Ice Fishing Report - Kent County - 1-3-26

First trip of the year! We have no local ice that I’d take the family out on along the Lakeshore so we headed inland for our first trip of the year to a lake with 6+ inches of ice. The nice thing about going inland is the variety of lakes and different types of fishing. Today we were treated to a private lake for the morning and you guessed it, the fishing was good. Despite the easy success there are a couple things you can take away from this trip that might help you out on similar lakes or better understand those fisheries. It was much different than our typical lakeshore adventures, there was no 20mph plus Muskegon Lake wind. It was cold but really it was nice out. We got some tip ups out and punched a bunch of holes as these fish were going to constantly move.

This was a kettle style lake with basically a sharp dropoff around the entire edge and deep in the middle. The fishing here is usually on the deep sides of the edges or out in the middle on fish that are suspended in 50 feet of water. Today we would fish 2 areas one was along the break in 25ish feet of water. The school would just constantly move around and you had to give chase. It wasn’t conducive to having the Clam X-600 set up and productive so we moved that to another area that had some submerged structure. The wives spent most of the time in the comfort of the shanty. The kids mixed it up and my 2 oldest really improved their electronics skills. We don’t fish any water that sets up quite like this on the lakeshore. Our first ice stuff is really shallow and all of our perch fishing is near the bottom out deep. So, this was unique for them and it was funny to watch my 6 year old pick up the fish finder and go check another hole when they left the one she was in. Our presentation was simple Clam Drop XL, Half Ant Jig, and Maggot Jig tipped with spikes. Size didn’t really seem to matter but it was easier to get bigger jigs down 20 feet and maintain contact with them.

Daphnia from a crappie stomach - 1.72mm avg length

Big crappies through the ice were another unique thing about this trip and they enjoyed that. They were really snapping when we first got there but as the morning went on, it was mostly a big bluegill bite. While I will always release crappies if I can keep a bluegill instead, we were not going to keep full limits today and they had no interest in catch and release. We did eat the crappies last night and they were pretty good.

The fish behavior in these lakes is related to what they are eating though. I’ve found that these types of fisheries often have those pelagic fish. They aren’t out there just swimming around though. They are feeding on pelagic plankton and in this lake, it is daphnia. I’ve looked at bluegill stomachs from here before and decided to put a crappie diet under the microscope this time. It is crazy that plankton is making most of the diets for these larger fish. It is a testament to how well they can see and why sometimes the details really matter. Another thing this lake demonstrates is that if you want to sit still you better find something that is going to make the fish comfortable. Or just be prepared to be really mobile and move with the fish. Drill a network of holes and constantly move, also realize that the fish are going to bite better and move slower in periods of low light. As winter goes on conditions really start to matter and the fish get moody. Clouds and a warming trend are good things to have in your corner on this particular fishery. Keep an eye on conditions and use them to your advantage to maximize your time on these fisheries.

I sure hope we have local ice coming but that was a great start to the season. Hopefully we’ll have a Muskegon Lake perch report soon!