Which do you prefer?
Ice Fishing
Early ice or Late ice?
Good call macho. Looks like you might be right. Unfortunately, there’s a significant warm up and every day it’s looking warmer and warmer. They keep upping the temps. This will affect southern Wisconsin ice significantly and that Ice season might not last as far to the end of March as I would’ve thought just a few weeks ago. Here in northern Wisconsin, we’re still fine. Temps aren't nearly as bad. Plus there’s a lot of ice out there. Maybe the first two weeks of March will give way to cooler weather towards the end of March and solidify our ice well into April. At least I hope so.
Early by far, access is good, the bite is hot, the later it gets into late jan-feb the bite slows down drastically. Access is really tough up here with all the snow we get. Some times it snows heavy during deer season and doesnt let up, you have to start making trails out to the spots then they get snowed in and you have to start over. I couldnt even fish the last two years, and finally got out this year with the low snow
Late ice by a landslide. Only problem is here in Southern Wisconsin late ice doesn't last long! We generally go from pretty good ice to not having safe ice in about two weeks or less. It never gets old, almost every year around now I think we're going to have ice until late March then we get a thaw and it just gets warmer. Then, as soon as the ice melts it never fails to get cold again so shore fishing then sucks too!
Late ice for sure. Early ice is fun. Lots of adrenaline like someone said. But I don’t do very well. It does get better around Christmas. I typically lay low in January and February. Get out from time to time. But not so much. But I love late ice. Spring is in the air. Nice temps. Everything smells like spring, even the wind. You hear certain birds that are coming back…Easy to get around. Not a lot of people are still out there. And the bite is generally good.
Late ice for me. I fish pike and I can get more fish early ice but the big girls usually come late ice just before the spawn. Caught this today. I wouldn’t call this late ice but it’s getting close. This fish was in deep water adjacent to marshy spawning area. Like live bait early ice, the livelier the better. Late ice dead bait is better for me.