Use Open water fishing to improve your icefishing

[Norman Schrader]

Now that the ice is leaving or gone on a lot of lakes, use your open water fishing time to get valuable info for next year's ice season.  If you have a boat with a good sonar, this is the best time to collect this data.  Here are some things I have found at this time of year.
 1.  Healthy green weedbeds just after iceout- if the weeds have been green all winter they have been producing oxygen and will tend to attract fish.  Chances are those weedbeds will be there next year too.
 2. Check out subtle shoreline changes for signs of larger under water structure.  I have found 2 cases within 1/2 mile from my house that looked like a small bend in the shoreline or a small pile of rocks that turned out to be huge underwater points.  Once the heavy weedgrowth starts you can't see the detail on these structures.  These points have become my "go to" spots when fishing gets tough and they always seem to produce.
  3. Check in front of creeks and points - I have found that the runoff from the snowmelt can often times deposit huge new debris into the lake, such as logs, chairs, tires. etc.  All these things can become fish holders.
  4.  Always get good landmarks or GPS readings so that you can get back to the exact spots when the ice comes back.
Hope to hear some more tips from everybody.
Thanks and good luck.
Norm

[bigredonice]

Your number 4 has allowed me to have some unbeleiveable catches of perch and crappies, with out anyone around me.  i usually mark small humps, stumps, or posts, or small weedbeds, as long as they are near deep water and hard to find.  you will almost always have those spots to yourself during hardwater.

[waterwolfed]

yea i agreee a gps is the way 2 go

[clysdale]

Just a quick question from the canadian, we here in saskatchewan have a large man made resovoir(dam) with walleye, northern pike and lots of carp, there is a good foot of ice all over it except for where the hot water return is, and it leads right into the lake, it comes from our power plant. now my question is where should I fish and would there be fish in the warm water? drop me a line.
                                     clysdale
p.s there is not a lot of structure in this lake.

[sleddragger]

I've fished a similar area in ashland Wiscosin, the warm water attracted baitfish in the winter which in turn attracted the trout, walleye, perch and northern, sounds like you need to safely check this out, by the way they called it the hotpond and not just because of water temp.

[asphalt_kid]

Excellent tips. Thanx