks emptying into a large river. Anywhere open water meets the air will allow some oxygen to dissolve and carry higher levels than ice-covered areas. Of course, currents or other factors that cause open water also create dangerous ice conditions, so we’ve got to be incredibly careful when working such scenarios.
Brief warm-ups above freezing, like the one Minnesota enjoyed the first weekend in January, will cause some melting on south-facing shorelines, and the resulting runoff can inject some oxygen into the adjacent shallows.
Other obvious areas include any remaining green weeds. If light reaches plants under the ice, photosynthesis can still occur, and a byproduct of that process is oxygen. Unfortunately, the snow and slushy conditions early this winter – in Minnesota in particular – created a situation where little sunlight is penetrating below the hard water. During my fishing forays this winter, I’ve seen very little in the way of green vegetation.
Most gamefish are all pretty demanding when it concerns oxygen. Fish like carp or bullheads can tolerate low oxygen levels, and that fact makes them very difficult to eliminate from many waterways. We have prairie lakes where the DNR has lowered water levels, dumped poison to kill the carp, all coinciding with tough winters, and a few carp or bullheads somehow will survive. It doesn’t take many for their populations to bounce back within a couple of years.
A lake where I grew up was quite prone to winterkill; it had no inlets, and it was shallow and weedy. During late winter, the DNR would install aerators to open an area for oxygen to into the water from the air. (A little known fact: An improperly installed aerator actually can accelerate deoxygenation of a lake. Biologists call it “reverse aeration,” and actually will do this intentionally on some small ponds or wetlands where they’re trying to eliminate roughfish.) A lot of our best fishing for pike and panfish was near the aerator. Though usually marked off with “thin ice” signs, any ice near an aerator is extremely dangerous so steer a very wide berth from these devices. Find good ice nearby, however, and fishing should still benefit from the higher oxygen levels.
Another factor contributing to a tougher bite simply is the slower metabolism of the fish, given the cold water conditions. These are cold-blooded animals, and especially for species that thrive more in warmer water, they’re just not as active. Cold-loving species like pike, lake trout, and burbot are the exception, and they’ll remain vibrant an active under the ice in well-oxygenated water this time of year. As for walleyes, don’t worry, in a couple weeks, it will be picking up and fishing success will be turning around.
For those of you unwilling to wait for warmer temperatures and late ice opportunities, here’s my advice. You’ve got to get your bait in front of the fish, so locating them is job one. When we find them, we’re talking finesse presentations. Again, we’re not so much worried about food sources, because they’re just not willing to move much for food right now. They’re moving for oxygen. For example, maybe they’ll head for deeper water where pockets of underused residual oxygen still exist from post-turnover.
It won’t be long and the spawn will be on the mind of some species, pike in particular. These toothy predators start spawning when there’s still ice on many lakes, and logical set-up locations include shallow marshy bays and feeder creeks, which could opening up by end of February or even before the season closes in some years (in Minnesota). They’ll often move in and stage well before spawning. Bottom line, you’ll see some interesting feeding behaviors as they prepare for the spawn. Remember to catch and release those bigger fish. Anything heavier than 5 pounds likely is an egg-carrying female that we should release.
Here’s another no-brainer tip, but I’ll provide a more thorough explanation than you usually see: Avoid the crowds. No fishing suffers from “community holes” more than ice fishing – you know, guys in permanent shacks or just sticking it out in one spot with lots of other people. Even the best structure in such locations gets fished out after a whole winter.
The remaining fish on highly pressured areas are more wary because of the incessant noise, and also because of the pheromones caught fish have given off. Huh? It’s true. In high pressured areas, when fish are caught and released or even while fighting, they release chemical alert pheromones that tell fish in the area “danger.” That alone may put off the bite by alerting the rest of that school, but those chemicals also draw predators. A big pike catch scent of that and thinks “wounded fish, easy meal” and when he comes rolling into investigate, this also spooks the remaining fish. Convinced?
Many people ask me: “If I fish just one species mid ice, what should it be?” By late January, I’m most likely to be fishing crappies. Usually, once you find where they’re hanging out, they’ll be stacked up, and you’ll get good fishing. I start by looking for suspended crappies over deeper water in the main lake. By going to deep water areas, and punching holes and using my sonar, I can cover a lot of ice. Crappies move quite a bit, and they’re often suspended, which is why using our sonar and being mobile is so important. During day, crappies are not actively feeding as much. But even at the worst times of day when they’re really on the move, they won’t pass on an easy meal. Cover a lot of water, and it’ll pay off once you find them.
Inconsistent ice conditions aside, the winter of 2007-08 has shaped up pretty darn well when considering only “the bite.” Anglers across the Upper Midwest are catching big, healthy, hungry fish. Don’t call it a season simply because the dog days of winter have arrived.
Adam Johnson is an Aquatic Biologist, a Power Stick and you can find more of his tips on the iceteam website.By: Adam Johnson
