Rock-Solid Ice Fishing Tips To Catch More Panfish

Try these troubleshooting tips and hard-water strategies when faced with a tough bite when targeting yellow perch, crappie, bluegills and other panfish.

Panfish receiving steady angling pressure can be tough to catch. One reliable workaround is figuring out how to make your presentation standout from the dozens of others lures fish see on a regular basis. 

A good first step is getting away from community holes. Another can’t-miss strategy is using new lures, like the Rattling Roach Spoon.

No need to ignore tried-and-true panfish lures, though. Just consider adding some newly released colours to your tackle collection, like the latest paint patterns available in the VMC spoon collection (e.g., Tingler, Flash Champ, etc.), Jigging Rap, Ultra Light Rippin’ Rap and Slab Rap, to name just a few fan favourites.

Don’t forget to lean-in to Sufix Advance Ice Fluorocarbon’s near invisible underwater properties in tough-bite scenarios. Nothing against mono, but Sufix Fluorocarbon is hard to beat when fish are fussy, especially in clear water.

Piggybacking on the above tip, serious panfish anglers never hit the ice without soft plastics. Two new soft baits you’ll want in your collection are CrushCity’s Creeper grub and The Suspect finesse swimbait. 

Put one of these baits on a VMC Moon Eye Jig or Ned Rig Jig and you’ve got yourself a serious scent-loaded, panfish-catching weapon with incredible action. Aggressive perch and crappie will easily gulp down these 2.5” and 2.75” offerings. You may need to trim off some of the nose to create a more compact for situations when panfish are less active.

The Tungsten Wax Tail Jig and Tungsten Mustache Jig are other reliable soft plastics not to be without this winter. Each has a unique profile and action, giving you more options to dial-in panfish preferences.

A breeze blowing ice fishing line around is rarely a good thing when trying to jig with precision and stay in control of a presentation. One easy solution is positioning your body to act as a windbreak, shielding fishing line as much as possible from swirling gusts.

Another trick is keeping the rod tip low to expose the least among of line to the wind. This is one reason anglers crouch when ice fishing when using short to moderate length ice rods. 

A downside of crouching for some anglers is the constant up-and-down required when actively hole-hopping to cover water. In this case, an effective workaround is to stand and fish with a longer-than-average ice fishing rod, like the 38” light Tickle Stick, to ensure the tip stays close to the ice hole. There are more advantages to using this 38-incher, too. For instance, lifting the rod  picks up a lot of line, which improves fishing efficiency when hole-hopping in shallow water as well as improving deep-water hook sets.

You’ve tried every jigging sequence trick in the book — pounding, slow rises, double-snaps, controlled falls and so on — but can’t convince panfish to close the gap and eat the bait. There are many different options one can try when dealing with such a panfish predicament, but one tactic that’s sometimes overlooked is deadsticking the bait. For. A. Long. Time.

Keeping the presentation motionless is critical. In fact, this is such a key detail some anglers find it more effective to put the jigging stick in a rod holder or across a bucket instead of holding the rod in the hand. 

It’s amazing how after a certain amount of time passes, a switch can get flipped in a panfish’s brain, causing it to suddenly see red and lash out. As you might expect, tipping with live-bait or scented soft bait can help seal the deal. 

Panfish relating to deep flats have a tendency to wander around, and keeping up with moving fish can be a challenge. One simple, effective tactic, though, is fishing a fast-sinking bait. This lets you quickly get the presentation into the strike zone of fish you’ve marked on the sonar before they swim away.

Tungsten jigs are a good bet when panfish are keyed-in on small forage. Denser than lead, tungsten makes it easy to fish “small but heavy”. A few to consider are the new Tungsten Larv Eye Jig, Tungsten Chandelier Jig, Tungsten Tubby Jig and Tungsten Mongo Jig.

Fishing a fast-sinking spoon with a dropper chain, like a Rocker Spoon, can also be worthwhile . The beauty of the Rocker is it produces ample movement and flash to attract panfish from far away, but also features a small, glow resin Octopus hook dangling on a black nickel dropper chain for teasing bites once fish get within striking distance. 

Too hard of a hook set, dull hook point and poor fish-playing maneuvers are some reasons panfish come unbuttoned. Fortunately there are several easy things anglers can do to prevent long-line releases. 

One hook-set hack is dropping the rod tip an inch or two before sweeping the rod upward to drive home the hook. Lowering the rod give some slack to a nibbling panfish, and delays the hook-set ever-so slightly. This can result in the panfish getting more of the bait in their yap and, in turn, better hook penetration and holding power. 

Fishing panfish using a Widow Maker Noodle Ice Rod can also improve landing percentages. This 32” ultra-light rod has a precision-tuned blank with the perfect amount of action for executing smooth, solid hook-sets. Once the fish is on, the blank then continues working in an angler’s favour, buffering the stress of hard runs, head shakes and other jarring moves to keep tiny hooks locked in a soft-mouthed panfish.

Children and panfish go together like peas and carrots, but sometimes it’s tough for tikes to connect all the complicated dots involved with ice fishing for perch, crappie and sunfish. Here are three simple things you can do to set children up for success.

1. Get them a 23” Tickle Stick. It’s easier for youngsters to control and jig with precision using a short rod. Tickle Sticks also deliver exceptional sensitivity and strike detection thanks to 13 Fishing’s PC2 Flat Tip Blank Technology.

2. Spool up a Wicked or a Heatwave ice fishing spinning reel with 3-pound Sufix Advance Ice Monofilament. It’s abrasion resistant, supple and sensitive.

3. Coach them to use a “less is more” jigging approach.

4. Tie in a small VMC swivel 18 inches above their jigs to prevent line twist, which can cause a bait to spin unnaturally as well as lead to line tangles.