Guide Lines: Late Ice Panfish – It’s about Opportunity
Winter is finally beginning to wane. The weather was amazing last weekend—55 degrees in late February was glorious! The interesting thing about weather and panfish is that nice weather in late winter and early spring promotes good feeding opportunity for panfish. Opportunity? Yup, they are opportunistic which means they respond to cues that tell them that there is an opportunity. That’s right. Fish are controlled or influenced by natural cues—they don’t think or reason. They can’t undo what nature makes them do. And, as it turns out, there is something about nice weather that gets panfish revved up. I’ve seen it this way since I was a kid. As the days lengthen, the bite and positive feeding intensifies. Why?
I love free food. When I go to a party, I eat way more then I do at home. It’s easy. Food is plentiful and I even find myself eating even though I’m not hungry. Late ice panfish are kind of like me at a party—the food is there and they get on it. The presence of food is very powerful in the instinctive world. There are periods in nature, when the power of food seems to drive or cause an over-ride in average or mundane panfish behavior; behavior that anglers struggle with during the dark and cold winter months. Instinctive controls seem to be ignored for the sake of the “grand buffet” that the spring warmth creates. Because understanding that instinctive behavior is important to appreciating fish (yes anglers should appreciate fish as instinctive animals), I want to side track for a moment and describe a handful of foundation elements that play likely roles in fishes varying instinctive behaviors.
There’s never a singular reason that drives an animal to behave the way they do. Their lives exist like a combination to a lock or safe, it takes more than one number to make a “correct” combination. Huge variables like moon phases, barometer shifts, solar flares, hurricanes on the coast and earthquakes in Tibet all affect animal behavior around the world—to what degree is difficult to know. I believe these “ Big” events (solar/ lunar, atmospheric and planetary-wide) tie into, and alter, the more localized variables like: water depth fluctuation, water clarity variances, dark days vs. light days, snow cover or wave action on a lake’s surface (which influences aquatic vegetation’s life, death, and decay and can increase or reduce oxygen levels in lakes), lengthening of days—which is a product of more sunlight and greater sun potency which creates warming, etc. There are also lake-specific variables that are meaningful to fish behavior like the overall fish populations and the relationships between predator and prey species on given lakes on given years, etc. This seems complicated doesn’t it? It is, but it isn’t. And it doesn’t have to make fishing complicated either. Just knowing that there is a bigger picture out there should help us to appreciate fish species and what controls them. As anglers, it’s important to know that we can’t outsmart fish—that’s why I feel an appreciation for their instinctive nature is vital to being a consistent fisherman. This concept seems to ground me and helps me understand that I’m not in control.
This brings me back to spring and the warming sun and opportunity because, as mid-winter anglers, we were in a tough place and by late January things were looking a little grim. Fishermen had no say. Often, the fish were there and they didn’t want to bite and if they did, it was for brief periods. Their moods were at the mercy of cold-fronts, and super-bright-snow-induced full moon phases, and big coastal storm systems. Wow–mood swings galore. That’s mid-winter fishing for you.
Thank God for spring and rebirth. In the spring, the food chain seems to activate. The sun is potent. You can feel it radiating, finally. I’m not an aquatic biologist, so I make guesses and speculate about why more sunlight and warmth means more fish activity in early spring. I feel that the sunlight which penetrates the decaying ice activates the base of the aquatic food chain which, subsequently, activates the entire food chain. If you stare into a fish hole in the spring, you can see it! The hole is full of jerky little animals. Zooplankton, which are suspending aquatic animals, become abundantly active which are ultimately fed upon by fish species like panfish. Panfish can’t help it! It’s a party and there’s lots of food, and like other prominent periods during the fishing year, the fish can’t help themselves.
Bigger, brighter, warmer, longer sunlight is the centerpiece of spring fishing. It seems too, that when the ice begins to decay, nutrients and matter seep into the lake and may add to the fertility of the underwater buffet. It seems that because of the plentiful food sources created by spring’s warming conditions that panfish just can’t help themselves. Finally, after a long winter, we as fishermen seem to have a little more control. Just know that our “control” has less to do with us and more to do with the panfish seizing opportunity and getting a bit out of control—for a while at least. Enjoy it, and good luck on the lakes in March.
By, Ross Hagemeister, Meister Guide Service
