Ice fishing: how to ice fish, read the ice and time the bite

Ice fishing is fishing through a hole cut in frozen water, with a short jigging rod or a tip-up that raises a flag on a bite. New York’s DEC puts the floor at 4 inches of solid ice for anglers on foot and names early morning and late afternoon as the hours that tend to fish best. Ohio’s DNR adds that no ice is 100 percent safe.

Below are the gear and the two methods, how to read ice before walking on it, when fish feed under it, what works for five species, and which CatchClock forecast cities have months that average below freezing. Licenses, limits, line counts and closed waters belong to your state agency and are not restated here.

How to ice fish

Learning how to ice fish means choosing one of two presentations once the ice has been checked. New York’s DEC describes a tip-up as a spool on a stick holding a baited line through the hole, which releases a signal, usually a red flag, when a fish takes the bait. Jigging uses a short rod or hand line and a small spoon or lure, often tipped with bait.

1. Step 1

   Check the ice as you walk out

   Drill test holes near shore and at regular intervals on the way out, as Iowa's DNR and New York's DEC both advise. Go with someone, and leave word of where you are and when you will be back.

2. Step 2

   Size the hole to the fish

   DEC's gear table pairs a 4–6 inch auger with sunfish, perch and crappie, 6–8 inches with trout and walleye, and 8 inches or more with lake trout and northern pike.

3. Step 3

   Keep the hole open

   A skimmer lifts slush and ice chips out of the hole. DEC advises checking tip-ups periodically for bait and clearing the ice and slush that gathers.

4. Step 4

   Set a tip-up at a marked depth

   Lower a weight to the bottom, raise it to the depth you want and mark the line at the waterline with a small float or button. Bait the hook, return it to the mark and set the flag.

5. Step 5

   Jig, then pause

   Raise the bait a few inches a few times, then hold it still for a few seconds. DEC notes that fish generally hit during the pause.

Hole size is a real cost with a hand auger: DEC points out that cutting an 8-inch hole removes almost twice as much ice as a 6-inch one, and advises against buying an auger much bigger than you need. A spud bar, a heavy chisel, does the same job more slowly and belongs on a lanyard so it does not go through the ice.

Which method catches more depends on the water. A Wisconsin DNR fisheries biologist, writing in the agency’s guide to walleye through the ice, finds that tip-ups with live bait often out-catch a jig pole on stained lakes, while on clear lakes jigging may out-produce tip-ups. Ohio’s DNR sums up the rest of the tackle as short rods, light gear, light line and small baits. How many tip-ups or lines one angler may run is set by each state.

Clothing decides how long a first trip lasts. DEC’s guide recommends dressing in layers over a base that wicks moisture, avoiding cotton, which loses its insulation when wet, and bringing extra gloves and warm waterproof boots. A sled carries the gear and a shelter blocks the wind; DEC calls fish finders and underwater cameras helpful but not necessary for success.

How thick ice needs to be for ice fishing

Ice needs to be at least 4 inches thick for ice fishing on foot by the figures New York’s DEC, Ohio’s DNR and Iowa’s DNR publish, and each presents that number as a rule of thumb or a minimum, not a guarantee. Ohio’s DNR calls its thicknesses guidelines for new clear solid ice, says many factors other than thickness can make ice unsafe, and states that there is no such thing as 100 percent safe ice.

The agencies do not share one table. Ohio’s DNR matches 4 inches on foot and 5 for snowmobiles and ATVs, and Iowa’s DNR recommends 4 inches of clear blue ice before fishing. Wisconsin’s DNR prints no figure at all: it says there is no sure answer, that it does not monitor local ice conditions or thickness, and that local bait shops, fishing clubs and resorts often have the most up-to-date reports.

Wisconsin’s DNR lists the basic kit as ice claws or picks, a cellphone in a waterproof bag or case, a life jacket and a length of rope. Ohio’s DNR suggests testing thickness yourself with an ice chisel, an auger or a cordless drill with a long quarter-inch bit, and DEC’s guide adds cleats on boots to prevent falls.

Best time to ice fish

The best time to ice fish is early morning and late afternoon, according to New York’s DEC, and Iowa’s DNR draws the same pattern from dawn until mid-morning and from late afternoon until sundown. Fish under ice move and feed less: Iowa’s DNR calls them more lethargic and less aggressive in winter, and Ohio’s DNR advises a smaller bait presented more slowly.

Walleye and crappie push the window past sunset. DEC rates walleye fishing best just before and after dark. The Wisconsin biologist finds that on stained lakes the hour and a half before dark usually beats early morning and the bite often shuts down right after dark, while on clear lakes the best catches often come after dark. DEC calls crappie fishing very good after dark, and Iowa’s DNR notes that crappies often feed after sunset.

Across the season, Vermont Fish & Wildlife calls late February and early March prime time, when warmer days and cold nights produce some of Vermont’s best ice fishing, and in the same release tells anglers to watch ice conditions as spring gets closer. That late bite falls on old ice, which Iowa’s DNR rates weaker than new.

Under the ice the moon keeps the schedule it keeps over open water. CatchClock centers each two-hour major period on the moon’s meridian transit, overhead or underfoot, and each one-hour minor period on moonrise or moonset; how these windows are calculated sets out that formula. It rests on John Alden Knight’s 1926 solunar theory, a prediction rather than a measurement, and the guide to the best fishing times weighs it against light and water temperature. A major period that overlaps DEC’s late-afternoon hours agrees with the light; a midnight major on a stained walleye lake runs against the Wisconsin finding that the bite there often shuts down after dark.

Computed windows for the next sixteen days sit on the bite windows by city pages, and the fishing app comparison covers which apps publish solunar tables.

Ice fishing for walleye, perch, pike, crappie and trout

Ice fishing for walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, black crappie and trout uses the same hole and the same two methods at different depths. New York’s DEC lists yellow perch, northern pike, walleye, lake trout, brown trout and black crappie among its ice fishing species, and its ice fishing guide gives each a location and a rig, summarized below with Wisconsin DNR depths where the agency publishes one.

Trout reverse their open-water habit. DEC notes that trout, which avoid warm shallow water in open seasons, can be found anywhere from just under the ice to just off the bottom, and that brown trout, rainbow trout and landlocked salmon are frequently caught a few feet under the ice even in deep water. The guide to trout in every other season covers the rest of their year.

Panfish reward the lightest tackle on the ice. A Wisconsin DNR biologist writing the agency’s panfish ice guide describes winter fishing as a return to the spots of summer, with bluegills holding by green, standing weeds, and recommends 2- to 4-pound line. The same guide notes that bluegills and crappie may hold in a narrow depth band, and covers it by jigging slowly from top to bottom.

Which forecast cities average below freezing

Nine CatchClock forecast cities have at least one month whose normal mean air temperature is below 32°F, computed from NOAA’s 1991–2020 climate normals at a weather station within 30 km of each city. That is a precondition for ice, not evidence of it: every agency figure quoted above is in inches of ice, not degrees of air.

How cold and how long are separate measurements. Minneapolis’s January normal, 16.2°F, sits below Anchorage’s 16.9°F, yet Anchorage averages below freezing for five months and Minneapolis for three. Seattle lies farther north than Minneapolis, and its coldest normal month is 41.8°F. Boise’s December and St. Louis’s January both average 32.1°F, a tenth of a degree above the line, and Denver’s single month sits 0.2°F below it. San Diego and New Orleans have no climate table and are not counted.

A freezing month still says nothing about a given lake on a given day. New York’s DEC notes that most water bodies do not freeze over evenly, and Wisconsin’s DNR that current at inlets and outlets thins the ice, so the thickness check applies in Anchorage in January as much as in Boston in February.

Anchorage ice fishing includes stocked water. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game wrote in 2015 that it stocks more than 130 lakes in Southcentral Alaska every year, and its guide to Anchorage stocked lakes says Sand Lake offers great ice fishing in winter.

When this guide does not apply

Ice fishing advice does not apply to ice nobody has measured, and a solunar table does not measure anything.

Nothing on this page makes ice safe. The thickness figures are published minimums for new clear ice, a freezing month is air at a weather station, and a major period is John Alden Knight’s 1926 prediction with ±60 and ±30 minute windows set by convention. On ice under 4 inches, on cloudy ice or over current, the right time to fish is another day.

Everywhere the freezing table does not reach, the same major and minor periods apply to open water. Questions this guide leaves out on purpose, such as licenses, closed trout waters and how many lines one angler may fish, belong to the state agency that sets them.