<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->The sunfish is often the most sought after fish in the winter. Sunfish are generally easy to catch and they are aggressive feeders even on the coldest winter days. I’m hoping to offer some incite about fishing sunfish that you haven’t read 1000’s times in magazines or other websites. The key to me in finding good-sized sunfish (8-10 inch) is to identify a lake with good sunfish habitat, less fishing pressure and large expanses of deep weeds with a cabbage/coontail mix being the best cover. Deep weeds offer a few advantages for holding big sunfish. Deep weeds offer food sources such as zooplankton and aquatic insects in heavy cover. The heavy cover offers hiding places from predators like pike and bass. Add in the fact that deep weeds offer oxygen levels that support fish life and weed growth and you’ve got yourself a spot. The reason I like large expanses of deep cabbage is they offer more areas to harbor big fish and the large expanses are more difficult for many fisherman to fish effectively. The reason most anglers don’t fish these areas effectively is most are not mobile enough and they are not willing to drill up to 80-100 holes per day. Mobility and holes in the ice are a key advantage to hunting down big sunfish.

Migrating or Home Bodies-

Once you identify a large deep weed bed the next chore is to figure out if the fish migrate along a route or do the fish basically have a home range? If the fish are migratory feeders you’ll find them swimming roads in the weeds and holding in weed pockets. Finding these fish takes some work but once you’ve uncovered the road and the pattern the fish follow you’ll have big time success. You’ll be able to find the proverbial spot on the spot. That is individual areas only a few feet in circumference will yield big time results. The down side to this road effect is you won’t be catching fish almost anywhere in the weed bed. Many times these are areas where big sunfish can be caught. An underwater camera like the Marcum VS 350 can help you identify these roads and holes. If you don’t fish with a camera (I seldom do) use your flasher to locate areas devoid of weed growth within the larger expanse of weeds. Fish that roam a home range are easier to find. Typically you’ll catch fish all over the weed bed with no single place being much better than another. In either instance you’ll most likely find yourself drilling many holes in the weed bed. Since mobility and speed is important to me I use a Nilsmaster 8-inch power auger to cut my holes. This unit cuts ice like butter and it’s very lightweight.

What About The Basin Fish?

I find that bluegills wintering in deep holes or basins often support huge quantities of smaller sunfish and those holes are often pounded hard by fellow anglers who are looking to ice dinner. For this reason experience has taught me to avoid wintering basins when searching specifically for large sunfish and bluegill. Not to say you can’t run into an occasional big gill while sifting thru midgets in a wintering basin just that my years of fishing sunnies thru the ice says you are less likely to catch numerous large fish in a wintering basin.

Let’s Hear About The Gear-

When targeting large sunfish I prefer a Thorne Bros Panfish Sweetheart with a Shimano 500 reel spooled with 3lb P-line. For jigs I usually start with Shrimpo’s or Gootz Panny Jigs. If I’m seeing fish but I can’t get the desired response I make a move to Rat Finkes. Or if the fish are really finicky 1/100 Marmooska’s are always a great option. I tip my jigs with wax worms. Since fishing sunfish requires great feel you may want to get used to fishing without gloves (I almost never use gloves) or the other option is to use a portable icehouse as either a warming house or a windbreak. My personal choice for an icehouse is the Otter Magnum Lodge. As a house it’s very comfortable for two anglers and as a windbreak it can’t be beat because it will hold firm in heavy wind.

Once I’ve drilled about 20-30 holes in my believed fish holding area I look for fish with my sonar. I prefer the Marcum units LX-3 or LX-5 because these unit's ID fish very well in heavy cover in any depth (I know a double preposition but this is fishing). Any points or turns in the weeds (a good deep weed bed has numerous points and turns remember the road fact I spoke about above) will have more and bigger sunfish. Remember a weed bed can be an entire bay of deep weeds or it can be a lengthy deep weed line with weeds running from 8-18 feet deep for 100’s of yards. Weed lines can be found within weed beds. A weed bed can have many distinct weed lines, almost no weed lines just a huge expanse of weeds (I don’t like to fish these) or they can have many clumps of weeds dispersed over a large area of water from 8-18 feet deep or so.

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Fish all the holes you have opened with a wax worm or larvae of your choice. If all the fish in a particular hole are runts move to a new hole. Big bluegills tend to group together in the prime habitat areas of a weed bed. In general when fishing intentionally for big bluegills I like to use bigger jigs and two whole waxies. This will help eliminate catching runts too. Big sunfish on the feed like a bigger bait most of the time. If you are seeing fish on your LX-5 but you can’t get them to bite down size your jig. In this instance I’d go to a Marmooska or a Rat Finke tipped with a wax worm. Work the jig somewhat aggressively until a fish comes in then stop the bait dead in its tracks and wait to feel the bite. You may not even feel a bite….just a gentle lifting action with the Panfish Sweetheart will set a Marmooska, Goot or Rat Finke. So if the fish are not hitting the bait but looking hard and biting very undetectably I’d get in a rhythm of lifting my rod tip every 30 seconds or so. Other methods to detect finicky eaters are to use an Ice Buster bobber and set it for neutral buoyancy or get a Pat Smith spring bobber/bite detector at Thorne Bros. These devices will allow you to detect a light biter.

Move or Stay Put-

Lastly my strategy requires moving often or staying put. If the fish stop biting move. If the fish are small move. If the fish vanish for 20 minutes or more move. Constant moving requires mobility. The Otter Lodge I recommended will carry all of your gear and it’s easy to pull with your legs, snowmobile or 4 wheeler. It also fits in the back of a full size pick up… should we ever get enough ice to drive on. The only time I’d sit is if I think I found a migration route (the road fish use to move from one area of a weed bed to another) or a weed clump that’s been consistently producing big sunfish. In this instance you may be able to wait them out. This method requires more patience than I have but I’ve seen guy’s camp on a hole or two and catch nice fish over a relatively long period of time (an hour or two or the entire day if they really think they’re smart).

Truth in Tactics-

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> I hit a bluegill lake about 2 hours north of the Twin Cities. Upon arrival about 10 fellow anglers already inhabited my formerly double secret deep weed bed so I walked to another weed bed sans anglers and began to punch holes. I’d never fished this weed bed thru the ice before and it was a bit smaller than what I’d like but it was a good weed bed containing cabbage and coontail in water 8-14 feet deep. I punched 30 plus holes before I found a pod of gills in 10 feet. All the gills were in an area about the size of a pick-up truck. Among many gills caught I nabbed a 9.25 in that spot. Later in the day applying the same tactics in another weed bed with heavy angling pressure I iced a true monster gill 10.5 inches! In another hole I caught 4 sunfish over 9 inches in a ten-minute span. I caught 6 sunfish over 9 inches yesterday and 4 of them came from a single hole! I shot a bit of video for you to check out. Here’s a link to 6 minutes of super gills http://www.fishfever.com/node/318 (I had to speak softly so I wouldn’t alert the nearby anglers that I was on fish so turn up the volume). Lure of choice was the Gootz Panny Jig. All of the sunfish caught were released.

Please release championship size sunfish over 8.5 inches in length. According to the Minnesota DNR report Bluegill Growth Rate a 8.5-inch sunfish from Northern Minnesota is an 7-10 year old fish. A 10-inch fish is 10-15 years old. Please don’t eat these big gills. It will take 10-15 years to replace a 10-inch bluegill you eat. There are plenty of 7-8 inchers to eat and you’ll catch eating size crappies while icing sunfish too. I recommend the release of all crappies over 12 inches in length. Please do this to make sure our kids can catch big panfish in the future!

Now hopefully you’ve gleaned a few things from this material that will help you catch more and bigger sunfish. And hopefully I’ve raised a few new points to think about next time you hunt sunfish through the ice.

Pete Riola is an avid ice angler and a co-founder of FishFever.com

Submitted by Pete on Mon, 01/01/2007 - 3:50pm.
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