The early winter pattern will have the fish moving around in the shallower water and they’re still aggressive and feeding, but it’s not like you can just drill a hole anywhere and catch fish. You have to key on the structure just like you did when the water was open.
Let’s say I’m working a sunken island that tops out at eight feet and is covered with vegetation that ends at 14 feet. I’ll drill holes all over the top of the structure that I’m going to jig in, and I’ll drill some more holes along the edge of the weeds where I’m going to place a tip-up.
I’ll put the tip-up with a shiner minnow right on the edge of the weeds then go jig a Cicada lure in the shallower holes. You give the tip-up a half hour to produce something and if the flag doesn’t pop, then move it to another hole.
If I don’t get a bite on the mid-lake structure I know the fish are relating to the shoreline. Here you’re fishing weeds, weed lines and dropoffs. Drill a series of holes along the weedline first to give you an idea where the points, inside turns, and edges are. Then drill some holes here-and-there over the top of the weeds. Set the tip-up and shiner right on the edge and go jig in the weeds.
I like the Cicada, which is a heavy metal vibrating blade bait, to search in the weeds for a couple of reasons.
First, this lure is heavy enough to poke through any mats of vegetation and get right down underneath where the weeds thin out and the fish wait to ambush unsuspecting prey. Second, the lure vibrates and makes a sound that draws these aggressive feeding fish into the lures range.
I work a hole for about 15 to 20 minutes. I don’t have a depthfinder transducer in the hole when I’m fishing like this because the lure is often under or in the weeds and it’s impossible to see the lure or any fish.
In lakes where the weeds are sparse a depthfinder can help you see the lure and show a fish if it moves up to the bait, but typically you’re fishing in water less than 12 feet deep, so you can’t really see fish on the sonar unless they are right on top of the bait.
Sometimes the tip-up gets a lot of action and the shallower jigging is not producing. When that happens I’ll use the jigging rod in the deeper holes. On the weedlines I like to use a quarter ounce Northland FireEye Minnow and tip the treble hook with the head of a minnow. Now that you’re in a bit deeper water and the bottom is more open you should be able to spot the fish as they move around under the hole and come up to inspect the bait.
The action on the FireEye consists of twitching the bait for about six to eight seconds then stopping. The fish almost always whack the lure when it’s resting, but you have to quiver the lure to attract the fish.
This lure works great on active fish, but you must be active too. Move around searching for those fish. They’re biting; you just have to locate them. So don’t sit in one place and let those fish come looking for you. It’s too good of time of year to be out on the ice and not catching anything.