Summer vs Winter correlation

[walleye6336]

For those of you who fish regularly, is there a direct correlation between good open water fishing and ice fishing?  We have been traveling from TX for ice fishing for a week of ice fishing for nearly 10 years and the first couple years very little work was required to catch fish, then went through a phase of catching lots of fish, but small ones, then not as many small ones, but had to work hard for our dinner.  Is this just a cyclical pattern that the lake goes through and did the summer fishing provide similar results?

 

 

[curt quesnell]

What seems to be the deciding factor in successful ice fishing is the availability of shiner minnows.  If there is a good run in the late fall fishing seems to be good in the winter.  If the shiners go somewhere else for the fall run, so do the fish.  We all looked pretty darn smart 8 years ago, more fish around than you could catch and there were lots of big ones. There were also bumper runs of shiner minnows. 

Summer fishing, and fall fishing are awesome so it isn't like the fish are gone.  Note that the charter boats are wearing out the waves heading for the NW Angle every day and the bite is real good 5 miles from shore in 35 feet of water in mid summer.  Things have changed a little, the fish are of different sizes but they are still there and biting.

There are more and more people fishing every year and that is making the usual spots tougher to fish.  In your case, coming to fish for a week a year you may not be able to count on the fish being in the exact same place every time you come up. 

I don't know when your annual trip is but I will tell you that fishing is pretty solid till mid January and then you may have to hunt them down as the season progress's.

It is not ALL shiner minnows but I think that is a large part of it, next I would say crowds and all other reasons after that.  The fish are there and abundant, why they take off in mid winter is the question.  One last thing, fishing at the NW Angle stays pretty solid all winter up where there isn't so many people fishing

 

Good Luck, Enjoy your trip.

Here is a tub I caught Saturday morning in one of the usual places.