How to Catch More Panfish Through the Ice

Three tips to ice more panfish while ice fishing this season

Locating Panfish

Panfish are an accessible and popular target for many anglers at some point in every ice season, whether it is at first ice or last, providing dependable action close not far from shore.

For the purpose of this blog, I will leave perch out of the list of “panfish”, although the following tips will certainly help you catch more perch too.

Bluegill, Pumpkinseed and crappies can usually be found near weeds, docks, or timber near softer bottom in shallow fisheries, and on mud flats near weeds in deeper fisheries.

One thing that is important to remember when locating panfish is that they are a favourite snack for predators like bass, walleye and pike, and need to be near shelter from these threats at all time.

Once located, panfish, especially large ones, can be challenging to hook. Anyone who thinks these fish are easy to catch simply because they are low on the food chain couldn’t be more wrong.

After years of observing panfish under the ice and how they react to different baits, I have determined a short list of tips to help you fast-track to a successful day on the hardwater fishing for panfish.

Spring tip

Right behind selecting the right jig and line, using a spring tip device is the next most important thing in my opinion when fishing for panfish through the ice.

I’ve used the lightest, most sensitive rods with light line and nothing detects bites as well as a spring tip.

Due to their small mouths, sunfish are some of the trickiest fish to feel bite and hook. Often these fish will ingest and reject baits without even moving a rod tip.

This can be confirmed time and time again using an underwater camera.

There are a few different styles of spring bobbers and each offers their own advantages in terms of bite detection, and durability.

Go small

Fooling the largest panfish in the bunch often requires downsizing to the smallest tungsten jigs with the smallest hooks in order to convince weary fish to take the whole jig in and not just nibble on the bait.

Presentation is everything…

Another observation when using an underwater camera is that most small panfish jigs spin when left sitting underwater. This is a result of line twist accumulated when a jig is twisting on the upstroke, and falls on slack line.

Panfish, especially trophy-sized fish will either swim away uninterested from a spinning presentation, or frustratingly pick the bait off of your hook without ingesting the whole bait.

Light line – like 2lb test monofilament is another weapon to catch more fish, especially pressured ones, due to the fact that it allows jigs to move freely and with less spin.

This is especially true when using a centre-pin style panfish reel to further reduce jig spin on the pause after jigging.

Bait is great

Weeds and mud bottom areas are often rich with invertebrates and micro organisms like bloodworms, which panfish gorge on during the winter.

Small worms like waxworms, mealworms, maggots (spikes) or mousies keep panfish interested, and convince fish to take baits deeper than untipped presentations.

Waxworms and mealworms tend to present better on horizontal style jigs, while maggots (spikes) are best for hanging on vertical style jigs.

If your local bait shop doesn’t carry waxworms or the like, try your local pet store – they are almost guaranteed to carry mealworms for people feeding lizards etc.

Last Cast:

This winter, try these tips to help you catch more panfish through the ice, and remember that if you are

going to harvest fish, leave the trophies in the lake so they can spawn and make more.