by Bob Jensen
People who don’t go ice fishing very often might question the affect that weather has on catching fish through the ice. But most ice anglers agree that weather can have a significant impact on ice fishing success. They know that there are some types of weather that make fish under the ice want to bite, and there are some types of weather that spoils their appetites. If an angler can be a bit flexible and go fishing when weather conditions are better for ice fishing, they can significantly up their odds for ice fishing success.
The question about weather makes sense. In the summer, some of the best fishing occurs on cloudy days. The cloud cover reduces light penetration, and that’s often good for fishing. Not always, but often.
In the winter, the snow and ice reduces light penetration, so the thought is, maybe the fish will bite better more often.
A couple years back a friend called and said “the walleye bite is on.” He had been catching them consistently in recent days.
When I arrived, so did a significant change in the weather. The air temperature had dropped and the sky was clear. My friend explained that the “bite might be off a bit,” but you can’t catch’em if you don’t drop a line through the ice, so away we went.
We drilled a couple dozen holes over a large underwater island. We would fish a hole maybe five minutes, keeping a close eye on the sonar. If a fish didn’t show up, we moved. If a fish was seen on the sonar, but didn’t eat our bait, we moved.
We moved a lot that day.
The fish were under us. We could see them on the sonar. We tried smaller baits, bigger baits, different colors and different jigging actions. We tried everything we could to get bit, and every now and then we got a walleye to eat our bait. But we saw a lot more fish on the sonar than we caught.
We tried different areas, and saw fish in most areas. However, one area had quite a few more fish.
In the early afternoon, clouds started building and the wind picked up. The weather was changing. We moved back to the area where we had seen the most fish. We wanted to be on the best spot when this weather system arrived.
Not much later, as the weather front blew in, the walleyes went on the bite. Action picked up noticeably. It was another lesson that weather does affect fish under the ice. If you’re one of those folks who likes to fish through the ice, keep in mind that weather will change the bite, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. If you’re on the ice and notice a change in weather, keep your bait where the fish are. That’s the best way to get bit.
As in the summer when the lakes are open, weather will influence a fish’s willingness to bite when the lake is iced over in the winter. If you can, plan to go fishing when the weather forecast is for favorable fishing conditions. However, even when weather conditions aren’t so favorable, it’s better to go fishing when the opportunity presents itself, regardless of weather. If we only went fishing when the weather was favorable for fishing, we wouldn’t be going fishing as often we would like.
