Go Slow for Ice-Out Trout and Salmon
Published: Sunday, March 21, 2021
By: Dan Armitage
At ice-out, Great Lakes waters are the warmest they’ve been since skimming over last fall, a fact not lost on the salmon and trout searching for the first substantial meals of the new season. The salmonids realize that the local baitfish—primarily herring, shiners, or smelt—are on the move as well and they prowl beneath the slush and icebergs to chase down the forage.
Anglers willing to brave the arctic water conditions, dodging ice floes and dragging slender-bodied crankbaits that mimic the local forage fish through open water, often reap the benefits of a frigid day of early spring fishing. Trout and salmon will slash a properly presented bait this time of year and often in shallower water than you’d expect. The key to early-season presentations is to keep things s-l-o-w. Using drift socks, trolling plates, bow-mounted electric trolling motors, and kicker outboards, ice-out trollers try to keep their boat’s progress below 1.5 mph—and often half that pace to get the wobble from their lures to trigger a strike.
The fish may be found anywhere in the water column this time of the year. But whatever their depth, the temperature of the water keeps them from being as active when feeding as when it’s ten degrees warmer, meaning they often prefer a particularly slow presentation. One issue trollers face is how to get the right action from a stickbait that may only be going
through the water at a half-mile an hour. “Right” often means a wide, slow wobble no matter what depth the lure is expected to run. Not all crankbaits offer that.
To learn how baits will run and wherein the water column, it pays to start out with a variety of lures and presentations. Many anglers will start trolling at about 1 mph and adjust the speed from there. For starters, they’ll use in-line planer boards dragging floating/diving stickbaits such as Bomber Long-As or Reef Runners. These are popular baits for shallow work because they will float up on turns, when speed decreases, instead of sinking to the bottom where they could snag.
On inside boards or flat-lines, anglers often use deeper-running floating/diving baits for the same reason: on turn the lures float up and run shallower, often triggering a strike. Bomber Deep Long-As and deep diving Reef Runners are common choices. Other popular early-season stick baits for trolling-up ice-out trout and salmon on flat-lines are suspending models, such as Deep Suspending Rattlin’ Rogues or Smithwick Perfect 10s. Rather than sinking like spoons or floating like other crankbaits on turns, the neutrally buoyant lures remain at the same depth when the pulling pace is reduced. Sometimes it’s that stop and hovers “action” that provokes a strike from a lethargic spring salmonid.
Again, speed is paramount, and because most anglers prefer to troll with the wind to keep the speed down to spring-time speeds of less than 1.5 mph, drift socks or bucket-dragging may be called for. Line choice matters too, especially when targeting spring browns in super clear water. Ten-pound test monofilament with a fluorocarbon leader is a popular choice, with some anglers going lighter in clearer waters. In addition to being harder for the fish to see in clear water, in any visibility, the lighter line and use of a uni-knot or a simple snap allow the baits more motion at the slow speeds. Which, again, is key. Once you get a program working speed-wise, covering multiple depths, then it’s time to start experimenting with colors and patterns until you find the combo that works to keep the rod tips dancing.
About the Author
Dan Armitage is a popular Great Lakes-based outdoor writer and host of the Buckeye Sportsman show (buckeyesportsman.com), syndicated weekly on 30 radio stations across Ohio. Dan is a certified Passport to the Fishing instructor and leads kids fishing programs at Midwest boat and sport shows, and is a licensed Captain with a Master rating from the US Coast Guard.
A version of this article appeared in the Spring Issue (Mar/Apr) 2021 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Fishing
