January 14, 2025
By Matt Breuer
Now that we have safe ice across much of the ice belt, anglers are flooding to their favorite haunts in search of a good panfish bite. Bluegills and crappies reign supreme in the winter months, and rightly so. They’re pretty easy to locate and target and will normally bite with reckless abandon. Plus, they taste incredible.
One could say that panfish are easy to catch year-round, and they would be mostly correct. But, how many ice fishermen can say that they’ve touched a bluegill over a pound? Or a crappie over 2 pounds? Bluegills with alien foreheads and bellies that resemble spring walleyes, or crappies so tall that they can’t hardly fit back down the hole after a photo … these fish are rare. They’re not average, they’re not big, they’re megas.
A killer mustache is required if you're going to chase fat bluegills during the winter, the author shares fine examples of both. Location Since we’re covering bluegills and crappies, and they inhabit the same areas in many cases, we’ll lump locations together. It’s common sense that you need to locate fish to catch them, but, locating them can be tricky at times. Especially when you’re after trophies. There’s a 3-step approach to finding trophies, and the first step starts before you even load up any ice gear.
Step 1 begins at home. With technology, you don’t have to trial-and-error lakes until you find one that holds trophy-class fish. You can simply look up survey data for many lakes across the Midwest online, or utilizing an app. OnX Fish is the best all-in-one tool for research. You can simply select the species you’re after within the app, and it’ll sort through lake survey data and tell you which lakes in your area hold large fish. Once you have a few lakes picked out, it’s on to the next step.
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Big crappies are special, and the author knows it. Targeting them through the ice adds a layer of complication, but it enhances the fun, too. Step 2 can also start right from the OnX Fish App . You need to figure out what kind of structure the lake has, and where the fish might be hanging out. Look for deep basins that are large and vast. These are the lakes main basins. These areas have a lake bottom that’s mostly mud, and that mud holds piles of invertebrates in the winter. These “bugs” are what panfish thrive on.
Next, secondary basins. These smaller depressions are typically mud, too, but they’re much smaller, and typically not as deep. Lakes with basins see a lot of pressure from panfish anglers, and many are honed in on the larger basins. These secondary basins can be gems. The third location to look at are large flats. Vast areas between deep water and the shoreline’s initial break. Twelve- to 20-foot areas where big panfish can roam and feed almost undetected. Lastly, weed beds: Lakes with good cabbage or coontail can hold great numbers of panfish in the shallows, especially during early ice, before the oxygen levels lower and the weeds die off.
Step 3 is the fun part. You simply go fishing. Put your research to use, and try all of the areas that you highlighted during your pre-scouting. Eventually, you’re going to stumble into what you’re after, so long as you put in the work, and you’re willing to set aside all notions of catching a bunch of fish. You’re after one fish, one hookset.
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Bluegills It’s true, bluegills are easy to catch. Talk to any angler, and they can recall catching “sunnies” off the dock with their elders. Or ice fishing with a buddy and annihilating bluegills on a nice winter day. It’s true, bluegills are easy to catch, and their high population makes them easy to find. Big ones, with noses on top of noses, are not easy to find. Even when you find them, they are not easy to catch. The old saying about “critters don’t get big by being dumb” definitely applies here. All rules are off when talking about bluegills over that 10” mark. They’ve been around, they’ve seen it all, and they’re very particular about what looks real and what doesn’t, what sounds are happening above them, and how much light is penetrating the water around them.
Big bluegills are not necessarily easy to catch, but they are a special critter for sure. You get it … they’re smart. But, they’re not impossible to fool. Finding lakes with good populations of larger fish really helps. Instead of targeting 40 fish in the entire lake, you might be targeting 400. Leaving large schools of active feeders to chase single marks that are finicky and will make you want to pull out your hair is what it takes most days.
Fishing baits that seem too big for bluegills is exactly how many anglers catch their biggest bluegills. Clam Pro Tackle has the Clam Tikka Flash , which is a great search bait for larger fish. The Pinhead Pro is another great choice, tipped with eurolarvae or waxies, it can be deadly. Many bigger fish will hit either bait without anything on the treble. If you are being rejected by several big marks, try downsizing to something like a Clam Confetti Drop or a Drop XL. Keep it bigger to deter pesky smaller fish, but change up the profile to something with less flash. Bluegills have a funky appetite.
One day they’ll eat everything you put down the hole, and the next day they only want the small stuff. Be willing to tinker with a few baits to figure out what the fish want on any given day. If you find a large pod of active fish, try moving away from them to the outer edge of the school. Many of the bigger fish will hold out on the edge of the school. Find those large, single marks, instead of the rushing flash of four to five fish on your electronics at once.
Lastly, be impatient and patient at the same time. Keep moving until you find the right fish. Once you do, don’t get frustrated if they won’t bite. Be patient, and keep after them. If you’re seeing the right fish, you might just have to wait for a window when they become active to catch them.
Crappies For crappies, I needed to reach out to Adam “Griff” Griffith from the popular YouTube channel The Crappie Chronicles . Griff recently hoisted one of the largest crappies ever caught on film. When I asked Griff about his 3 essential pieces of advice for anglers trying to catch a mega crappie, he divulged his secrets.
Successfully targeting large crappies during winter will require some trial and error, but once you put all the pieces together, it's easier than you might think. “Research is huge. Finding bodies of water that hold big fish is essential,” Griffith said. He won’t even touch a body of water that doesn’t have the capability of producing big fish when he’s looking to catch a giant crappie.
“Anglers need to be willing to only chase one size,” he continued. “If they want a big one, they can’t allow themselves to get side-tracked with large pods of average fish, or massive schools of eaters. They have to leave those schools to chase the big nomadic giants, and be willing to accept defeat if they strike out.”
He’s right. If you’re after a giant, you need to hit the ice, knowing that you might not catch a single fish. If you go in with the mindset that it’s all or nothing, it allows you to keep your eyes on the prize. His last bit of advice is a little trickier, and not everyone is capable of understanding exactly how it works, but consider it.
“Your cadence needs to be on point. You need to work the bait in a way that makes the fish react how you want it to,” he said.
I’ve fished with him enough to know that he reads fish like a book. How they react on his electronics, and understanding what he’s going to do to match their mood is what separates him from other anglers. The man speaks crappie, and you can, too. With enough practice.
Big crappies are a special fish and deserve their freedom when releasing them is an option. When he talks about cadence, he’s talking about the way you move your bait, the rhythm in which the bait moves. Big fish have been around, and they’ve seen baits. Most anglers don’t know how to imitate a crappie’s forage. But, if you mess around enough, and really pay attention to how the fish react, you’ll get it figured out.
If you’re introducing a new angler to the sport of ice fishing, panfish can provide great action and are excellent tools for teaching people about all things ice fishing. Remember to only keep enough for a meal, and always catch-photo-release the big ones so that future generations can enjoy the resources we’ve had available to us.
-Matt Breuer at North Country Guide Service