The right timing is key for winter bluegills where good ice is fleeting

You’re sitting on the ice, perhaps remembering the 8-pointer you bagged in the fall or daydreaming about supermodels, when the dial on your sonar lights up with vibrant red flashes.

In a phrase, “Here they come,” pops into your mind.

Just the appearance of the sonar’s flickering band gets you excited and, as a consequence, you speed up the tempo of your jigging.

The pod of fish that you had laid out a calling card for doesn’t like this new vigor and because the spoon’s action looks unnatural, they back off. The sonar’s flashing band grows fainter and then disappears off the screen because the pod backed out of the transducer’s zone. It’s a disappointment you chalk up to “a slow bite.’’

But the reluctance of the fish to bite – in this case a roving pack of bluegill – isn’t due to a slow bite. The fact that they came through the fog of distance towards your bait is a sign they’re on the move and hungry.

However you drastically changed the tempo of your lure, and at the most inappropriate time. The spoon was holding in their collective face but excited by their on-screen visit you suddenly made it perform a St. Vitus dance. The spoon went from a slow, shimmering movement to a flashy, energetic disorder, and it spooked the gills.

Hey it happens to the best ice fishermen. And it is one of the mistakes that can reduce your bluegill catch.

For most of the Frozen Chozen last year wasn’t a particularly great ice fishing season in the northeast. Mother Nature took care of that with above normal temperatures just when the ice should have been getting thicker.

So when we do get out this season there is bound to be some anxious moments and some mistakes made. Fortunately bluegills are pretty tolerant fish but even gills get antsy and shy away from grievous errors.

A limited menu

All things being equal I plan to start the ice season by offering bluegills a limited menu – until they show they’re willing to be aggressive.

A simple jig and larva bait or a hanging chain spoon with bait will attract ‘gills early in the season under minimum safe ice. Later on when the ice gets over five inches I’ll still work a jig and larva but I often rely on more noticeable offerings like concave spoons and horizontal ice plugs. I don’t work these latter lures too aggressively but use their larger profiles to gain the gill’s attention.

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The next factor for attracting bluegills depends on when that first ice actually sets up.

I like to begin the pursuit of gills in water between 8- to 12-feet deep. I can do that if there’s safe ice sometime between December and mid-January.

On occasion I can successfully work these depths for a few days to a week. This is true “early” first ice – as opposed to just first ice – and a great time to be an ice angler. The fish are hungry and the bite is strong.

Second ice

However, as so often has been happening during this era of climate change and warmer temperatures, early ice becomes unsafe or completely disappears. Followed by a spate of open water we then move – if we’re lucky – into a period of what I’ve been telling myself is “second ice.”

Second ice occurs when winter finally has a sure grip and holds on for several weeks. Second ice might not appear until the third or fourth week of January, or Heaven forbid, not even until February.

When this happens the shallow end of the 8- to 12-foot range is not viable. The later that second ice occurs the more likely I’ll need to fish from 10 feet to 15, or even a little more for larger bluegills.

This situation rarely leads to easy bluegill fishing. The tiny jigs I would have liked to use just don’t cut it at these depths. They take forever to get to the bottom and their profile is so small that I almost have to be on top of an in-place school to get these fish. Instead I need to use spoons and plugs just to get the bait down quick enough.

Also since these depths often occur over much wider area in a lake, the ‘gills can be further away and I need the larger calling card of a flashing hunk of metal, as with a concave spoon or plug, to bring them to the table.

The exception is in bodies of water, such as farm ponds, small lakes or canals, where depths over 10 feet are just not common. In those locals, after second ice, I still might be able to get away with smaller jigs or the heavier, but still slender, chain spoons.

Multiple tactics

With the new climate realities I just can’t say or depend on one tactic – lures or depths – to garner numerous and the best size ‘gills. In the last few years my game plan starts with jigs and larva, if the ice season begins early enough, I then move into jigs and spoons as the season progresses and the ice gets thicker and thicker.

Another wonderful exception to these guidelines is the late afternoon or early evening bite. As the season progresses and the sun transects a higher plane, a time well past mid-day can be an excellent period to catch bluegill, and their cousin, the pumpkinseed.

Both species – and I believe even more so pumpkinseeds – tend to rise towards the surface as the sun sinks toward the horizon but it’s higher in the celestial plane than it was in mid-December.

If that is occurring I go back to my smaller jigs with larva, and fish just a few feet below the ice to almost right under the ice sheet. What’s occurring now is that insect life is rising off the bottom and coming towards the surface. Chasing the rising insects are the pumpkinseeds and bluegills.

This fishing lasts only about an hour before the bugs and the fish descend to the bottom but when I catch it right I’ll enjoy some terrific though short-lived action. Under these conditions I can even get in a spate of sight fishing for gills and seeds. I’ll see them flashing by just under the ice and I might offer them a bait or pull it away, if the fish does or does not look large enough.

Bless the times when this is possible.