icefishing question

[westernny]

on the inland lake that i fish the morning bite usually last around a half hour,sometimes it will last up to 1 hour but not to often.
Should i sit in one spot for the short bite or possibly miss some fish and roam around drilling more holes looking for more fish?

[Tom]

i don,t ice fish alot anymore for now and when i did it was always on real small inland lakes, the one thing i get from this board is if your a bigger body of water and the fishing slows move on to another spot sorta like runnin and gunnin, i think thats what a lot of these guys that are icefishing will tell you is move move move. hope this helps.



Tom

[eyedoktr]

westernny, I'm guessing that you're referring to Chatauqua. While I'm not familiar with that lake, I generally fish Honeoye, and find that jumping hole to hole within a 100 yd or so area will extend the bite.It used to be that when the bite totally stopped, we would move as much as a quarter mile and generally managed to stay on top of the fish. All to often, we found the fish but they had lockjaw. After catching one fish, I usually move to an adjacent hole, even if it's only a couple of feet away. I don't think I'll get any Honeoye time this winter, I think it's all open.

[Budman]

Mark your structure before you start drilling your holes. Drill a bunch in a big X about 4 feet apart or mark your dropoffs. Then move around after the bite stops because the fish are usually moving. Good Luck...They don't have to move very far. Where the heck is there any ice??? I'm taking my boat out tomorrow!

[Skillz]

Recently in some magazine, (I want to say either In-fisherman or Field and Stream) they did an article on how to drill holes for this very purpose. You might want to check this out. I think it was a few months ago, maybe oct-nov?? They covered it pretty well, and if you have a partner, that is even better. Good luck, and gas up the auger!!

skz

[icefisher73]

One tip I can give you is to drill 10 or so holes first, then as the bite slows you can move hole to hole without spooking the fish with the auger.