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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Thursday, January 1, 2009 9:58 PM CST
Snowy winter turns crappie ice-fishing tactics on head

By TED PECK, The Janesville Gazette

JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) — Nature is a complex matrix of patterns. Understanding these patterns is a major key to finding consistent success in the outdoors. Most folks scoring above three on the Glasgow Coma Scale know that snow has been falling every couple days all month. This is a pattern.

Fish have an air bladder just beneath their spines, which is extremely sensitive to changes in barometric pressure. When the barometric pressure falls rapidly this air bladder relaxes prompting the piscatorial equivalent of “let’s go get some pizza!”

The barometric pressure plummets just ahead of a snow event and remains low until the event passes. Fish tend to feed aggressively at this time. Another pattern.

The polar opposite of this feeding pattern occurs when an arctic high-pressure system sweeps in behind the snow. High barometric pressure squeezes the air bladder on a fish resulting in the piscatorial equivalent of a raging gut-ache.

Fish are cold-blooded creatures. Their metabolism slows in cold water. They eat smaller meals and feed less often. From late December through January, this feeding window is typically a half-hour around dawn and/or dusk.

Crappies often feed several hours after sunset.

Our snowy weather pattern so far this winter has trumped conventional wisdom regarding the prime-time bite in spades. Shoveling the sidewalk when snow is falling is a waste of effort.

Time is better spent out on the ice — even at noon when fish usually show little interest.

Catching crappies at noon on Blackhawk Lake, two hours west of Janesville, is virtually unheard of this time of year. Blackhawk’s “slab” crappies feed almost exclusively at night during the winter months in this exceptionally clear lake.

When fishing for winter crappies in clear water, 1-pound test fluorocarbon line is a good idea. Bites are subtle. Sometimes even negative. Instead of pulling your tiny float or sensitive spring bobber down, a crappie attack may cause slack in your line since crappies like to attack from below and swim upward in the water column. Sometimes a crappie will take your line or float sideways in the hole.

But when it’s snowing on Blackhawk Lake, the fish don’t skulk and lurk — they run and jerk! On an outing there earlier this week, 2-pound test FireLine crystal iced more fish than 1-pound test fluorocarbon. Fish could probably see the heavier line. They just didn’t seem to mind.

Crappies also seem to be holding a little higher in the water column when in the feeding mood on this lake than they have in past years. Many fish are swimming just under the ice. Their electronic signatures may not even show up clearly on a good flasher unit.

When a foot-long crappie decides to eat your ice jig when there are only a couple feet of line between the lure and the rod tip it gets your attention every time.

Are crappies holding higher in the water column because of all the snow cover on the ice? Because there is more oxygen? More food? An aggressive feeding attitude prompted by a falling barometer? I don’t know.

Fish location may be due to a combination of all these factors, with a couple of other variables not even considered. Metaphysical discourse on possibilities only comes into play when looking for a reason that the fish are NOT biting.

Until our weather pattern changes, an approaching snow means time to go.

Shoveling can wait — unless we’re talking about shoveling crisp crappie fillets into your pie hole.

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