What if our ice season shrinks?

What if our Ice Season Shrinks?

Its December 16^th and there is no sign of ice and gone maybe the years of early ice on Thanksgiving weekend. That used to be the sign it was going to be a great winter. What now? A Dupage Angler member dedfisher put it best, “we may no longer be part of the ice belt with northern Wisconsin reporting only 2-4 inches of ice” What if? What if our ice season shrinks? I say keep fishing. Keep trying new areas and techniques until you can have regular success all year long, ice or no ice!  So we are face with a dilemma, evolve or watch fishing on TV. Those in the Midwest who search, experiment, lake hop, switch species and put their time in will be among the first to enter uncertain winters with the angling knowledge to be the leaders of a possible ice-less age. If winters come back strong, your time is still well spent and the new knowledge you have obtained will make you a better fisherman.

Today Ted Yates(Soonerbass)  & I were out at O’Dark thirty and dressed for war! We had our Beardheads, multiple layers, hand warmer, gloves, hell I even had extra rain gear and shoes in case it really got nasty. We fished four ponds today for crappie. Now our target is crappie but the rigs we use almost always catch bass and gills as well. We went pond to pond fishing hard in a very tough bite. We had hook ups with minnows, crawlers, red-worms, ice-jigs/wax worms, tube jigs, mini mites, and crappie thunders. As you can read by this list we kept switching presentations until we got a bite. When the bite stopped we switched again. When the shallow biters stopped we went deep. When the lake stopped we move and moved again. I believe what we did today shows a micro version of what it will take to be successful in an ice-less winter.  Adapt, adapt, adapt, have a plan A, B, and C, be patient and persistent, and above all have fun.