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Some of the best bluegill, crappie and perch fishing occurs early on in the ice season on ultra-clear water. Shallow weedy bays are the first areas to produce and excellent fishing can occur over water only two feet deep! It’s true, these are areas that most anglers walk right past because they believe that good-sized fish can’t possibly be that shallow. But in reality you can catch some of the biggest panfish of the season if you follow some basic presentation ideas. Many anglers I know will make a quick trip before or after work. These prime times of 4 to 8 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m …

Early ice is one of the best times for panfishing. Fish are more aggressive and easier to catch. They move shallow and hang around channels until they migrate to shallow weedy bays where they relate to edges and open patches around weed growth. This is the time of the year when you can perfect your presentations for later in the year when thicker ice makes fishing tougher. Here are some techniques we tried last season that I'll share with you right now. Glow in the dark jigs for panfish Ice jigs and spoons painted with phosphorescent glow paint are key presentations in dark or …

Bluegill and the rest of the panfish provide great sport and excellent eating. If you want to learn how to catch gamefish like largemouth bass, pike and muskie, then you need to start small. Small lures and small fish. You see a bluegill shares nearly the same habits and instincts as his gamefish cousins, so learning to hunt these panfish will get you to become a fish catching machine, no matter what quarry you’re after! So in order to catch bluegill and panfish the right way, you need to get geared up. You'll need an ultra-light rod with a soft fast tip. Any 1000 series reel will do as …

No matter what we did, the bluegill wouldn’t bite. We could see them. We were peering down the hole in the three-foot, ultra-clear water but the bluegills were circling the wagon’s...’Er the ice jigs. "Can you see them, Poppee", I yelled. "Yeah and they don’t want to bite", he yelled back. We tried everything that day and had only managed a few for the pan. If you’ve never peered down the hole in ultra-clear water, you haven’t lived,...’Er fished. You’ll need a good dark tent to see clearly. We like the a dark tent that shields you from all light penetration and the flip-over design, …

Ice fishing is a daunting endeavor, especially for the first time angler. On our first time out many years ago, we didn’t have much gear. We had a few Ratfinkees, two rods, two buckets and some wigglers for bait. We were after yellow bass and yellow bass supposedly liked wigglers. We walked out on our local lake, and found a few open holes. As luck would have it, we caught one after another and we were hooked on ice fishing forever! The next weekend we went back to the same lake, the same area and found our old holes. This time we had an auger and we drilled a couple of new ones next to t …