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s an Ice Fishing Instructor, I often see the last piece of the puzzle to come together for newer anglers is finding the fish. We can teach all about drilling holes, jigging techniques, reading the Vexilar, but none of it really matters unless you are on fish. This was the last piece of the puzzle that came together for me personally and I have learned a few things. Here are a couple of
scenarios that I have experienced that may help you. Of course, my Navionics phone app is the most valuable tool in my fish finding kit. Pairing that app with many hours spent on the water playing the process of elimination game teaches you a few things. One thing I learned from Dave Genz is to think of the water is size of football fields and tennis courts. First search the area in the size of a football field and when you find some fish, break that down into the size of a tennis court. As the leader of WI Women Fish, I am often the one that goes ahead and finds the fish for the group. I use the football field method but be sure to have that “field” include a variety of depths. One experience I had was finding crappies in March for a group of 75 anglers. I used my Navionics App (upgraded subscription) and color code fishing ranges. If you open your app and click on menu, scroll down and you will see Fishing Ranges. There is an on off button and if you are unable to turn it on, you are using the free version and that feature is not available. If you have the upgraded version you can turn it on, and select certain depth ranges to assign a color. This feature alone is well worth the small annual fee. During my pre fishing, I found crappies in the deepest holes. I adjusted my ranges to highlight 28 to 31 feet in pink. Many pink circles jumped out at me, and I went to several “pink” areas and caught fish. When the group came out, I split them up around each of the pink holes I had open my map and everyone caught crappies. I was able to eliminate water, just by having those deep holes highlighted. In a completely different situation, I was fishing a lake that is chuck full of thick weeds. The bowl-shaped lake has weeds that come as high as 15 feet, and the max depth is 20 feet. The only part of the lake that does not have weeds is the 20 foot hole. The lake has huge crappies and gills,
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