Ice Fishing Bait Strategies

Series Summary

Ice fishing can take place anywhere you have ice and fish in the same place. Well, a tray full of ice cubes and Stouffer's tuna casserole won't quite do the trick; the ice needs to be covering a body of water which is home to hearty fish who can live in very cold water and are accommodating enough to nibble on the bait of foolhardy humans wearing thermal suits or 12 layers of clothes. Apparently, ice fishing provides an ideal opportunity for introspection and contemplation in the Scandinavian countries and an opportunity to socialize and get drunk in the ice fishing lodges and resorts in North America, though the Finns and Norwegians have been known to mix vodka with their isolation. Ice fishing is a popular wintertime sport in Canada, Russia and the United States as well as in Scandinavia. Forest Lake, Minn. hosts one of the most popular ice fishing contests in the U.S. every February. In this free ice fishing series, our experienced fisherman will discuss bait and lures for ice fishing. Should you use a minnow on your jig? Or perhaps a maggot would work betters. Watch this ice fishing series to get the final word from an expert.

Video Transcript

"Alright in this series we're going to talk about how to get started ice fishing, part two. So we're going to start to get in to a little bit more depth and detail in terms of how to rig some certain baits, and how to decide what set of lures to use. And one of the most important things when you're fishing is to determine what type of lure to use, what size to use, and it's going to depend on the species that you're fishing for. We're also going to talk about different sizes of hooks, how to determine the size of the hook, what size sinker to use on your line. We're also going to talk about how to rig various baits on your jig rod, including minnows, crawlers, maggots. We're also going to talk about how to rig those various baits on to a tip up, because with a tip up you have some different options in terms of how to rig a minnow that you wouldn't have on a jig rod. We're also going to talk a little bit about some different knots that you can use to tie the hook to your line. And some more specifics about different colors of lures that you might want to use."