It becomes more clear to me every year that a lot of people hang onto their old traditions, like using their grandpa's wooden jigging stick and sitting over one hole, smack in the middle of a crowd, because at sunset they catch fish. When fish are active at that magical time when the sun is hitting the trees, you will catch them if they can find your bait, no matter how crude your equipment is. But to catch fish that you find by striking off on your own, in the middle of the day, you need to learn the new way. Even if you own no decent ice fishing equipment right now, it's amazing how small the investment is to get up to the minute. You can get the right rods, reels, line, lures, shelter, auger, depthfinder, and clothes for much less than the comparable gear you need to fish during the open-water months.

You gotta move!
You not only have to have the right equipment, you have to limit how much of the right equipment you bring with you for a day on the ice.

All your stuff has to be quickly mobile and organized to move if you're going to fish with the spirit of adventure it takes to succeed. It needs to be as light as possible, meaning you shouldn't bring even one thing you aren't likely to use. You wouldn't believe how light I travel on the ice. I often have just one or two small tackle boxes, with other backup tackle in the truck, parked on shore, where I can get back to it if I need to. If your stuff breaks your back to move it, you won't move, especially when you encounter deep snow, slushy conditions, or simply have long distances to cover.

You also need to keep yourself organized as you fish, so you can move at a moment's notice. I see a lot of people bring their stuff out on a small sled, or in a bucket, but they spread it all out over the ice at the first stop they make. Because it becomes a hassle to gather everything up and move, they don't move.

If you don't move, you will not be consistently successful. You may occasionally make a good catch, and that may cause you to continue in your old ways for the rest of the winter.

I talk a lot about mobility. The willingness to move, the ability to pack up quickly and move, is one of the things that separates the best ice anglers from the rest of the pack. The best ice anglers, in fact, rarely fish in the pack. They strike out on their own, or move around the edges of the pack, and find fish that are unbothered and willing to bite.

The most common mistake beginning ice fishermen make is to bring too much stuff with them. I have refined my list of what I think you need to succeed. Bring more, and you won't move enough to be a modern ice angler.

You need a good depthfinder!
You need a good depthfinder, rigged for fishing through the ice, to get the most out of the sport. In my opinion, you simply can't fish the way you have to without one. Without sonar, how do you know when a fish comes swimming up to your bait? How do you know when to start changing things up with your presentation? How do you know how the fish reacted to how you were jigging, so you can try something different the next time a fish comes up to your bait?

A depthfinder becomes your underwater eyes in the winter... in fact, because you're stationary, a good depthfinder makes ice fishing even more fun than open-water fishing in a lot of ways.

The Ice Box, available in most stores that sell ice-fishing equipment, holds a powerful gel-cell battery, that will run your depthfinder all day even in the coldest weather, and is set up so you put the transducer in the same hole you fish out of. For my money, the Vexilar FL-8 is still the sonar to get. It's a flasher that gives you instant feedback as a fish reacts to your presentation... something you can't duplicate with a liquid crystal. The colored display alerts you when a fish enters the edge of your cone angle (marks as weak green), moves closer (turns yellow), and finally settles directly at the bait (red alert!).

You need to be able to drill holes easily!
Many ice anglers still think drilling a hole through the ice is going to be a grueling process. A lot of people only drill one hole each time they go fishing. That's like going out in your boat and casting to the exact same spot all day.

The best augers are better than they've ever been, and again, I have a favorite--the lazer series by Strikemaster. Get a gas, electric or hand model, depending on how thick the ice gets in your area. If the ice seldom gets thicker than 12 inches where you live, a lazer hand auger should handle anything you need to do.

You need a portable shelter!
As a modern ice angler who is searching for fish at midday, you should take a personal pledge to fish in each new hole for no more than maybe 10 or 15 minutes, unless you are catching fish.

If I'm not seeing fish on my FL-8, I always begin with an aggressive jigging presentation. If fish don't show up (you'll see them on the screen) in a reasonable time, I'm on to the next spot. In fact, what I normally do is drill 3, 4, 5 or more holes in a general area, and fish them all within about 20 minutes.

You have to be able to drill holes quickly with minimal effort, see what's down there, and stay out of the cold and wind while you're fishing. Fish outside on a bucket if you want to, but the wind is your enemy, even when it's relatively light. It can freeze the hole shut, fill your rod guides with ice, coat your line with ice, and blow your line around so it becomes more difficult than it should be to detect bites.

I mentioned that sitting still can be an advantage. Ice anglers can be even more effective than open-water anglers who are fighting the wind. If you can get your line hanging straight down through a hole in the ice, and you're getting a clear picture (on your sonar screen) of your lure, you'll see fish come swimming into your hole. If the fish comes right up to your bait, you go into hyper-alert mode and really tune your senses into what's going on. Fish without a depthfinder and you get caught by surprise a lot of times, and miss bites. If you're paying attention, you'll feel a slight tick, or see the line move slightly, and a quick hookset normally brings a throbbing fish into the picture. Compare that to bouncing up and down in a boat, trying to detect bites. But you do have to be out of the wind to make the most of your ice fishing advantages. The Fish Trap, available in one- or two-person models, puts canvas walls around you with the flick of a wrist in about one second. Inside is dry storage for your gear, a seat, and you, ready to catch more fish than ever.

You need a good rod and reel!
A good rod and reel lets you feel the weight of the jig as you move it, and a sharp tick is a bite most people will feel. But if the fish just slides up and sucks in the bait, or rises up with the bait in its mouth, you also have to be able to detect a slight tick, or the absence of the weight, and set the hook.

How do you know a good rod when you feel it? It must remain stiff when the lure is at rest. It has to be soft enough that it helps cushion the line from breaking when you're fighting a fish, but it has to have enough stiffness that it holds firm when the lure is at rest.

Rods should be built for the pound-test line you're using. With lighter line, you can use softer action rods. With heavier line, you can use stiffer rods. Actually, something that is not well understood is that the rod, reel, line, and lure all have to balance for the package to work well. You normally only hear about the rod and reel being "balanced." It's common for people to use line that's too heavy, or a lure that's too light to make the line hang straight.

With a setup that's "right," the lure is heavy enough to make the line hang straight down, with no coils or any slack to it. That makes it easier to detect light bites. And the rod is stiff enough to keep from feeling "sloppy" when you're working the lure. One good, reliable source of modern ice fishing rods is Berkley. They let me design some rods under my signature that I think you will find are some of the finest ice fishing rods you will ever hold in your hand.

You need knowledge of the lakes in your area!
What's in your area lakes? If you want to increase your catch of walleyes, or panfish, or northern pike, or bass, or trout, you have to be fishing on waters that have good populations of those species. You need to do some off-the-water homework, something most anglers fall way short on. The most under-used source of good information are the local fisheries biologists who work for your state's natural resources department (they call them Department of Natural Resources, Fish and Game Department, and other such names, depending on the state). Call directory assistance, or do a search using keywords on the internet, and find out who the local biologist in your area is. Ask him or her about the fish populations in your area lakes. Ask which ones might have a tendency to get low on oxygen as the winter wears on, and make sure to fish them early in the ice season, if at all.

Some lakes are just not good ice fishing lakes, something we don't completely understand, but we have to accept. Other lakes seem to kick out more good fish through the ice than during the open-water season.

Also, talk with bait shop employees. Carefully read the local newspapers to see where fish tend to come from (remembering that not everybody tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth).

You also have to know about the species of fish you want to catch, and how they react to the winter season. Read articles and attend seminars by good ice fishermen, to learn what depth of water and types of spots your target species stakes out at different stages of the winter season.

At that point, it's a matter of taking the right gear--only as much as you need--onto the ice, and chasing fish with the spirit of a modern ice angler.

Fish Lonely, Fish Aggressive!
To most people, a lake that has no fish houses on it must have no fish in it. It's the nature of most ice anglers to seek out others of their kind, to go smack into the middle of a group and ask if anybody is catching anything. Even the most adventurous sort seems to battle loneliness at the thought of striking out and looking for fish on their own.

Most of the time when I'm catching fish, there's nobody around me, except for maybe a few friends who might be fishing with me. We always try to get off by ourselves and find our own fish.

It's the kind of thing most ice fishermen are missing out on. Striking off on your own should be one of your goals for this winter.

Why is the crowd so comforting?
To ice fishermen, it seems there is comfort in numbers, psychological comfort that comes from thinking `if there are already some people out here, it must be a good spot.' And, in fact, groups of fish houses, and clusters of bucket-sitters, often do develop on good fishing spots. Sometimes, the spot is a traditionally good location, where lots of fish get caught, especially early in the iced-over season. Sometimes, a few pioneers discover a hot spot, then others file in behind them because the word gets out.

Either way, the traffic on the ice that comes with numbers of people eventually impacts the fishing for everyone. Lots of forces are at work. In many cases, the most catchable (aggressive, susceptible) fish get caught, leaving the crowd with pressured, educated fish that are difficult to tempt. All the tramping around and drilling of holes can also cause fish to slide off to where it's relatively quieter. Or, many fish may naturally migrate away from the spot for reasons driven by food availability, oxygen content, and other forces.

The most important thing to realize is that usually, by the time you get out there and join the group, the easy fishing is over. The action might still be good during that half- hour of magical time around sunset, but catching fish at midday becomes quite a trick.

Even if you are drilling holes on what used to be the best spot on the lake, you can often do better if you strike out on your own.

For some ice fishermen, there might be comfort in assuming that the ice is safe where the crowd is, because lots of people have walked, snowmobiled, or driven their vehicles out to the spot, and nobody has fallen through. For what it's worth, my friends and I tend to believe the experts who tell us to never assume any ice is safe, that you could fall through in the middle of a crowd just like you could in the middle of nowhere. When we travel to fish unfamiliar lakes, we get information about ice conditions from the locals, test the ice with chisels and augers, and wear life jackets, just like we do in the summer.

To be an ice fishing pioneer, you don't have to blindly move over unknown ice conditions. Always keep safety in mind, but don't let fear of undisturbed snow keep you from striking out on your own.

Another psychological barrier many ice fishermen need to overcome is the fear of failure. If they stick with the crowd, they will tend to do about as well as the rest of the pack. If a good bite occurs, they stand the chance of getting in on it. If they get skunked, there will be plenty of company to commiserate with. Are you recognizing yourself yet?

Learning to pick your own spots!
Probably the biggest factor that keeps ice fishermen from striking out on their own is that they don't feel qualified to pick a spot. There is something to this, because it takes time to understand lakes, ponds, reservoirs, and to choose locations likely to hold the fish you are after.

But you can do it!
A Genz "good weather-good fishing day".
One of the biggest steps you can take is to begin bringing contour maps with you on ice fishing trips. Too many anglers use lake maps in the summer when fishing from a boat, but don't even consider bringing one along in the winter.

If you see a crowd, go there and ask what they are fishing. Is it a deep basin area with a mud bottom, or a shallow flat with remnant weeds on it? Is it a rock pile or dropoff area? If you can figure out what the makeup of one productive spot is, you can often find similar spots elsewhere on the lake, by studying the map. This doesn't always work; sometimes there really is something about a certain spot, and other spots on the same body of water that appear to be similar just don't produce as well. But it's a good starting point, and venturing out to find your own spots can begin to chip away at those psychological factors we just talked about.

The `home lake' syndrome!
One thing I've noticed for sure is that many ice anglers keep going back day after day to one certain lake where they've had some success in the past. That lake becomes like a frozen security blanket to them, and to think about fishing a different lake causes them to get psyched out. Every once in a while, they venture to a new lake, but they don't often catch much, so they head back to their home turf.

I really believe that more anglers would have more success on unfamiliar lakes if they did nothing more than notice the water clarity. The `color' of the water is a clue to how you should fish the lake.

You can check water clarity ahead of time by, again, reading a good lake map, which often have secchi disk readings indicating relative clarity. Lakes that have dirty or stained water in the summer have less clarity than lakes that are clear in summer, even though virtually all lakes are clearest when iced over, because there is no wind to stir up sediments.

Be sure to use a horizontal, swimming lure in clear water (baits like the Genz Worm and Flyer, depending on what species you're after). In clear water, fish get a much better look at your lure, and a horizontal presentation just looks more natural and fools more fish that inspect it closely.

In clear-water lakes, weeds grow deeper and you're much more likely to find green weeds in winter--and you're much more likely to key in on weeds to help you find fish! (How can you tell if weeds are green? Sometimes, bits of weed are stuck to your auger blade when you drill a hole. If the weeds are deeper, hook some with your lure and pull them up to inspect them. Lots of times, you can see down the hole in clear water, by either shielding the sun from your eyes using your hood, or covering up with a Fish Trap or other shelter.)

In dirtier-water lakes, you should tend to look for fish deeper, because fish often go to the deepest part of the lake when there is not as much cover, such as weeds. Don't forget that the term `deep' is a relative thing, depending on the lake. One lake might have lots of 60-80 foot water, and another lake might have a maximum depth of 18 feet. In a dark-water lake with a maximum depth of 18 feet, 12 feet might be deep water!

Know the fish population!
Another factor that gets too little attention by anglers striking off to new waters is the general makeup of the fish population. Call the local fish biologist, and consult good lake maps and lake reports, to determine what kind of fish are currently in the lake you are considering fishing.

Fish populations are cyclical. A lake that cranks out big walleyes for three years might be full of mostly 2-pounders as the balance of different year-classes changes. A lake that used to produce big crappies, or big sunfish, might be full of little postage-stamp size fish on the year you fish it for the first time.

Get good information concerning what you are likely to find before you fish the water. That way, you can tell whether your efforts are producing about what you can expect, more than you could have dreamed of, or falling short. If two-pound walleyes are about the best a given lake has to offer, you will be satisfied if you get into them. Use a depthfinder at all times, so you can tell whether you are fishing fish or not. But don't sit over a fish and try to make it bite for an hour! Keep moving until you find active, biting fish.

This winter, when you see a lake with no fish houses on it, don't automatically assume it has no fish in it. Ice fishing needs more leaders.

How to Fight Fish Through the Ice!
You can do everything else right and never slide a fish up onto the ice if you don't know how to fight. You can be sitting over the top of a pack of ravenous fish, and hook a bunch of them, and still come home empty-handed.

Let's maximize your hooked-to-landed ratio, by going over the keys to fighting a fish that you hook through the ice.

* You need the right rod-- I've talked about the importance of today's state-of-the-art rods when it comes to presenting lures, but let's consider them from the perspective of hooking and landing fish. You have to have a good rod to fight fish with, and you won't find it in those buggy whip-style noodle rods. Each rod should have the proper flexibility for the line you're using. It needs to be flexible enough in the tip to keep the line from breaking, but with enough backbone to keep the fish coming to you.

Fully equipped
You can learn to recognize a good rod when you feel it. Hold onto the tip with one hand and the handle with your other hand, and test how flexible the tip is. Compare how easily it flexes with how much pressure it takes to snap the line you would use it with, and common sense will tell you whether any given rod's tip will help cushion the force applied to the line while fighting a fish. For panfish rods, you might use 2-pound-test, on up to maybe as heavy as 20-pound-test for larger fish. (The rod has to also be good for jigging the lures you will use it with, so it starts to make sense that you need a relatively lighter tip on a 2-pound-test rod than you do on a 10-pound-test rod.) After checking the tip, flex the whole rod with more force to see how stiff it is. Pay attention to whether the entire rod flexes in sort of a uniform `mushy' curve (which I don't like), or develops good strong `backbone' as it gets closer to the handle. You want a rod with enough power to tame the fish you hook.

* Getting a good hookset-- When you set the hook, it's a mistake if the rod ends up above your head. If that happens, now you're trying to wind fast enough to get the rod back down in front of you, and in the meantime, the fish is in control. You have to keep the whole works out in front of you at all times.

No matter how cool it looks on TV, don't use your shoulders and arms to set the hook. It's a wrist thing. It's a snap of the wrist thing, in fact.

With the right rod, a rod that has a flexible tip but good backbone, you can set the hook with a very short movement. I want to stress something very strongly at this point: a long movement, that uses your arms and shoulders, is extremely slow, and gives the fish time to spit out the hook in a lot of cases. You might think you're being very decisive, very aggressive, if you really pump the rod upward until it hits the roof of your Fish Trap, but you aren't. You're actually giving the fish more time to react.

A quick flip of the wrist will bring into play the power of the rod, and will drive the hook home. Even with a `lightweight' panfish rod, if the blank has the right power curve, you can literally turn a fish over on its side with an upward turn of your wrist. When you get the hook home, the fight begins.

* Fight `em right-- The most common mistake after the fight begins is letting the rod come to `rest,' which creates slack in the line. As long as the rod is bent it's `loaded,' and the fish is under your control (assuming it isn't wrapping you up in weeds or something). If the flex comes out of the rod, the fish can get slack line, and if you didn't get a good hookset, it's easy for the fish to `come unbuttoned.' Remember, the rod should have a flexible tip, which will help cushion the shock if the fish makes a sudden run, which will help the line not break. Your reel should either have a good drag system, or a way for you to backreel and give line when the fish pulls hard enough that the line would break.

Don't get into the habit of pumping the rod upward and then dropping it down to reel up the slack line. You can pump upward as long as you keep continuous tension on the rod. If you drop the rod quickly and create slack, you're begging for the fish to get off.

Also, be patient. Enjoy the fight. Too many anglers seem to be in a hurry to land the fish and get back to fishing. You've spent enough time waiting for the bite. If you take your time and fight the fish with the help of your equipment, you'll have more fun and land more. Horsing a fish can cause any number of bad things to happen, including having the hook come out from too much pressure (sometimes the hook is barely nipped into the edge of their mouth), or having the line break from a sudden shock exceeding the breaking strength.

(By the way, dull hooks are another major cause of losing fish. Carry a fine file and touch up even your tiny little panfish jigs, and you'll get deeper hooksets, and land more fish.)

* Be patient when the fish gets to the hole-- Keep the rod bent, and keep everything under control, and eventually the fish will be coming up close to the hole. Now we have to get the fish's head started up the hole. It's again at this point when a lot of anglers get impatient, and start to break every rule of fighting fish.

I see guys reach down into the hole and grab the fish too soon, or even drop their rods and try to grab the fish. I also see people grab their line and try to lift the fish by the line, which causes many breakoffs and also makes it easy for the fish to shake the hook loose.

A fish may not be "smart," but it knows it doesn't want to go up the hole. If the fish's nose gets past the outside edge of the hole, let it swim by and turn it for another try. If you try to force the fish up the hole from a bad angle, that's often the cause of the hook catching on the bottom of the ice.

Also, be ready for a surge of strength once they get into the hole. They struggle hard, even if they seem whipped. Remain calm, and try to get their head started up the hole. Keep this in mind: once they start coming up the hole, they can't turn around and swim down, unless they are quite a bit smaller than the hole.

Once the fish's head is at the top of the ice, you can reach down and grab them or gaff them, or just slide them onto the ice if they are small enough. But at no time should you allow the flex to come out of the rod until the fight is won. A couple years ago, Mark Strand caught a 2-pound, 8-ounce bluegill in Nebraska, and his story of the fight is enough to make you a believer.

Once the fish started up the 7-inch hole, it stuck good. The head was all the way out of the water, but this beautiful trophy was far from landed. It was a Mexican standoff for a while, but Mark held his ground, kept the rod bent and the line tight, and soon enough the fish tried to `jump,' and it propelled itself neatly out of the hole and flopped on the ice in his Fish Trap. Had Mark tried to grab the line it no doubt would have broke. Had he let up on the rod, the fish could have slid back down the hole. The power of a good rod brought the battle to a successful conclusion. It can do the same thing for you.

Cabela's carries an extensive line of ice fishing gear on-line, at cabelas.com, the Cabela's retail stores.

Note: Dave Genz led the modern revolution in ice-fishing equipment and methods. The development of his Fish Trap portable shelter and Ice Box sonar holder made it possible for anglers to be mobile and effective in winter. His style of fishing is known as the Winter Fishing System. Recognized as America's leading ice fishing authority, Genz is the captain of Ice Team, a new club for ice anglers. Members of Ice Team receive newsletters revealing fishing tips and details on new equipment, and can qualify their catches for great prizes. For information, call 1-800-ICE-FISH.