By Daryl Bauer, Fisheries Outreach Program Manager
Barring some meteorological catastrophe, I am pretty sure my ice season is over. Planning to fish open water, soon.
So, I suppose this is as good of a time as any to review the season just past. . . .
Would have loved to have had safe ice sooner this winter, but that goes without saying. The calendar was a week or two into the new year before I was finally able to get on the ice. Then, unfortunately, we had a January thaw which put a further ding in the ice fishing season. I was able to spend some time on the hard water well into February, but even then a late cold spell was followed soon after by a quick warming trend and that was it. I cut my last afternoon on the ice short because the conditions were deteriorating by the minute.
Said all of that to say this: Would have loved to have had more time on the ice this winter. Of course I will tell you that every ice season.
One thing I will remember about my Ice Season 2025 was that I had the opportunity to fish on the ice literally from one corner of Nebraska to the other. Got to spend some time on the ice on a number of waters where I had never had the chance to ice fish before. In fact, with one exception, I spent no more than one day fishing on any one waterbody.
I will be the first to tell you that I likely would have caught more fish had I been able to spend more time, multiple trips, to the same waterbodies. On the other hand, I enjoyed the challenge of showing up to a water new to me and figuring out a way to catch fish. Never got skunked on any water, any day, this past ice season.
Did it all without forward-facing sonar as well. Admittedly, some days I had to use old-school techniques to find fish.
Adding it all up, I fished double-digit number of waters and caught eight different species of fish through the ice this past season. There were some nice fish that came through the hole, always are. None were large enough that I would say they were truly remarkable. Absolutely does NOT mean they were not memorable.
Fine-tuning my presentations in recent years for bigger panfish, I will tell you that I now catch more largemouth bass through the ice than ever. Have not added up the numbers, but I would bet I was close to having caught as many bass as bluegills through the ice this winter.
One of the best trips of the year was during a brutally cold weekend, but I had excellent fishing partners!
In spite of the weather conditions, we caught some fish!
Can always tell you a story or two of “one that got away”. The one that will stick with me from this past ice season was likely a big pike. On that trip, finally, a tip-up flag went up. I discovered that only a few inches of line had been pulled out. Figured it was just the wind that tripped the flag and was resetting the bait when it got hammered! I let ’em take a few feet of line and then tightened up on ’em. Hook set and then there she was, gone. Retrieving the line I discovered my leader had failed at one of the knots. Arrrgggghhhh!!!!!!
Should have been no big deal; there was plenty of time for another flag or three to go off that afternoon. Of course, you know that was then the only flag I had. That score will remain unsettled until next ice season.
Which I figure is only something like 290 days away!
But, who’s counting?
