Ice fishing regs on the Chip

[Brady1]

I'm not an ice fisherman but want to try it next year. What are the regs. concerning fishing for walleye and crappies on the Chip? Reading the hand book is rather confusing. Thanks.

[Ty Sennett]

As of now you can not fish for walleye on the Chip in the winter. The season closes November 30th for walleye. You can however fish for Crappie all year long with 25 in your total daily bag limit. If you ever need a guide let me know. We actually crushed the crappie this year in a few different areas. Some big pike too. Pretty fun.

[Brady1]

Ty, thanks I will.

[Trav]

Ty, you guide on the ice too? Great news, then no one would have to worry about spilling their coffee/bloody mary/beer in your boat. Though I'm guessing potential guilt hasn't been a big deterrent.

[Ty Sennett]

My ice shack has a drink holder so you're set.

[curleytail]

Ty, have you been out for crappies lately? Would you be willing to throw a guy a bone (tip)? My Uncle and I fished it pretty hard Saturday and for a while on Sunday. We found plenty of tiny perch everywhere we went but not a lot else. Caught 2 pretty nice bluegills in about 8 feet of water pretty late saturday evening, and a couple decent perch mixed in with thousands of tiny perch on Sunday.

Kind of curious how deep you found them.

We went out from Dorazio bay and fished quite a few spots from about 8-18 feet of water.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, where are you driving your truck on from? We were on snowmobile - decided we would be nervous leaving Dorazio and going through other narrow areas in a truck.

No need to give up any secrets though...

Thanks!

Tucker

[Ty Sennett]

We have been getting them in the main lake basin areas. Basically start in the deepest part of the area you are fishing and work you way inward. Earlier the crappie were easy to get but lately you have to drill a pile of holes to track them down. They are constantly moving so it gets a little frustrating when you get to a hole and it is full of fish and a minute later it is bare. We usually drill about 60 holes or more to get a handle on them. Really spread your holes out to find them.

Waxworms are always good but sometimes the bigger crappie are going on minnows jigged on a pink and white neo-glow jig.

I hear ya on the perch. Those suckers are fiesty this winter. Hard not to catch em'.

[curleytail]

Thanks Ty. I've noticed the same thing in the lakes I had been catching crappies in too. Earlier in the year they were pretty easy to find and you could sit over a school for what seemed like hours. Now they seem to be scattered and hard to locate.

I think we didn't get into enough basin area out there on our last trip. Thanks for the tips. We might get another chance to give it a try yet this year before the ice starts getting soft.

See you in a few weeks in MN.

Tucker

[Ty Sennett]

There is still enough ice to drive on evidently. I saw four trucks yesterday rippin' around out on the Chip. I went out by myself to scout out a new area and caught quite a few crappie for the little time I put in. They were in 18 to 24 feet of water. I didn't find any big schools of fish but caught fish every couple minutes. They were traveling around in packs of two at a time. If you caught one there would be another chasing that one up at the same time. Funny thing was you could not get the seccond one to hit. When I started to find fish I just left that area because I was hoping to get back out this weekend but that's not happening now. I didn't get out until about 4:00PM and left before sundown so I didn't spend much time in one spot. I drilled about fifty holes and found fish in almost every one with the exception of four or five shallower than fifteen feet. I also found out that ice fishing by yourself is pretty lame but I was more trying to figure out and area than anything.

Caught some on plastics but did better with waxworms.

[Mark Benson]

The last two Sundays I have been able to get out to explore the lake that my brother bought on... It seems to be a fertile fishery, but haven't gotten very close to finding anything yet of much quality.

However both last Sunday and yesterday I pulled off to a little lake close by known for producing some mega crappies and tried two different spots other than the community spots and was rewarded both times with some quality fish. Looking for areas on the basin sides close to spawning areas is starting to show fish just off the weed lines in 15' - 20'.

I like to start with a horizontal presentation to see if the fish will eat that. Mostly lookers. Then its time to drop the Lil' Cecil... A vertical bite it has been. Both nights I was able to pull marks off the bottom and get them to chase the Lil' Cecil I was fishing with so fast I had to reel the bait up at the same time or there was no room to set the hook as the bait was so high above my head!!! Playing cat and mouse in this fashion has been a blast to say the least. Oh yea, spikes seem to be the better of the baits that I have been carrying, white over red, waxies not so much.

Two Sundays ago I was able to get 7 'tween 9" and 11", while being a little earlier this past Sunday allowed me to get in the hour long bite before dark started setting. Yesterday, I was able to find some fish on the first lake and then catch an additional 17 crappies 'tween 8" and 12". Sorry I misplaced my camera and just didn't think about using the cell phone even tho I have been able to get some decent pics from it. If catching fish works this weekend, I will get some pics.

The spot I was on last Sunday started to show just before dark a chironomid hatch, where your vex screen (hues of green & orange) starts to show all sorts of life at the bottom and the fishing just slowed down. I tried this past Friday after work and was too late and the hatch had already started. This second spot had a fair amount of tannic water and I was not able to detect the "hatch", but the bite slowed considerable just before 6 p.m.

Does anyone have any secret presentation that they would be willing to share once this bloom comes to life???

The next time I get to fish this lake, I will be practicing selective harvest of fish less than the 10" mark as I have plenty of bigger fish cleaned and ready to dine on. All fish cleaned were of the female variety showing the need for selective harvest to maintain the size distribution by keeping the great genes in the population. Looking at a lake change, though I would like to have a great CPR session with the last bunch of fish. There are a couple of other spots on the lake that seem to need some attention paid to them as well. The lake change may allow me to look at doing a little more keeping before ice starts to rot this week. It would be nice to see if this pattern is setting up on other small lakes in the area.

Come on Daylight Savings Time!!! I will be able to get off work and still get in on that last hour of great fishing!!!

Mark

[Downsouth]

As of now you can not fish for walleye on the Chip in the winter. The season closes November 30th for walleye. You can however fish for Crappie all year long with 25 in your total daily bag limit. If you ever need a guide let me know. We actually crushed the crappie this year in a few different areas. Some big pike too. Pretty fun.

The following was copied from the WDNR website.

"Some waters have bag limits for some species that are less than the bag limits for general inland waters. In these cases, you must follow the bag limits for the specific water. For example, on the Chippewa Flowage, the daily bag limit for panfish from December 1 to March 1 is 15 fish, with the harvest of crappie specifically prohibited. Therefore, from December 1 to March 1, the possession limit for panfish (except for crappie) is two times the daily bag limit or 30 panfish."

We're past the March 1 closed season now, but keep in mind for the future that the Chip is closed to Crappies harvest from Dec 1 - March 1.


http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/faq/posses.htm

[JeremyD]

I was also confused by the new regulations, so I did some checking around. This is what WalleyeMaxx posted on his thread, responding to my question.

Hi Jeremy,

That's a very good question. I was confused on that myself until a couple weeks ago. I called Dave Nueswanger, the head fish guy for Hayward. I also got an email from the DNR fisheries dept in Madison. The scoop is the panfish is open year around including crappies and the bag limit is 25/day, possesion 50.

I want to repeat that Crappies are included now. The DNR came up with these changes so late in the game that every one was confused. Myself, I have never ice fished the Big Chip except for the Nov. deer hunting week in years past. I'm not familiar at all with the areas to watch for except to say use common sense. Any current area could be dangerous and any necked down areas between a lot of the islands could be Iffy.

Read Carl's report. He went from the nursery to pork barrel island. Jerky Josh reports that he saw open water in crane creek. I read somewhere that there was open water by the bridge on 'CC'. You could call Ty Sennett and ask him for advice on ice conditions. He has been ice fishing the Big Chip.

After your trip, report back here how you do. I am trying to get a ice fishing trip to the Flowage planned. I know of some spots I would really like to ice fish for Crappies. I've got so much to do to get ready for open water fishing, it'll be hard to get er done, but I'm going to try. Hope this helps you out.

Walleyemaxx

[Ty Sennett]

The rulebook doesn't apply in this case. If you do go out and do some ice fishing on the Chip be careful and let the bigger crappie go for better genetics for the future. There are plenty of nine to ten inters out there for the frying pan.

[Mark Benson]

Here, here on the 9 & 10's Ty!!! In a lot of cases, its best to see what the lake has to offer in the size game. The adage that "keeping bigger fish so the little ones can grow up" ticks me off!!! Not all fish get/got the same genes, thus allowing the little ones to grow may not always work. The large fish NEED to stay in the system to keep their genes for size out there!!!

The system that I was fishing in the earlier post grew 'em to 15-16" and hopefully their genes weren't removed in the last great crappie-a-thon on it. I was able to take some nice fish and yesterday while fishing it returned all the fish except the four 8"-9" fish for the pan.

Mark