Figuring it Out... Some

Ice fishing isn't as cut an dry as cutting a whole on a lake and sitting on a bucket with a rod in your hand. At least not if you want to be good at ice fishing.

I do not own a flasher, I don't even own an auger. I'm learning to ice fish the old school way, fishing bodies of water that I already know like the back of my hand with very limited ice fishing gear. I've been catching a few bass and learning quite bit, but it's been kind of funny to fish tiny ponds, cut a dozen holes over a few days, and find that there seems to be nobody home in the pond!

What I'm finding out to be most important is structure and depth, which I expected, but the fish are very specific. I've discovered in the smallest pond that I've been fishing is that the only holes that are going to produce fish are one over or adjacent to beds of lilies that have just sprouted out of the mud and are waiting for the warming temperatures of spring to coax them up to the surface. Anywhere else... no fish. None.

The biggest pond I've been fishing has been the most challenging, which I expected. But I've been targeting big crappie there and I kind of expected them them to be pretty easy to find. If fished the basin, I've fished the edge of the dam, I've fished woody structure, I've fished rock bars. No crappie. Just this one healthy largemouth:

The water in the bigger pond is quite murky, so I think I'm going to try some different water for crappies soon. But tomorrow it's all about trout.