After a good cold snap to start 2025, we finally have pretty good ice conditions across the region for anglers that want to get out and do some fishing. While we still don’t have widespread ice roads on the go, they won’t be to far off. Warmer temperatures are on the way over the next week so it should be a fun time on the ice.
Before this recent cold snap, ice conditions were not great thanks to several days in a row of above freezing temperatures. Significant snowfall earlier in December insulated the ice and then a stretch of warm weather prevented the ice from really forming. That warm spell shrunk up the snow and fully melted it in some places, taking away that insulation on the ice. Over the past week ice conditions have improved greatly.
Of course, anytime you venture on the ice, you should always use caution wherever you are traveling. Some of the swampy, boggy areas that received a lot of snow early on are still soft, so caution should be taken in these areas. Areas with current could be frozen over right now, but the ice is never good in these places. Just be smart out there if you are venturing off on your own.
Now that lake trout season is open, anglers across Sunset Country have a bunch of options for fish to chase on the ice. I have been after walleye and perch on most of my outings so far. I had plans to get out for trout on the opener on January 1, but it was too cold for me. I have a shelter I can use, but I much prefer fishing outside, so if it’s up to me, I’ll just wait until a nicer day to get after it.
I did have one good crappie outing last week, which is always fun. Not the biggest or toughest fighting fish that we have, crappies are fun to catch because when you find them the action is usually pretty good and they are good to eat. The secret to easy crappie fishing is finding schools that aren’t getting a lot of pressure from other anglers.
Finding those untouched schools is harder in the winter because it’s tough to cover up your tracks or your old holes. The unfortunate part of this is that crappies are also the easiest fish we have to clean out of a lake. The problem is they group up in large numbers for the winter in specific locations, making them susceptible to anglers. My advice…if you find a good crappie hole, keep it to yourself.
When it comes to finding crappies in the winter, they often group up in the deeper holes or basins of the lakes or bays that they live in. This is usually between 20 and 40 feet of water. They seem to just get on large mud flats, where they pick off invertebrates that lift off the bottom, evident by examining the stomach contents of fish that we keep.
Even though they are most often found eating small bugs, they are opportunistic in that they’ll eat whatever they can fit in their mouth. I never use meat for crappies, instead giving them a one-two punch of a small jigging spoon tipped with a couple of plastic bug imitators and a small jig tipped with a soft plastic bug imitator. If the fish are active, they’ll bite the spoon, which is quick to drop down to them. If they are finicky, I’ll shake the little jig in their face. Find some crappies and this is usually all you need to catch a bunch.
Finding the fish is the most important element to crappie fishing. Electronics are as important in this search as they are for any fish that we chase. They are easy to spot on the screen because they are often in schools and they are usually suspended a few feet above the bottom. I will seldom drop my bait down the hole unless I’m actually seeing fish on my screen. Obviously, the live sonar that we have available now saves us a lot of the hole drilling that we had to do a few years ago because we can look over these flats and find the fish a lot quicker, then drill holes around them.
Crappie fishing on the ice is fun and they bite pretty good throughout the winter season. If you need some help with baits, the local fishing shops should be able to point you in the right direction for some line and a few baits that will work for you.
