Spring Time Means Fly Fishing- 4 Tips To Help You Catch Fish During Ice-Off

But before all this happens, there are usually four or five days - what is called the Ice-off - when the fishing is outstanding. And that is when you want to be on the lake, prepared with the knowledge of how to fish it.

4 Ways To Improve Your Fly Fishing Success During Ice Off.

Here is how to improve your chances of success. 

1. Get the timing right: This is the biggest challenge. Too early and you’ll need a drill to get to the fish. Too late and the lake has already started turning over. Get it right, however, and you’ll experience some of the finest stillwater action of the year. It can be tricky to nail this down.

Something that helps can be checking on the lake as the weather gets nicer. You don’t have to check on it every day, but once a week or as often as possible increases your odds. If you don’t have the time to drive up to your favorite lakes, the internet can help. Most local fishing online groups start the ice-off conversation as soon as it gets warm. More often than not, people will say something the moment their favorite lakes open up.

You can also make an educated guess when a lake is going to open up. If you’re in a mountainous area, you’ll probably hear intel about lakes at a similar elevation as your target lake. When you know this, you can reasonably guess when ice-off is going to happen at your target lake.

2. Use the right flies: There isn’t a specific hatch during ice-off, so it’s less about matching the hatch, and more about knowing what works best. Chironomids are always a safe place to start. Another high percentage fly is the bloodworm. Bloodworms come out of the mud after windy days and as the temps start to warm up. Leeches are a good option, and my favorite choice to fish during the ice-off are Scuds. The Scud is a primary source of food during ice-off, especially on cloudy days.

If you’re on the water and you hear the occasional 'plop, plop' in the water, that means it’s time to break out a Water Boatman fly. These aquatic beetles fly around and hit the water with a noticeable sound (that’s the plop). Sometimes it feels like fish are listening for the plop and hammer the fly almost as soon as it hits the water.

3. Go shallow: It’s tempting to look all over the lake for fish. But, at ice-off, a lot of the action is in the shallows. Before endlessly searching the whole lake, you should focus on the water near the shoreline. One of the exciting things about fishing during ice-off is that you can find big fish in just a few feet of water.

4. Use the Copernicus Browser: This solution is a bit more high-tech than the usual advice, but the Copernicus Browser is a handy tool for checking on lakes to see whether they’re ice-free or not. The tool publishes up-to-date satellite images from around the world, meaning you can more or less track how your favorite lakes are coming along. It’s not perfect, and sometimes the cloud cover can spoil the picture, but it makes educated guesses that much easier.

Fly Fishing Is a Reward in Itself.

The real fun of ice-off fishing is you never know what you’re going to get. You could get out there and the fish are heavily feeding, or you might be a bit late. It's worth it though, after being cooped up all winter long. Get out and explore; a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work.

Tight lines and good luck exploring!