Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ice Fishing for Big Bluegill

Took out a trip yesterday and those guys smoked the big bluegill. Over 135 between 8.25 and 10.25 inches. Here is a pic of two nice ones and also the video from the trip.
Grahams Big Bluegill Ice Fishing Video

Wow!

You'll have to excuse our southern brethren for not responding. They think we're crazy for going out on that ice!

Oh btw that one bluegill is technically a Palomino bluegill.

nice! Looks cold. My texas blood would freeze out there sitting still.

What'd I tell ya! He's saying in a nice way we are crazy to fish in the cold!

Thanks Cecil for getting all technical again Curious though, what are your thoughts about the bluegill on the right hand side of the pic? (my left hand)

For the Southerners:
I am completely and totally designed to handle the cold! 30 degrees is a heat wave, 20 degrees is a sweatshirt, and at 10 degrees I will put on a jacket.....

Well good color for this time of year probably because it's a very mature male. Something else you were wondering about? ???

In the pic it just looks quite a bit different than the other male?

Nice BG Nate. When is VS going to start a fishing show with the Herman Brothers? I'd rather watch you guys fish than Shaw Grigsby any day.

The "purplish" BG on the left (in your right hand) is colored like one of Condello's fast-growing, immature males.

Those are some nice gills Nate. We do some ice fishing, along wiht adult beverage consumption, on my ponds but have never put up those kind of numbers. I was wondering - by mid Feb. the fish activity shuts down on my ponds. Have you experience this?

MNfish,

Is it possible your oxygen levels get low by then?

I was talking about underwater cameras with a ice fishing website friend the other day. He said he wasn't catching any fish but dropped the camera down and they were thick down there. Only thing he can think of was the oxygen level was low enough during late ice the fish weren't interested in feeding.

Cecil- I have noticed the same thing as your buddy. With the camera down, I can watch lots of fish without any bites. I'll bet the fish are under some kind of stress. Could it have anything to do with super cooling the water?
My neighbor's pond is well aerated (maybe too much) and the same reactions from his fish.

Tell me a bit more about your pond during the winter? Aeration, water clarity, depths, etc?

Cold water and low DO will definitely make for a tough bite.

I have encountered fish not willing to bite while ice fishing numerous times, and am starting to piece together a few ice fishing pond theories. Lots and lots and lots of variables though. Way more complicated than typical open water fishing.

Maybe some of the fish can be traced back to Texas ancestry? Anything from Texas is a wimp when it come to the cold.

What are your theories N8LY? I'm be curious to see if we have similar thoughts.

If you or your neighbor are supercooling the water with too much mixing it most certainly could be stressing them. One of the first signs of stress is a fish that is not interested in eating.

Nate at fifty degrees I have on a coat and at thirty degrees I am not going outside. I have people from the North complain about the Texas heat in the summer and that doesn't bother me near as much as the cold.

I am still trying to nail down the factors necessary to determine and pattern feeding times and locations within the water column for ice fishing success. Moon phase, air temps, cold fronts, water temps, snow cover, clouds, wind, time of day, time of year, etc.

For open water spring, summer, and fall fishing, all of those factors are just automatically ingrained in my system. Instinctively I know where they are on a daily basis, why they are there, and how to catch them. I dont have to sit and analyze, think about, or ponder all those factors, its just automatic.

Ice fishing on the other hand does not come automatic. Every day I am wondering why the fish are doing what they are doing? Why where they hear one minute and gone the next, why were they biting 10 minutes ago and not right now, too many unknown variables that I dont have a firm handle on yet?

Real clear lakes are hard to consistently catch fish on. I thought it might be low DO in some of them, but when I put trout in them, I can catch pretty much unlimited trout at all depths at all times, even on days that I cant get any bluegill to bite.

No real difinitive answers for you there Cecil, but just a bunch of rambling that maybe will lead to some theories or ideas from other ice fisherman?

I've noticed light penetration seems to be a big factor with ice fishing. In my front pond even when it was well stocked I couldn't get much action on bluebird sky days even with some snow cover. The fish were there but they just weren't interested. Of course one would say they were conditioned to feed at low light periods which is when I fed them, but it seemed to be more than that. Normally I could get a fish to bite anytime in the pond by putting food in front of it's mouth but not on bluebird sky days.

It's almost like they get used to low level light under the ice and then when it gets bright they don't like it. Sometimes even with a lot of fish in the pond when I could see down and around a good distance they were nowhere to be found and apparently were down deep in the weed growth.

Start with the basics. BG metabolism is slow under the ice thus they don't need to eat as much or as often. Because they are in the bioenergetics mode of energy saving they would be close to their food so they don't have to waste energy moving a lot, which should be near plankton concentrations (light and O2). Slight temp increases can stimulate increased feeding.

Those super bluebird sky days are also typically after a front with rising barometric pressure.

I have had many ice fishing days when the fishing really picks up as the sun sets. Also had days when the fishing shuts off then, too?

After sunset, the fishing typically shuts down, but then from 9 pm to midnight might be real fast action, oftentimes some of the best action of the season. I often fish the super clear lakes at night, but don't waste my time on the ice right after sunset.

EWEST,
You would be surprised at how much the fish do move around under the ice. Definitely not nearly as much as in the spring/summer, but way more so than I originally thought before the use of cameras and vexilars.

Absolutely N8LY. I have watched them actually zip by under the ice. Yellow perch are quite active under the ice.

Do you suppose ice cover enhances the affects of a changing barometric pressure? I've found that ice making ice (cracking) also turns off the fish bite, so does shoveling off snow.

Nate/Cecil- My 1.5 acre pond is very clear with a maximum depth of 6.5 ft and an average of 3.5ft. The fish are aggresive from first ice (around Thanksgiving) until the end of December. The same is true for my neighbors 1/3 acre pond. Both ponds are aerated by Koender windmills. Combined the ponds contain BG,BC,WE,YP,LMB, and SMB.

The funny thing is there is 4 of us small pond owners (1/3 - 1.5 acres)all within 15 miles and we all experience this mid winter shut down. We all stocked BC specifically for after work night ice fishing. For all of us it's become night watching with the Aquaview and not catching the BC :).

I have been ice fishng all over the state of MN since I could walk. In my experience, all lakes towards mid to late winter will have lull periods until 3-4 weeks before ice out and then pick up again especially when it comes to BC. Once the fish in my pond stop biting, they won't begin feeding until Mid may. My neighbors pond the same thing except they will start by the end of April. His pond is smaller and does not have flowing inlets and outlets thus heats up faster. This difference between ponds has been leading me to the super cooling hypothesis.

I could be wrong and it is certainly not the first or last time. Any thoughts?

I think you might be right about the ice cover enhancing the affects of changing barometric pressure.

I have also heard quite a few cracks on the ice this year, but those arent coming from ice making!!!

I'm not sure which is harder to catch: BG's in a MN winter



or Gators in a LA summer.

BC are very hard to pattern, they are just unpredictable.
In regards to your other fish not feeding until May, you might want to try fishing for them in a new way, at a new time of day? Your pond sounds pretty shallow, I would probably continue to keep some open water in your neck of the woods? Dave Willis would know a bit more about how your pond and fish operate during the winter.

Nate - not surprised at all how much fish move under the ice as I have seen them. That was not the point. The point is that BG (and other fish)try to minimize energy use while maximizing energy input subject to static energy demand for involuntary body functions. So when considering the many factors effecting where to fish for warmwater fish like BG under the ice (or in cold water)include the location that best lets them maximize their energy use at the time when their food is most available.

Cecil yes - but YP are not a warmwater fish, are quite active under the ice/cold water and feed on small BG quite easily as the YP metabolism is on go while the BG metabolism is slowed. The YP-BG relationship is similar to LMB eating tilapia in southern waters when the water temp is in the low 60's. There you have a warmwater fish (LMB) easily eating a tropical fish (tilapia) as the tilapia becomes slowed just above its lethal thermal minimum temp.

If we could ever understand all the biological factors which effect fish and know how to rank and integrate them for behavior then fishing would be easy.

Bill I agree ice must cause an effect on pressure as you have water under a pressure/weight exceeding that of the atmosphere within essentially a closed vessel at least until the pressure build up along with other forces cracks the ice. I wonder how much difference there is in pressure between an iced over pond and its twin that has open water due to aeration.

How do we find this out?

Put a valve stem through the ice so you could measure pressure with a tire gauge?

Just taking a WAG, I don't think there would be a serious pressure difference under solid ice as opposed to under ice with open water in it. Or even under completely open water.

The same amount of water is pushing down at a given depth whether any of it is frozen or not. The same atmospheric pressure is added in, pushing down on top of the pond, in both conditions as well.

I also wonder how many ponds shy of the true North freeze over completely and solidly. Even if my pond edges are frozen hard, I seem to always have a little water flowing out at the drains.

Where do I find a valve stem that could easily attach to the ice? Probably any old tire gauge would work just fine. Theo, your a genius!

n8ly wrote: "Theo, your a genius!"

Genius, dork, freak, nerd...it's all good.