Originally Posted by SherWood
I went fishing yesterday, hoping to catch some catfish and completely confident that I would at least catch some bluegill to use as cut bait. I easily found some worms at the bottom of my compost pile but then couldn't get a bite from bluegill for about 20 minutes fishing in the same spot I caught a bucket full last weekend off the end of my dock. I moved over to the shallow end where the run off flows into the pond and couldn't get a bite there either. It's on the NE end and was catching the morning sun.

I moved over to the dam to fish for catfish in the deepest hole of the lake. I watched some youtube videos and looked up a few articles on winter fishing for channel catfish during the past week. It seemed like the advice was mostly pointing towards fishing in the deep water. Since I didn't have cut bait I went with worms and small pieces of summer sausage, which I also threw out in the area.

Didn't get a bite. It was very disappointing. I will try again someday when I can catch and cut up a few bluegill for bait.

One thing that will really open your eyes to the fish movement under the ice is to use a "fish finder" in the ice hole. You can save some $$ by buying a used one on the secondary market. There are a lot of guys that have to have the "latest and greatest" and their used equipment can be had for a steep discount. They are sensitive enough to see your bait and you can drop the bait to the level of the fish that you see on the screen.

i.e. if the fish are suspended 4' above the bottom, dropping the bait to the bottom will get you 0 bites.