Ice Fishing not so good?

From reading the forums and in particular the fishing forum here, it seems ice fishing and catching fish is a bit harder than it has been for the last few years.

Ice fishing in general, from my experience, seems to get worse the later in the season it gets. I’ve had years when ice fishing was good for the whole winter but I’ve had lots more years where it started off great and then tapered off into nothing. Lol, ice fishing has a lot in common with open water fishing in that respect.

Spring when the ice goes out is always good and then fishing seems to taper off after that til it picks up again in the fall.

Just like open water, lots of things can affect ice fishing. Cold fronts, warm fronts, wind etc. However one of the most mentioned things is how much snow is on the ice. Many think the snow on top of the ice causes the fish to quit biting.

While that may be true in some cases I think the snow stops photosynthesis becuse the sun can’t get through strong enough to cause the organisms to keep breeding and the little photoplankton and other microscopic organisms die to soon or don’t happen at all.

Fish feed on these organisms. Particularly baitfish and minnows. When the baitfish and minnows have to move to another area the fish that prey on them have to follow. I suspect that ice fishing isn’t as good because the fish have moved to more comfortable areas for them.

Like humans, fish want the same things, a place to be safe, a place to find food easily and a environment where they can be comfortable. These are known spots on most lakes. When things get bad fish move to different sports where people aren’t used to finding them.

when you aren’t fishing where the fish are you can’t expect to catch many fish, either ice fishing or open water fishing. Just because fish are swimming by or you ae marking fish doesn’t mean they are feeding. Many times I’ve had the hole full of marked fish and couldn’t catch a one.

When this happens the general rule is to go with smaller bait and a slower jigging action. When that doesn’t work go with even smaller bait and lighter line. If you do catch a fish cut them open and check stomach contents to see what they are really feeding on. You might be surprised to find them full of small aquatic bugs that you can hardly see. Lol, hard to match that with anything artificial.

My best suggestion would be mud. If you can find some mud to fish over you may catch some fish. There are bugs and aquatic worms and such that live in the mud and the fish will and do feed on them. Perch in particular. Guess what, the walleyes and northerns will be there too, feeding on the perch. At least a lot of the time.

To much snow on the ice limits how much people can get around so it may be very hard to find the fish. My suggestion would be to fish spots that are fairly deep and over or close to a mud bottom. In particular the edges of the mud bottom might be best.

Ice fishing is fun when you can catch some fish but ice fishing isn’t fun at all when you can’t even get a bite. Then it’s just cold and miserable. When the fish quit biting find a different place to ice fish. You may be surprised to find the fish are still biting but they aren’t where you thought they were. That’s how it is ice fishing.