Vintage Ice Smallmouth

So I heard you can fish smallmouth thru the ice.

It started in 2003

Well the whole thing started with a colleague of mine saying he targeted smallies through the ice. I saw, I listened and I went smallie fishing thru the ice.

It really was so simple. We target smallies in good smallie lakes on the same structure we’d target them in mid-summer. And with some of the same lures. Not to say some live bait wasn’t used but I’ve caught more smallies thru the ice on an 1/8th ounce jig and a 3 inch Kalin’s Grub than all the other methods combined.

I’v e targeted smallmouth bass thru the ice in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. Now to be fair all of my ice fishing for smallies has happened in December. So maybe that gave me an advantage? You see I’ve often thought, as many anglers do, that smallies group up in deeper water in late fall so naturally they should still be there on first ice. And they are.

I’ll give a bit of detail. In a northern Minnesota lake near Orr we targeted smallies just off the edges of mid-lake humps. It took some work but we found and caught smallmouth in what I’d say is the basin area just off the humps in 20-25 feet. The areas that harbored smallmouth bass were soft bottom in 20-25 feet of water and the same was true in Wisconsin and South Dakota. Also true was when we found 1 smallie we we found many. Most spots produced multiple fish.

As is my normal procedure we drilled lots of holes and moved often. Find no fish in 10 minutes and drill or move. It’s easier to do in December typically. If you have a hankering to try your skill on smallies thru the ice give it a try. It’s a riot!

Vintage Footage Ice Fishing for Smallmouth Bass

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Some Big Bass Are Shallow During a Minnesota Summer

Shallow water in mid-summer?

In lakes I do not know, I start shallow.

On a mid-summer morning I put my boat in Green Lake by Zimmerman. I’ve had the hankering to fish this lake for a few years. At the boat landing I took a look around and saw an expanse of emergent weeds in front of the creek to the east. So without firing up the outboard I started to fish this shoreline run of weeds.

It had rained a bunch the night before and into the morning. I can’t know whether or not the water flow was more than usual but I’m a shallow water guy, when I fish a new lake I go shallow for a few reasons.

Experience has taught me that there are almost always bass shallow. Combine that with what I guessed was a flow of water above the average flow entering the lake I guessed that bass would be in the area. I started out with by running a buzzbait thru the emergent weeds and this produced about 6 blow-ups and 3 bass caught all around 15-16 inches. Good start. I worked down the shoreline west of the creek and little action was had with only one more largemouth. Now I had to make a move so I went to the West near where the deeper water came close to the shore. I worked some shoreline habitat in 3-4 feet and some trees that I could see sticking out of the water. This area had some scattered bass that ate my offering of a jig worm rigged weedless. These bass were on the small side of 12 inches but I kept fishing this area because my eyes could see structure that said bass will live here. Switching baits a few times included casting that buzzer again and the time tested jig and pig produced a few more small largemouth around clumps of weeds. I probably spent two hours working toward the South. It was fun but none of the big bass that rumors had informed me of ate my offers.

Now I made move to the East shoreline just North of that point. My go-to shallow presentation is what I refer to as a twitch rig (pictured left), a soft plastic rigged weedless and weightless on a 4/0 wide gap hook. Staying shallow I began to work towards the point. It took a bit but I finally connected on a couple of two pounders. Then I reached the actual point. This point has trees overhanging the water and it looked prime for summer bass that my mind said bass live here. Skipping my bait through the overhanging limbs I envisioned numerous bites. I caught one bass and missed another. Now looking at a pocket adjacent to the biggest limb, it was about 10 feet over the water, I skipped the twitch rig into that pocket and I let the bait settle in about a foot of water. I picked up the bait and began a slow twitch back to the boat and bam a big largemouth ate the bait. This is a big bass in the 20 inch range! I had my GoPro running at the time and the big bass was successfully landed and released. Check out the video below.

It was now around 11am and I could see another round of storms was approaching so I continued down the shoreline toward the boat landing. I caught one more fish on the twitch rig, another nice one around 3 pounds. With time running out I left the lake just in time with a dozen bass caught all in less than 4 feet of water.

20 Inch Shallow Water Bass in July

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