Catch More Fish at Early Ice

Early-ice fishing presents one of the truly grand opportunities of the year.

For one thing, fish have not been bothered much in the recent past by boating or fishing pressure. Few boats venture out in the gray of late fall on most waters. And as ice conditions begin to become walkable, many anglers are reluctant to be first to shuffle across the groaning, cracking surface.

Not Dave Genz. He straps on a life jacket, grabs the chisel, and checks the ice as he walks, knowing that early ice is really a continuation of late fall, a time when fish are looking to feed throughout the shrinking daylight hours, and he knows that if he can approach quietly and avoid spooking them the fish are in the mood to play.

“That’s the game at first ice,” says Genz, “The fish are out there cruising around, and they want to eat. But you can’t spook ‘em.”

He’s said it before, but it bears repeating: the sun hangs low in the sky from daybreak to sunset, and the morning bite extends into the evening bite. It’s all prime time, assuming you can get on the fish.
Stealth is a huge factor at early ice, because thin, clear ice tends to magnify movements and noises. Careless walking, scraping and cutting will send fish scattering before you can put a bait down there.
But if you are quiet and offer them something that looks right, the fishing can be fast.

Understanding Early Ice
Much more than most anglers realize, early ice is simply a continuation of late fall. Rather than being a harsh end to the open-water season and an abrupt curtain-rising on a completely different world, the fish hardly skip a beat as their ceiling freezes over.
In fact, if you chart autumn weather trends, you will be far more likely to look in the right places at early ice.
“So much depends on what the weather was like during the fall,” says Genz. “If the winds are calm and we have lots of sunshine in late fall, before freezeup, that can start the weeds growing in the shallow water again. The weeds might die and lay down when the first cold fall weather comes, then here comes this nice weather and they start growing again. Bug hatches can occur in the shallows if the weather is warm, too, and that can make fish stay shallower.”
If there is life in the shallows right before freezeup, that life will still be there after the ice gets thick enough to fish through. “It’s a chain reaction,” says Genz. “If the bluegills are in there, that brings in the walleyes, pike and bass.”
By no means is he suggesting that every fish in the lake will be shallow, even under the mildest of late fall and early ice conditions. “But there can be a lot of fish shallow,” says Genz, “and they can stay shallow well into the winter, if the weeds are healthy and there’s food in there.”
So now you see the dilemma of the early ice angler: do you look shallow, or deep?
The quick answer: pay close attention to late fall weather. If you don’t know (especially if you travel to fish early ice), then look shallow first, carefully checking the condition of any shallow weeds. If they look healthy, suspect shallow fish.
“But if we have one of those nasty falls,” says Dave, “where it’s rainy, cloudy, snowy, windy, you’re more likely to find most of the fish deeper right away.”
Movements fish make in response to late fall weather patterns, it seems, are not long in distance, but simply to one general depth level or another. In other words, if they are not in the shallow, weedy bays, they might be just outside, even in the deeper weeds, or at the base of the first dropoff.
Here is a list of high-percentage early-ice locations for many fish species. Whether you find the fish shallow or deeper in these spots becomes the essence of the hunt.

Current areas
Wherever creeks run into the lakes, or you find necked-down narrows. Because lake levels are not typically ‘spring runoff’ high, the current is not roaring, but rather just moving along, breathing life into the system. Calling fish.
“This is a good walleye spot,” says Genz. “It’s the same spot you would wade and cast for walleyes right before the ice comes. You have to use caution, because you might have thin ice, or thin patches. But we’re not talking about fast current.”

Shallow and mid-depth bays
“Like the spring spots you fish in the boat,” says Genz. “Bays on the north end of the lake, spots with southern exposure, where the sun can warm the water during the day.”

Deep water close to shore
Anywhere deeper water “cuts close to the shoreline,” says Genz, gets his heart racing. “When I’m looking at a lake map, I look for spots like this on the north and west side of the lake. Because of the warming of the sun, again. Where an inside turn cuts into the shoreline. Fish the places where the deepest water is closest to the shore.”
Fish can sometimes be found in such places all winter, “but fish it shallower at early ice,” says Genz. “At midwinter, I might start in the deepest part. But early, I might start as shallow as a cattail bank, where the deep water runs close to it.”
So, again, the search goes shallower, generally speaking, at early ice. But not after a nasty spell of late fall weather has choked the life out of shallow water.

Deep holes in bowls
In relatively structureless ‘bowl’ type lakes, suspect that most fish settle into deeper holes by the time ice forms. ‘Deeper’ can be a relative term, because this type of lake might have little in the way of overall depth.
“Deep can be 10 or 12 feet a lot of times,” says Genz. “In those bowl-type lakes, a lot of fish set up in the middle of the lake and spend the winter there.”

Staying Safe
No matter where you fish at early ice, please use caution as you venture forth. Carry a sharp chisel, and stab the ice in front of you as you move. If you punch through with one jab, turn around and go back the way you came. Always wear a life jacket (it’s a good idea all winter).
It still amazes Dave Genz that water safety experts go on television every fall to urge duck hunters and fall fishermen to wear a life jacket, “and then as soon as the ice comes, they tell us to stay home,” he says.
Genz is not a thrill-seeker, but he doesn’t understand why the advice can’t be “to keep wearing your life jacket, check the ice with a chisel, and go fishing after the ice is safe enough to walk on.”
If more people knew how good first-ice fishing can be, says Dave, “there’d be a lot more chisel marks out there.”

Note: Dave Genz, known as Mr. Ice Fishing, was the primary driver of the modern ice fishing revolution.