Here’s how to find those early ice hotspots

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“The early bird gets the worm.”

We’ve only heard that a million times, right?

If you’re an ice angler, another saying you’ve heard a million times is: “The early-ice angler gets all the fish.”

Early ice is not a time for wheelhouses or stationary shelters. The ice won’t support the weight. So what you see at early ice are portable shelters being pulled like sleds with a minimum amount of gear, heading to spots near shore where fish congregate.

This is a good time of year to study lake maps and find a good contour app for your smartphone.

Dave Genz is usually the first angler you will find out on the ice. He heads north to find first ice, and he pioneered the mobile ice-angling revolution and designed a shelter just for ease of operation in thin-ice situations. When the ice reaches that perfect thickness where he knows he can traverse the hard water safely, he is there.

“It is a great time to be out,” Genz said. “The schools that congregate are going to be where you can get at them, and they will be in big schools so they will be easier to find on your electronics.”

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Kolt Ringer is an avid ice angler and president of Aqua Vu, the company that manufactures underwater viewing systems. He likes to begin his search for these big groups of fish where he was catching them right before ice up.

“I start out by going to the spots where I caught fish in the fall,” Ringer said. “Often that is going to be the green weed edges close to deep water.”

That makes sense for panfish and pike, but won’t the walleyes be deep?

“The walleyes are still going to be shallow, too,” Ringer said. “They still relate to those edges.”

Genz agrees with Ringer and tells us there is a benefit to having a secret lake in your back pocket.

“What I’m looking for is what’s left of the green weeds. You’re fishing the top edge of the hole,” Genz said. “My go-to location is a 15-foot depression surrounded by vegetation. A spot like this is going to hold a lot of fish.

“Another thing I’ve discovered over the years regarding first ice,” Genz adds, “is you should be fishing those smaller lakes back in the woods. They cool down quicker so they have good ice on them faster. Some of these backwoods lakes don’t have a lot of vegetation. They might have steep banks that drop off from the shoreline quickly into deeper water.

Everyone should have a small secret lake back in the woods somewhere they can get out to on first ice.”

Both Genz and Ringer stress the importance of using every tool available to find fish. But things have changed recently with the ability to use high-resolution side-imaging sonar, with lightweight, small-bodied underwater cameras to spot actual fish.

“It’s in the weeds where you use the camera. In open water you can spot the fish on your sonar, but in the weeds, not as well,” Genz said.

Ringer believes that prime early-ice angling usually unfolds in the weeds and you will use the underwater camera when scouting more than the sonar. But forward-facing sonar becomes your dominant piece of equipment when you’re on a body of water that has little vegetation and you can easily find suspended fish.

“The LiveScope shines when hunting down a school of suspended crappies or walleyes,” Ringer said. “It’s outstanding for pinpointing a weed edge or some big rocks and cobblestones. You can even find ditches with that sonar. Once I have pinpointed a location to scout with the LiveScope, I’m going to use the Micro Stealth to find that spot on the spot or watch to see how the fish are reacting to my lure presentation.”

In the past, anglers would drill dozens of holes on a structural element before beginning to scout. “Now,” Ringer says, “you just need to drill one hole and you’ll get a great idea about where to go next. The sonar gives you the big picture with a 360-degree view, and the camera reinforces what you see.

This is a huge benefit because the fewer holes you drill on early ice, the better. You can spook a school of fish so easily with a lot of noise. You do not want to drill a lot of holes and using forward-facing sonar and camera, you don’t have to. You start with one”

What both of these avid ice anglers agree on is that early ice doesn’t last long. Genz says, “By early January the fish go dormant in those smaller lakes and then you must move to the bigger bodies of water. The best time to fish those smaller lakes is before Christmas. I say there are two seasons, BC, before Christmas, and AC, after Christmas. I want to be there BC.”

Early-Ice Presentations

Dave Genz has perfected the first-ice bite presentation for panfish. His affiliation with Clam Outdoors has allowed him to design what he considers the perfect lure for first ice.

“There’s no doubt,” Genz says. “Your first choice should always be the Drop-Kick jig tipped with a maggot.”

The beauty of the jig is its body is tungsten so there is a better signal return from the sonar once set up and fishing, and with a tungsten lure, it will drop faster because it is heavier with a smaller head than what you get with lead for the same size.

If you need a little more attraction, there is an option, according to Genz. “In recent years, I’ve added the Silkie Jig Trailer to the lure,” he said. “It makes it much more lifelike.

Sometimes I even put two silkies on. You can trim them with a little scissors. They are amazing because they enhance everything from a plastic trailer to live bait.”

Genz says the biggest mistake anglers make when fishing the Drop-Kick is they don’t pay enough attention to where the knot is positioned on their jig. “You want the jig to hang perfectly horizontal,” he said, “so position the knot so it’s right on the center of the eye – not too close to the tungsten head and not too close to the hook shank.”