01-16-2014, 05:16 PM
[#0000ff]Possibly the biggest negative for fishing Willard through the ice is the fact that it is mostly just a big featureless mud-bottomed bowl. This is especially true during current low water conditions. The forage species (shad) roam around the lake, looking for zooplankton and/or warmer water conditions. The predators roam around the lake looking for shad, crawdads or other food tidbits. Everything is on the move and there is not much to get the fish to hang out in any one spot very long. When water levels are high enough to maintain good depth inside the harbors that changes. Then you can usually find something inside most of the time.
On our trip we shot the bottom (through the ice) over a very large area outside the north marina. There was not a lot of depth variation...with the deepest spots being about 10 feet and lots of areas of 8.5 to 9 feet. All the holes we drilled were in the 10 foot depths...through the ice...and ended up being about 9.5 feet under the transducers.
We found that it was fruitless to try to find a school of active fish. The best we could hope for was to set up in one spot and hope it was on a "fish highway"...and that fish would periodically show up either on the bottom or at mid-depth. We did see some schools of densely packed small fish...probably shad. But there were also isolated larger fish at mid depth...singles or doubles. On a couple of occasions I was able to coax a bite from crappies from those larger individual fish. But could never get a sniff from the large dense schools. Another reason for suspecting they might be shad rather than small crappies.
The fish I caught on minnows...on the bottom...did not show up on sonar at all. My Showdown has a 1/2" target separation but the perch and catfish were coming in with their bellies on the bottom. The cat had lots of little leeches on its belly and fins. And, there were several times that when raising my small jigs up slowly off the bottom I would see fish leave the black line of the bottom and follow the jigs up a couple of feet...and then go back down to the bottom. Only once did I get one to hit...and that was an 8" perch...the Willard dink in the pictures. Would have been a "jumbo" at Pineview.
I had been contemplating trying the deeper troughs over off the west side but had not heard any better reports from anglers hitting that area. Plus, I am not a big fan of broken legs and have heard of some nasty mishaps with guys trying to get down snow and ice covered rocks over there.
The "bottom line" (bad pun) is that fishing Willard anywhere outside the harbors has always been a hit or miss proposition. The lake is big and even though there is a good population of several species you gotta be good...and lucky...to drill holes where they might show up for a snack.
I am properly grateful for the few fish I caught and I have no false illusions about luck playing a role. Before I finally got into my first fish I was smelling skunk and was already thinking negative thoughts. I love it when good fortune makes that awful odor go away.
If you go back, I will make a couple of bait suggestions. First, substitute a piece of crawler for the wax worms. All species in Willard eat crawlers. Second...instead of using chub meat, try fishing a whole chub minnow...3" or smaller if you can get them. Again, all the predators are used to eating small dead shad off the bottom. A lot of them die from winter kill. So using a whole minnow on a jig head, or floating one down weightless, will get more hits than a mangled minnow. I tried half minnows with no attention at all on our trip. And as soon as I went back to using a whole minnow I caught my solo catfish. Also got the biggest perch on a whole minnow. I had a day in the float tube before ice up in which I caught 9 big perch...half on minnows and half on worm and jig.
Keep trying and do the lucky dance.
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On our trip we shot the bottom (through the ice) over a very large area outside the north marina. There was not a lot of depth variation...with the deepest spots being about 10 feet and lots of areas of 8.5 to 9 feet. All the holes we drilled were in the 10 foot depths...through the ice...and ended up being about 9.5 feet under the transducers.
We found that it was fruitless to try to find a school of active fish. The best we could hope for was to set up in one spot and hope it was on a "fish highway"...and that fish would periodically show up either on the bottom or at mid-depth. We did see some schools of densely packed small fish...probably shad. But there were also isolated larger fish at mid depth...singles or doubles. On a couple of occasions I was able to coax a bite from crappies from those larger individual fish. But could never get a sniff from the large dense schools. Another reason for suspecting they might be shad rather than small crappies.
The fish I caught on minnows...on the bottom...did not show up on sonar at all. My Showdown has a 1/2" target separation but the perch and catfish were coming in with their bellies on the bottom. The cat had lots of little leeches on its belly and fins. And, there were several times that when raising my small jigs up slowly off the bottom I would see fish leave the black line of the bottom and follow the jigs up a couple of feet...and then go back down to the bottom. Only once did I get one to hit...and that was an 8" perch...the Willard dink in the pictures. Would have been a "jumbo" at Pineview.
I had been contemplating trying the deeper troughs over off the west side but had not heard any better reports from anglers hitting that area. Plus, I am not a big fan of broken legs and have heard of some nasty mishaps with guys trying to get down snow and ice covered rocks over there.
The "bottom line" (bad pun) is that fishing Willard anywhere outside the harbors has always been a hit or miss proposition. The lake is big and even though there is a good population of several species you gotta be good...and lucky...to drill holes where they might show up for a snack.
I am properly grateful for the few fish I caught and I have no false illusions about luck playing a role. Before I finally got into my first fish I was smelling skunk and was already thinking negative thoughts. I love it when good fortune makes that awful odor go away.
If you go back, I will make a couple of bait suggestions. First, substitute a piece of crawler for the wax worms. All species in Willard eat crawlers. Second...instead of using chub meat, try fishing a whole chub minnow...3" or smaller if you can get them. Again, all the predators are used to eating small dead shad off the bottom. A lot of them die from winter kill. So using a whole minnow on a jig head, or floating one down weightless, will get more hits than a mangled minnow. I tried half minnows with no attention at all on our trip. And as soon as I went back to using a whole minnow I caught my solo catfish. Also got the biggest perch on a whole minnow. I had a day in the float tube before ice up in which I caught 9 big perch...half on minnows and half on worm and jig.
Keep trying and do the lucky dance.
[/#0000ff]
[signature]