What Bait Takes the Cake: A Guide to Ice Fishing Success

If you’re a spring bobber person, the spring doesn’t flinch. Sometimes, the take is so subtle that an eye on the line is the only way. But just because your rod didn’t “thump,” it doesn’t mean that the fish isn’t there – and doesn’t mean it isn’t big. It also doesn’t mean that it didn’t like your bait! It only means that it struck “up,” which crappies especially love to do.

If you’ve watched them on the camera, or sight fished in clear water, you’ve seen fish of all sizes swim up, sometimes even aggressively inhale a bait, and then sit there enjoying it for a moment before deciding what to do next. Sometimes they swim forward, sometimes they back up, sometimes they sulk toward the bottom, and sometimes they keep gliding higher toward the ice.

In the moments that frustrate us the most … they exhale the bait, and the hook never finds the edge of their mouth. But - sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the fish are dumb, and wild, and they just bang into your bait, a blind turnip could catch ‘em, you set the hook and haul ‘em topside, giddy and giggling as you wind away on your reel.

To catch ‘em all, it takes a beady eye focused on that spot where the line meets the water, maybe on a kink in the line that reacts as you tremble your rod tip, dipping and dappling a deepwater dance to finesse the fish. But that alone won’t do it. You gotta have something dancing away under your feet. You need bait. The right bait. Inside all of us dwells an inner kid who loves collecting these things: big ones, small ones, short ones, tall ones, bright ones, shiny ones, muted ones, all of ‘em. As long as your bills are getting paid and you’re being a little generous from time to time, I’m here to encourage it. Go nuts.

Baits can be broken down into a few categories. The mainstay of ice fishing is the jig - the single hook jig, most popularly in lead or tungsten. Its counterpart might be the single hook, most often fished with a single minnow skewered behind the dorsal fin. Occasionally a treble hook might be employed, especially for pike and walleyes. On the heels of these two nuts-and-bolts terminal tackle basics is the spoon, which comes in a variety of styles, and which accounts for a great many fish each year, particularly predators.

And in more recent years, there’s been a proliferation of little hard baits designed specifically for ice fishing. Most have a line-tie somewhere in the back rather than on the nose like open water lures. There are sub-categories and other oddball fringe baits that we could split hairs about, but if you have a mix of jigs, spoons, and hard baits - with a few hooks along for the ride - you’ve got the lure food groups covered.

What goes on the hooks is where things get spicy. The venerable champion among ice anglers everywhere is the wax worm. The waxie is to ice fishing as the night crawler is to open water fishing. Tipping a jig or spoon with a waxie is day-in and day-out ice fishing meat and potatoes. You can get cute and use spikes if you like, and some days they’ll outfish the wax worm. If you want to deal with them, minnows catch fish too, especially predators like walleyes and bass, and perch and crappies for sure. But soft plastics have become the name of the game for so many hard water anglers over the past decade; in an ever-expanding array of shapes, styles, and colors. Have at it. Try them all. Or don’t.

As for me, I find that I have a half dozen boxes and several bait wallets full of options so that I can confidently go to the same few proven options over and over. And here they are:

A gold, tungsten, horizontal marmooska style jig with a sharpened hook like the Clam Pro Tackle Drop Jig usually gets the first nod from me in any water anywhere. I’ll add to that a red plastic like the Clam Maki Polli and I’ll expect that to catch fish. I’ve also done very well with Chartreuse & Blue and the Glow Firetiger color in the Drop Jigs, and if I’m not catching fish on a red Polli then I’m probably switching to white or pink. Northland makes the Impulse Mayfly which is an awesome shape, and it works brilliantly in the olive green color.

For years the Swedish Pimple was the ice jig, and if not that, then the Acme Kastmaster. Those will still catch ‘em but I don’t tie on either very often any more. For me, it’s either the Custom Jigs & Spins Slender Spoon, Clam Leech Flutter Spoon, or the Clam Jointed Pinhead Minnow, but other people will argue me on this. I like silver spoons, but firetiger seems to be the answer some days. I love putting a minnow head on a spoon, but a few waxies will do, too.

Absolutely none of this matters if you don’t have the right rod & reel in your hand, and there are a lot of ways to go here. Personally, I like a stiffer rod for jigging spoons and lures and a soft one for working jigs, but reasonable people can disagree, and Piscifun has an assortment to meet your preference. When I’m inside a shack I want a shorter and if I’m fishing outside I don’t mind a little longer rod. A good all ‘rounder is something like the Piscifun ICX Focus in 26” with the Titanium Tip if you ask me.

More and more, I find myself reaching for a levelwind reel, and it makes even more sense as those have advanced over the past few years. Bluegills especially hate line spin, and unless I’m in super deep water - which I very rarely fish - a reel like the Piscifun ICX Frost Carbon Ice Fishing Reel is going to help you translate to your bait the precise action that you intend to. Moreover, it’s going to help you react fast when you see the magic tic in the line that trips your trap, making your wrist snap back, your arm lift, and your lips curl up into a big wide smile as your rod bends deep and starts to bob bob bob under the throb of a fish.