November ice fishing

When guiding early season ice fishing trips, I always like to get out and check conditions, and then when we get a call or someone asks me about ice fishing I can provide them with an up to date report. We recently returned from a trip out of state, however, and Monday and Tuesday of this week I attended the Mat-Su Salmon Habitat Partnership’s Salmon Symposium in Palmer, so I have not been out on a Mat-Su Lake yet this fall. All of my information is therefore a bit second hand at this point.

I talked with a couple people today about ice fishing, however, and did a search on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website. If I were to go ice fishing this week, I would go to a lake stocked by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game close to where I live, I would check the ice for thickness before venturing very far from shore, and I would plan on catching fish.

Early season ice fishing can provide some of the better fish catching action of the season, and often times temperatures can be a bit warmer as well. When Ice fishing I often fish mostly in depths of 8 — 15 feet, and if I do not catch fish in 15- 20 minutes I usually move on and drill additional holes and fish additional areas until I find fish or am ready to call it a day. Although I have fished additional lakes on one trip, most of the time I only fish one lake on a typical day of fishing.

When fishing a new lake (after confirming good ice conditions) I may drill a dozen or more lakes in different locations around the lake before I even start fishing. It is helpful to have a topographical map of the lake to get an idea of where to drill holes. When drilling holes I often drop a line down with a sinker attached to check the water depth before moving on to drill the nest prospect. If water is shallower than 8 feet —- my next hole may simply be out a bit deeper in the lake. On the other hand if my first hole is deeper than 15 feet, my next hole may simply be drilled a bit closer to shore. Although I like to focus in the 8 — 15 foot depth, early in the season I sometimes have found good concentrations of fish in considerably deeper water depths. As the season progresses (in particular on the smaller lakes) it often gets more difficult to find good numbers of fish in the deeper portions of the lake. On a large lake, like Big Lake, one of my friends has consistently caught fish in much deeper water throughout the winter.

While I’ve often had my best luck with artificial lures early in the ice fishing season, I usually fish with bait. Bait does not have to be very complicated — and I most often fish with two or three Balls O’ Fire salmon eggs on a single hook about a foot above the lake bottom. When I feel a fish bump the bait, I like to let it munch on the bait at least two or three time to make sure the fish has the bait well in its mouth before I set the hook. IF the fish grabs the bait and starts moving off I set the hook right away rather than waiting for extra munches. There is a fine line between making sure the fish has the bait in its mouth / but not waiting so long that the fish swallows the bait. The goal is to hook the fish in the front part of the mouth, corner of the mouth, or lip, as it will be much easier to unhook regardless of if it is harvested or released. One final strategy I use to keep fish from swallowing the bait is to use a bit larger hook than many ice anglers use when fishing bait. My typical hook is a fine-wired size #2 hook. I also like this larger size hook, because it has more holding power when I hook into a larger--sized fish.

Since trout and small salmon often bite rather lightly I like a light-weight and sensitive ice fishing rod that allows me to detect more of those light bites. Since ice fishing rods are short, I recommend a long swinging hook set, to fully sink the hook, after that second or third bait munch or when the fish starts swimming off with the bait.

When fighting a fish that is pulling away under the ice sheet, I am always attempting to direct the fish’s head back through the center of my icehole —Before pulling the fish up through the ice. If the fish’s head is directed into the hole before pulling the fish up through the hole, the hook very rarely catches on the bottom edge of the ice. This is important, because if the hook should catch on the bottom edge of the ice, it can become lodged, at which point the fish will most likely twist free and be lost.

After catching a fish, I like to leave it in the water for hook removal, if it is to be released. If the fish is to be harvested, I slide it out of the hole and onto the ice before hook removal. Whether the fish is kept or released, I like to remove the hook, rebait quickly, and start fishing again as soon as possible.

Good luck and Fish on!