Staying Mobile

When fishing on the ice, we need to keep in mind the ways that we fish on the open waters as well. Meaning, we don't sit on one spot in the boat, we are always moving around in search mode, looking for the fish.

Ice fishing should be taken the same way, if you aren't catching in one area, pick up and move to another, or, grab the auger and punch holes and keeping moving until those next fish are found.

Yesterday was one of those days that you better drill a number of holes as the fish, weather and time of the day, were playing havoc on the catching that we wanted to be happening.

Found the first location off of a point in 13 FOW and on the first drop, a nice 12 inch crappie came up. Fished the area for a while longer and besides a few small perch, the crappies were no wheres to be found.

This pond has a basin that is 16 feet deep and didn't take long for finding the fish here. There was a good mixture of crappie from 6 inches up to 12.5 inches. Morning these fish were fairly active and working a set of holes, moving from one to the other and back again, would keep producing the fish.

But, later morning early afternoon the weather was changing, clouds were rolling in, winds were picking up and the temperatures were dropping. When these factors start playing into the day, bait changes and drilling new holes becomes a game plan.

The Clam Outdoors Dropkick jig with a Maki plastic was the set combination. But started the day with a red plastic, that was trimmed down as the morning went on. Going to a black straight tail and then finally a small white mino tail was all they were interested in.

Along with the plastics being changed, it was getting that you had to drill a hole for catching a fish. That first drop down a hole started paying big dividends as there were very few, 2 fish, being caught from a hole.

Staying mobile, drilling a hole to catching a fish, altering your plastic bait, color and size of the bait, and, having the jig hang horizontally was key for keeping the fish in a biting mode.