Fishing through a six to twelve inch hole in the ice? Yup. It’s a unique way to catch multiple species of northern, fresh-water fish. And thanks to advancements in garment design, portable fish houses and fish locating devices, it’s becoming more and more popular every day. One- to three-foot rods are most often used and simple reels hold the line. You can also ice fish with tip-ups. When a fish hits your tip-up gear, it releases a lever that raises a flag or rings a bell. This means you should stop playing cards with your buddies and start reeling.

Many fisherman fish with no protective structure other than their winter clothes. Longer fishing expeditions can be mounted with simple structures. Larger, heated structures can make multiday fishing trips possible, but these are often eschewed by seasoned fishers, many of whom do not use these larger shelters. In other words, they think they are wimpy.

For those who are game for a cozier experience, a structure with various local names, but often called an ice shanty, ice shack or just plain shack, fish house, bob house, or ice hut, is sometimes used. These are dragged or pulled on a trailer onto the lake using a vehicle such as a snowmobile, ATV or truck. The two most commonly used houses are portable and permanent shelters. The portable houses are usually made of a heavy, watertight material. The permanent shelters are made of wood or metal and usually have wheels for easy transportation. They can be as basic as a bunk, heater and holes or as elaborate as having satellite TV, bathrooms, stoves, and full-size beds, and may appear to be more like a mobile home than a fishing house.

Other methods ice fishermen use but I personally do not recommend it is to simply sit in their vehicle and wait and watch for their tips ups to pop up or their bobbers to go down. Each year many vehicles and fishermen go through the ice in South Dakota alone. I expect the same is true in the rest of our ice fishing states.

Each species has different methods making it easier to catch. For instance Northern Pike will take anything from a jig, spoon, hook and minnow, wax worm and have even seen them hit and try to eat my camera from my new fish cam system. (No kidding) scratched the lens too. I have even had a friend lowering his hook down the hole with just a colored weight to check the depth and had a northern eat his lead weight. He wasn’t even fishing yet and had a nice ten pound fish on the ice.

Pan fish,(Blue Gills, Yellow Perch, Crappie) are some of the favorite fish ice fishermen go after in the winter months. Especially early ice is a very good time for these species, especially perch. They can be found anywhere from the largest lakes or reservoirs to a small farm pond no more then an acre. As long as the pond is deep enough to prevent winter kill or loosing  oxygen in the water, these ponds can produce Pan fish and even larger species like Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass in good number and very large sized fish. Several states have species that hold their state records that come out of small farm ponds such as Crappie, Blue Gill, Yellow Perch, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass and even those toothy critters Northern Pike.

Ice fishing is a great way to spend the day, or night and have non stop action. Walleyes can be very easy to catch through the ice in day or night one day and the next you can be in the same spot, the weather conditions exactly the same and you can’t even find a fish on your camera or fish graph all day not to mention catching a fish.

As long as you take your safety into consideration and listen to your local fisherman and bait stores around town odds are you are going to be able to get into some fantastic and fun fishing.

Ice fishing allows people to fish in areas and spots that they otherwise could not access with open water due to weeds, structure or even state fishing laws.

Some states allow you to access certain fishing spots from the ice where you can walk or ride a snow mobile or four wheeler to a location when you could never get to these spots without land owner permission when there is open water without a small boat.

It is always a good idea to get the landowners permission no matter what time of the season it is and odds are he might enjoy a mess of fish you catch in these locations himself. Be a good advocate for our sport and clean and package the fish before you take them to him. Simply offering is sometimes enough to make a landowner become more patient with people in the hunting and fishing sports.

Remember, odds are if a landowner doesn’t want you hunting or fishing on his property if he doesn’t have family doing these sports himself there is a good reason for it. Someone didn’t respect him or his property at sometime so do what you can to make relations better for all of us in the future.

If a landowner is good enough to allow you to access his property to fish and really does not like to eat fish even when offered it is a very good idea to give him a gift certificate of some kind to a local restaurant or store so he can pick something up he does enjoy. This will likely make your relationship with him last a lifetime.