If your goal is to catch fish, nothing beats a plain hook w/ a small chunk of earthworm and some splitshot. If your goal is to buy a bunch of cool lures and jigs, well, the options are virtually limitless and it’s pretty hard to give suggestions based on your questions because honestly, it really really doesn’t matter as long as it’s small, slow, and attractive. What we find attractive in a jig/lure is NOT what a fish sees attractive in the same jig/lure. When you see a real nice looking bait that has 5 different colors on cool “aggressive” patterns, we see something shiny and go “ooooooh, that looks nice!” almost as if we were admiring a beautiful precious gemstone encased in gold and platinum with accompanying smaller gemstones spelling out the words “buy me”. When a fish sees that same lure what they see is the contrast of all of those colors in relation to not only the colors themselves but the clarity and color of the water they are in. All of those colors creat the contrast. Sometimes the colors are in a certain pattern to incite anger so you get a reactionary bite. The lure looks so alien to the fishes natural surroundings that it’s only defense mechanism is to eat the intruder. Some baits rely on shine and light reflection instead of bold patterns. That shine and reflection imitates the light bouncing off of a baitfish’s scales. Again, usually to entice a reactionary bite. Basically scare the fish into biting. Some baits put out a lot of vibration and sound, again, for that reactionary bite.
So, what am I getting at here? Ice fishing and reactionary bites aren’t usually part of the same world. Why? Because it’s cold man!!! During the winter and depending on species, a fish’s metabolism slows down to almost a complete halt and it can sustain that halt for months. There are fish in our local lakes that don’t eat all winter long only to continue to thrive in the warmer months. That’s also why first ice and last ice are usually the best times of the season to ice fish. The fish are packing on weight for the winter during first ice and then finally getting some food when terrestrial plants/insects get to enter the waterways when the ice is melting during last ice. Considering that the water is beginning to warm up, the fish’s metabolism increases, it begins to start its warm season and becomes much more active.
In the winter, for most panfish species, we tend to use very small baits. Personally, I’m a panfish guy to my core. I like to use 2.5mm-5mm tungsten jigs in all colors and color patterns (remember, the colors don’t matter, the contrast is what matters). I prefer Fiskas brand of tungsten jigs. Don’t spend more than $3 for a 5mm jig. Tungsten jigs work well for ALL species but are generally targeted towards panfish species. I also like to use 1/16-1/8oz VMC spoons tipped with 3-6 spikes (works well for crappie and perch). I pretty much exclusively use spikes (euro wiggled larvae) in natural and red color. Sometimes it’s a single spike on a 3mm tungsten jig and sometimes I’ll load 5-6 on a tiny spoon like a chandelier.
For pike, I use tip-ups. Get a HT Polar tip-up for $10-$15 bucks and lid the spool with 15-30lb tip-up line. Don’t use braided line for summer reels. Dedicated tip-up line is much thicker. When using tip-ups we are forced to hand-line the fish in. When a big fish goes for a run, thin line WILL CUT your hands because our hands is what controls the tip-ups “drag”. I like to use 15-30lb Mason tip-up line. To fill the spool will cost about $3-$7 dollars depending on how much line it can comfortably hold. Use a leader at least 9” long and attach a treble hook. Leader material and hook size is all personal preference. For me, I like a 9” black steel-on leader with a size 2 treble hook. Bait options can be plentiful. If your localities allow it, you can catch your own bait. I prefer to use 4”-6” golden shiners. I would use this same exact setup for bass also.
We can also use tip-ups for panfish such as perch and crappie. For panfish, you could use regular monofilament or fluorocarbon line since the species being targeted are more than manageable by hand. I’d probably go with 4lb mono with a 2’-4’ fluorocarbon leader. Of course, we need to downsize or hooks. We can still use a treble but a single hook works also. I’d downsize from the size 2 I use for pike/bass and go for a size 8-12 and maybe even smaller depending on the situation. For bait, I’d use emerald shiners, or any other legal minnow in the 1.5”-2.5” range. You could also just tip the hook with a pile of waxworms or spikes or earthworm or any other small worm type critter.
If you’re a walleye guy, I can’t help much there but from I’ve seen, you treat them pretty much like pike and bass but walleye will tend to go for more active offerings. I’ve seen guys put a 3”-4” swim bait on a 1/4oz ballhead lead jig and bounce it off the bottom and use generous jogging strokes to call them in then slow right down when they see the bait.
If your a lake trout guy, again, not much help from me but I’ve seen guys essentially use the aforementioned swimbait rig. Most being a white swim bait in the 3”-4” range.
This was all to tell you that color really doesn’t matter. We are ice fishing. Meaning, there is usually at least 1’ of snow covered ice on any frozen lake at any given time. Most of the winter season is grey and overcast. This means that not a lot of light is getting through the water to begin with and that means with diminishing light as we go deeper, the fish won’t really see your bait all to well to begin with. So that ultra bold and neon colored jig you just $6 bucks won’t look like that when it’s 20’ under a frozen lake. This is where UV colors can really be handy though. UV light penetrates water the deepest. That’s why oceans are blue because at those depths, blue (ultraviolet) is the only color in the spectrum that hasn’t been filtered out yet. That’s why reef aquariums need actinic lights so the corals receive the proper uv spectrum since most coral species live within the UV zone in the ocean. For ice fishing, using a jig with a UV finish can make the jig more visible to the fish in an already low light environment. Having said that, people have been c going fish for thousands of years without any fancy jigs/lures. Which leads me to my final point......
NONE of your gear matters if you aren’t on top of the fish. With ice fishing, being 2’ to far to the left can be the difference in catching your limit or getting skunked. Why? That pesky metabolism I mentioned earlier. Most fish during the winter will not exert any more energy than they have to to eat. Even as little as a couple feet to the left. Lake bottom contour and composition/weed lines also plays a major role in that too along with predator population.
I don’t know what your budget is like but if yuo can spare a couple hundred bucks, get a sonar unit made for ice fishing. Sonar DOES NOT increase catch rate but it will inform you if you should even waste your time fishing a certain hole and when you know if there is fish under you or not, it really does make for a much better learning experience because it takes out the factor of “am I doing something wrong or are there just no fish?”. Get a used one of you have to. There are lots of good machines on the used market.
Again, if your goal is to catch fish, nothing beats a plain hook w/earthworm and some splitshot. Ice fishing can be as personal or as broad as you want it to be and at the end of they day, the fish usually don’t care what it is as long as it can fit in their mouth and they don’t have to try very hard to do it. Use what you want to use, keep what works and get rid of what doesn’t. Nobody can tell you what to use to catch anything on any given day. Go to the store and buy some things that you think a fish would eat. I like the more natural colors. Offering size and presentation are far more important than color in experience. Again, that depends all on the individual body of water you're on, weather, barometric pressure, cloud coverage, etc,.
TL;DR.........My signature pretty much sums up 95% of any fishing situation you’ll ever encounter regarding bait selection.
