![]() Much like pike, walleye spawn shortly after the ice melts in the spring, so they tend to show up in predictable locations late in the ice season as well. Walleyes in NW Ontario will spawn in creeks and rivers if they are available, but in some waters where moving water is not an option they’ll simply choose shallow bays and sandy areas to do their thing. If you want to catch a big lake trout, focus your efforts on the bigger bodies of water across the region. For more action, the smaller inland lakes have big numbers of fish, but you won’t see trout grow as large. Sometimes points with sharp ledges are good, bluff walls can be good, and the mouths of shallow bays can be good – trout like to feed on perch in these places and they are often overlooked. I think that once the light starts penetrating the ice as the snow dissipates, these fish have an easier time seeing and finding our lures as well because the dark deep water is lit up a little more.Īll I know is, March is a great time to hit the ice in pursuit of trout. My bait selection is pretty simple – I usually rely on the classic white tube jig, which has put thousands of lake trout on the ice over the years. Mix in jigging spoons, lipless rattle baits, or other soft plastic minnow imitators, and let the fish tell you what they want.Īs for as location, it’s all about moving around to find the fish. We have countless awesome bodies of water with monster pike, so if you want to catch one, that is how you do it!Īs a fish that prefers cold water, lake trout are active throughout the winter, but March is the best time to target and catch them. One reason is that it is a lot easier for anglers to move around from spot to spot and cover water once the snow has shrunk up or melted. Trout lakes are notorious for having a lot of slush, and that is an issue in most waters right now. Come March, the ice is thick and the slush is gone. Most of the holes I fish are from 8-20 feet, and I like to set my bait about a foot or so off the bottom. The absolute best way to catch a big pike is with a large dead cisco (or herring) fished on a quick-strike rig, below a tip-up. My friends and I have experimented for years, and I can count the number of big pike on one hand that I have seen get caught actually jigging a bait as we do for lake trout and walleye. You will catch fish, but the true giants, the 15-20 pound plus fish, really like the real deal. Dead baits always work better than live baits as well. I’m not going to try to explain it, but we have tried and tried with live ciscos that we catch, and while they have been hit before, the dead baits are always best. The mouths of bays and rivers are high-end spots. ![]() Northern Pike spawn immediately after the ice goes out, so late in each ice season, these fish make a predictable migration to the shallow, weedy bays where all the action goes down. Until the ice actually melts, most of these fish hang around the first drop off where the shallow water starts to taper off. It's a great time of the year to film videos and take pictures as well, because it is usually warm, so the fish don't freeze and all of our equipment works properly.Ī beautiful northern pike! Monster Pike Time I invite good friends to visit from all over and have been fortunate to catch some of the largest pike, lake trout, and walleye that I have ever had my hands on. Over the past decade, I have spent as much time on the ice during this period. My trips right now are usually heading out in the afternoon to catch a few walleye and crappie for dinner. My fishing tournament schedule, fishing the Walmart FLW Tour, has me on the road quite a bit in the winter to the southern U.S., but I am really excited that this year I will be home for the last two weeks in March, which is in my opinion, a prime time to ice fish. We have quite a bit of snow on the ground right now so traveling around too extensively is a bit of a workout, even on a snowmobile. Add some cold temperatures and short days, and fishing is not nearly as appealing as it is later in March when the temperatures improve, the snow melts, and the days get longer. As we roll through another winter here in Northwest Ontario’s Sunset Country Region, I try to get out fishing here and there when I can.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |