Becoming a Better Ice Fisherman

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 series of ice fishing videos, you will learn advanced fishing techniques, such as using a depth finder as well as a fish finder to help make the fishing challenge a bit easier. Our expert will also suggest how to get fish to bite on slow fishing days with techniques such as "power fishing" and "bottom pounding."

Video Transcript

"In this series, we're going to be talking about how to get more technical while you're ice fishing, and there's a lot of basics that are involved in ice fishing, but every year there's more and more techniques that people start to use. In the beginning, only a few use them and then the word's spread. One of those is using a fish finder while ice fishing, and most people don't think about fish finders on the ice, they think about fish finders when they're fishing out of a boat during the summer, but not in the wintertime. We're also going to see how to use an electronic depth finder, which will tell you the depth that each hole before you start to fish. We're going to talk about a variety of different jigging techniques, because jigging isn't just moving your rod up and down. There's all sorts of different ways to dead stick, to finesse fish a jig, to power fish a jig. There's also different techniques that we're going to talk in terms of specific ways to catch trout on tip-ups, how to avoid line twists, and all of those are going to help you become a better angler through the ice."