Negitive Fish

[eurolarva]

I have been out four times now in the last 10 days and trying to get a sunfish or a crappie to bite has been almost impossible. I have been fishing lakes I know real well and did well on both lakes late fall. I am marking fish and cant seem to find what it takes to get them to strike. I have euro, wax worm, minnows and have tried some plastics like atomic ant and shrimpo. I put the camera down and watched some nice crappie and sunfish and they look but have no interest. Is this high pressure or is this just fishing? I am going out tomorrow again and hope to put some food on the table. Just curious if this is what others are seeing or is it me?

[Vlasin]

I've been out twice within the last week on a West metro lake, same exact thing. I know the lake well, marking fish ALL day in multiple holes and throwing everything I have at them – waxy, ero, whole minnows, heads, tails, plastics, some micro size hooks, some larger, some glow, some not…just not hungry yet I guess. We’ve caught a couple here-n-there, but nothing like we should.

[solbes]

My ice fishing skillz leave a little to be desired, but I saw the same thing yesterday afternoon. Drilled 10-15 holes to find the fish. Zeroed in on them and could't buy a solid bite. They would rise up to the bait but would not bite.

We watched pike, sunnies, and perch all sniff the baits & lures and then back off. The action was a little better just after sunset, but we forgot lights so had to pack it up.

On the positive, this large north metro lake had 8-10 inches of ice already. Driving is not far off I guess.

[Lusid]

Question - were you guys playing with the size of the bait at all?

I've noticed if i downsize the bait down to something very small, they are more likely to hit it. When it's cold their metabolism drops and may not want a huge meal.

[Chad Holst]

This may be right on point, or it could be way off...but i would guess that you are not in the right spot.(Thank you Captain obvious)

Last year and this year are very different early ice years. We are out WAY earlier than normal, so the fish we are on, are not the same as last year when we finally got out.

Schooling fish, such as Crappies and Gills, tend to have feeding areas, and none feeding areas. These spots change, as we all know, as the elements in their habitat change. My guess is that you are fishing your normal water depths. I would try shallower...MUCH shallower in some situations. If you normally target fish in the 10-12 foot depths, i would move in to 4 feet and start there. As the water gets colder, the ice thicker,vegitation gets thinner, the pressure higher and the bait fish less active, then you will see the "feeding areas" start to get deeper. Again, this is not a quick fix to finding feeding fish on all lakes/rivers but it is a good start. Some times the spot we are on is a "feeding spot" but not at the time you are fishing. We see this alot in the middle of the season, when you mark fish all day and night, but they only bite for a certain period of time then "turn off". It has been my experience that there are always feeding fish, finding that spot is the challange we have to face.

Another hard thing for newer fisher people to learn is to move OFF fish, if they are not biting. People tend to stay on the fish, even if they are not biting, rather than leave them and find a group that is looking for a beautful lure to chomp on. I suppose they think they are "just doing something wrong" or using the wrong lure, or bait, or wearing the wrong hat, or they are waiting for them to "turn on"... Its hard for them to justify tearing down the shack and digging new holes when they THINK they have already found the fish, after all "they are RIGHT THERE!". I'd find new digs.

One last thing, these type of fish tend to "get triggered" by something, when they start biting. Have you ever been on a school of fish, and 1 bites..then all of a sudden they all start hitting? I suppose the competition instinct kicks in and it triggers them. or have you ever fished an area and had NO action...another fisherman walks by, kicks the ice off a hole you had just tried 30 minutes ago, drops down..BAM, gets 1 and then moves on...catching fish as he goes.?! Again, that 1 little lure i think surprises the fish and triggers a hit, only to go back to not eating.

In my opinion, early ice for pannies is all about being mobile. I dont mean early ice for US. Im talking about when the ice comes this early. Start shallow and move alot.

If it was all luck, there wouldnt be proffessional fishermen. Do something different, dont wait the the fish to change to what you're doing.

Tight Lines.

[solbes]

Great post sirlips, thanks!

We were fishing on coontail weed edge in 8.5 FOW. Tried as shallow as 6 and as deep as 12. Always have a lot of catching up to do with learning the ice fishing game.

[Chad Holst]

You are welcome.

Another thing to think about this year, compared to last year, on lakes...

The last 4 weeks have been VERY windy. I dont know the numbers, but i would have to guess this was one of the windiest Novembers in a long time. It takes time for those fish to move back to a routine that is more easy for us to pattern. or they could end up staying in the areas they got pushed into before the first freeze. Walleyes are VERY suseptible to being wind pushed. I'd be surprised if you dont see walleyes hanging out in all new areas on some of the big lakes this year.

A guy once asked me why i think some years are great on LOW, or ML or... and then the very next year they are terrible. I told him I think that what happens the 1-2-3 days before the ice caps the lake is what sets the lake for the year. On LOW i would be looking for 4-5 days of very calm weather, no rain, to wind, and then a deep freeze that locks it up. This is when LOW is AMAZING. if you get a huge rain/wind storm on the night that the lake locks up...i dont even go to LOW that year. (seriously)

A simple way to understand why this is... If you take 2 mason jars and fill them 1/10 full of sand/dirt. Top them off with tap water, cover them, and then shake both of them until they are a mess. Now set both down and remove the cap on one, and leave the cap on the other. Come back in 6 hours, or 1 day or 1 week and look at your 2 jars. the capped one will look terrible still, and the uncapped one will be clear and all the dirt has settled. This same thing happens on LOW and other large, dirt/mudd bottomed lakes. I have been to lake of the woods when the "cap" was so close to a rain/wind storm that if you drilled a hole in FEB you looked like you were pulling MUDD onto the white snow. And guess what..the fishing was just as bad. These fish moved to all new spots that the dirt probably wasn't so bad...where those spots are? thats the challange (we sure didnt find them) but typically it will be the non-wind blown side of the lake. OR the last side of the lake to freeze. (thats a whole new challange though, as the wind blow side is usually the last to lock up)

[Jdjulik]

I was out on Saturday and we(2 guys) probably caught 50-60 crappies on 4 hours. After the first 10 decent keepers we decided to only keep monsters and we still limited out. The funny thing is, there were guys less than 100 feet from us that were getting skunked. We used small spoons tipped with crappie nuggets.

[Chad Holst]

As someone earlier said, and also the last poster, down sizing can be very effective, but also over looked is going BIG for crappies durring a tough bite. It still amazes me some times when we are into big slabs just how large of a lure those crappies will hit. More times than not we will go bigger before we go smaller, when the bite is fickle and we are done searching for the biters. Aaron constantly is the first to pull out his PK walleye spoons, and he usually is the first to start getting into the monsters. plus when you are getting attacked by dinks it helps a bit to use something that the adolecent fish cant quite fit in there mouth. they will take runs at your spoon but you dont end up having to kull 10 fish off the hook for every big slab.

now if we are talking about walleyes, i am of a totally different school of thought. I have always been the walleye guy of our group and the biggest walleyes i have caught are on small/micro baits. I end up dealing with alot of pesky perch in some waters, but i would say 90% of my biggest Ice walleyes have came on the lures that are in the bottom 20% size for walleye lures i use. I think these horses feed on everything they can find, and most of that forage is small/micro sized foods. Sure we pull a fair amount out of the chill with large spoons when the bite is HOT, but the reality is the bites normally not smoking so the search starts with a medium to large attractant lure, then when we hit a hole bite i almost allways am fishing the smallest of the group.

The trick is to have extremely sharp hooks on whatever you are using and also a quick hook set. alot of guys miss fish on small/micro jigs/spoons, because they are waiting for an aggresive fish to hit the lure like a mac truck or for them to send 20 strikes to the tip before they set the hook. For me, they get one tap and the next movement i feel is getting an instant quick snap hook set. Finally, you cant let your rod tip down after the hook set on with small lures. Keep tention on the line and reel down fast to get your rod level again. I consistantly see good fishermen loose fish when they set and then imediately drop the rod down THEN reel in to tighten the line. SET...REEL..THEN lower the rod as you are continuing to reel.if your scared that you are going to "horse" the fish up and loose em, then lighten your drag. Its there for a reason.

[eurolarva]

Hard to be mobile today. Temps around zero and wind gusts over 20 mph. I tried doing some shallower fishing but not in the 4 to 6 ft range. I am not going to give up on this lake. It is too convienient and close to home. Thanks for all the posts just wish they would have been before i left this morning. There were a couple others out and they were skunked as well. I use an atomic mite which is small but today I could not locate many fish. Wish this wind would die down. One good thing is that people are getting discouraged about this lake so the pressure is way down