Author Topic: Finding Fish  (Read 1447 times)

Offline DaWakoKid

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Finding Fish
« on: Jan 16, 2017, 11:47 AM »
I'm relatively new to ice fishing. Have been out a handful of times over the past few seasons and have had varying results. My first trip produced one fish through the ice. However, on that same trip, my buddies and I fished a cove with open water making casts with our ice poles and ended up catching close to 100 fish over about an hour. Other trips have been far less successful.

Anyway, my question for all your experienced guys is this: how do I find fish through the ice? I know the lake like the back of my hand. From spring through fall, I can locate fish in a heartbeat. Bass, bluegills, crappie. The ice has been a challenge, though. What areas should I target? Our lake is about 10 acres, has a deep trench (over 30 fow), weeds in water between 8 and 15 feet, sandbars, a couple fallen trees, and a cove that is about 10-12 feet deep. I've drilled holes all over the lake, but can't seem to key in on any decent schools of fish.

Offline tbirdbassr

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #1 on: Jan 16, 2017, 01:48 PM »
Concentrate on the weed edges. A flask will help you find the edges. Some days the will be on inside sometimes on outside. Just depends on the pressure. Sometimes they bury themselves in the weeds so deep you can't get to them.

Offline ElectricSlide19

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #2 on: Jan 16, 2017, 08:07 PM »
My first question is, do you have a flasher? If you don't, that makes it a lot harder to find fish. Being mid winter, crappies will more than likely be in the deepest water in the lake, and they will suspend. Really easy to find them when they are like this. Gills will either stay along the weed edges, or also head to deeper water, which ever is providing more oxygen. That being said, I would heavily target the trench, the sandbar (different bottom content so you never know), and the weed edges for gills. Also, it sounds like this is a private lake, have you tried fishing it at night? That might help for the crappies especially

Offline hnd

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #3 on: Jan 17, 2017, 10:17 AM »
if you don't have a flasher this task is much harder.  doable but will take loooooots of time.

Offline PoleJerker

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #4 on: Jan 17, 2017, 06:15 PM »
Since you know the lake buy a flasher, easiest way to find them.
Good luck

Offline hnd

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #5 on: Jan 18, 2017, 10:36 AM »
a short story.  we were planning on going ice fishing.  i called a buddy and he was like "we are out here but nobody is catching ANYTHING"...  so i go out to this smallish body of water (public but kind of a backwater pond spot off the mississippi thats a good walk).  he and 4 other guys are spread out pretty good with no electronics bobber fishing for the most part.   my buddy and i drill holes around them and start fishing.  we are immediately catching fish.  the guys are all like what the heck.   well i grab my flasher and stick it down a buddies hole.   there are fish all around his jig.  i tell him to jig it a little.  he does...then to raise it up a bit, he does, they follow, up just one more time and then they smacked it.   i went around to his other buddies and showed them the same thing.     they had been surrounded by interested fish for hours but were not enticing them properly to eat. 

you might be sitting on a ton of fish just stairing.  the electronics allows you to fish them different and can make all the difference in the world.   

Offline DaWakoKid

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #6 on: Jan 18, 2017, 02:27 PM »
Thanks for the advice, guys.

Offline PoleJerker

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Re: Finding Fish
« Reply #7 on: Jan 19, 2017, 01:26 PM »
Thanks for the advice, guys.
 
Your welcome son :roflmao:

 



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