Have you ever stayed in a cheap motel room? It’s not luxurious, but it’ll do. So, you settle in. You fire up the TV. Maybe you call home and chat with your wife. A little while later, you notice you can hear the TV in the room next door better than yours. You can hear every word the guy staying in that room is saying to his wife. That’s when it dawns on you that your “private” space isn’t very private at all. This is the analogy Ross Robertson uses when explaining how the average angler behaves on the ice.
Ice creates a barrier between us and the fish. Throw a pop-up shelter and a heater into the mix and it’s easy to settle into your “private” space. But everything you do from the moment you arrive at your spot until the lines come out affects the outcome of your day. The fish — your “neighbors” in the next room — are listening and feeling what’s going on.
Over the years, Robertson has built up a list of seemingly trivial things that shouldn’t matter on the ice, but do. These behaviors largely go unnoticed by anglers. Start paying attention to these minor details, though, and your productivity will greatly increase.
Sound Off
Modern technology like forward-facing sonar hasn’t just helped us find more fish faster. It has also exposed our shortcomings. It has shown us what we’re doing wrong in real time. This is especially true on the ice, where Robertson has found the technology invaluable for ironing kinks out of clients’ programs. He recalled a trip where two veteran anglers brought two novices out. Robertson set the rookies up in a pop-up with forward facing sonar, explained what to do, and told them to be very quiet. In no time the screen was lit with fish and the newbies were on their way to a limit of walleyes. The veterans, on the other hand, couldn’t get a bite.
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“They kept telling me they wanted to move,” Robertson said. “Meanwhile, their friends are 30 feet away nearly limited in the first twenty minutes. So, I sat there with them. And sure enough, they weren’t marking any fish. I figured out real quick that the one guy was constantly scooching his chair on the ice. Then he’d pour a cup of coffee and just throw the Thermos down. I picked up the thermos, told him to sit still, and within a few minutes we had fish on the screen. These guys had been ice fishing for years and never saw the correlation between these seemingly insignificant noises and getting bites.”
Sound on the ice matters, and there’s more you can do to reduce it than sit still and not talk too loudly. Robertson noted that when he asks which kind of auger makes the least amount of noise, the most common answer is a hand auger. In terms of decibel levels, that may be true, but it will take you longer to drill your holes with a hand auger. Therefore, it’s creating prolonged noise that can push fish away from an area permanently. A gas auger might be louder, but the bursts of noise are much shorter, making it more likely that any fish they initially spook will regroup. Remember, the noise isn’t generated by the auger’s motor. It’s generated by the blades scraping the ice.
Here’s the Scoop
With walleye fishing in particular, 10-inch holes are beneficial. Robertson points out that large holes help you avoid getting hung up on the underside of the hole when using lures like Jigging Raps that swing far out to the side when you work them. Larger holes are also nice when that trophy fish takes a shot, assuming, of course, that hole is clear when it’s time to land your catch. If you think about it, a slush-filled hole rarely impedes your ability to work a jig to the point of being ineffective, yet most anglers scoop them clear constantly. That seems like standards in ice practice, but Robertson says even keeping a tidy hole can cost you fish.
“I understand that slush can be a pain, but I know several anglers who fish on very clear lakes that will not clear the hole until there’s a fish on the line,” he says. “I’ve drilled multiple holes and set up cameras to see how much this really matters. It does. You’ll have fish right under you and then you bust out that scoop and they’re gone.”
Easy on the High Beams
No doubt, forward-facing sonar is becoming standard kit on the ice, but Robertson (and many other anglers) have noticed that the more heavily it’s used, the more in tune with it the fish become … and they don’t like it. That’s not to suggest skipping electronics, because the ping of an old-school flasher can tip fish off, too. But it does mean you should be sparing at times. Don’t simply drop your transducer in the hole and let it run all day, especially if you’re not marking fish, only seeing them occasionally, or seeing them but not getting them to bite.
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“There have been instances in ice fishing tournaments for panfish where forward-facing sonar is actually being used as a defensive tool,” says Robertson. “You’ll have a two-man team and one is doing nothing but panning his forward-facing sonar at the holes of competitors close by. It’s not to see how many fish are there — it’s to scare his fish away.”
Remember that you often need sonar to find fish, but not necessarily to stay on them on the ice. If you’re marking a pile of walleyes or perch below you that are chewing and suddenly stop, try killing the electronics. You should, after a while, have a feel for depth and cadence and not have to see the bite happen on a screen to connect.
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