Largemouth Bass: How to Catch Them During the Ice-Out

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With the year’s first cold start of the motor, you launch the boat and begin to idle away from the empty boat ramp. As you listen to the sound of skim ice breaking beneath your hull, you’d swear that your graph must not be reading right. The water has to be more than 34 degrees…doesn’t it?

“Ice-out” is a relative term for the earliest bass fishing that happens during the year. Water temps can stay cold for a long time in the spring, often in the high 30s and 40s. Ice-out will be more applicable this year than it has been in recent years, with deep freezes happening across the Northeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions…even into the South. Many of us are hoping for an early spring. 

Some bass anglers opt to keep the boat in storage until the weather and water are a little warmer, but they’re missing out on less crowded spots, less pressured fish, and a shot at the biggest fish and bags of the year.

This is a very interesting part of the year to be a largemouth fisherman since the bass can be all over the place. Some fish are still in their winter haunts, some are on the move, and some are already up shallow looking for warm water and an easy meal. 

Ice-out means the water is accessible, but finding bass once out there is another story.

SAFETY WEEK TIP

GET A VHF RADIO

A VHF marine band radio is your first line of communication on the water, allowing you to talk to the Coast Guard and other boat traffic. Use Channel 16 only for hailing and emergencies.

START OFFSHORE

Sometimes, largemouth bass can be slow to get in gear. They will hang out in their winter refuge and wait until the time is right or the weather is warm enough, and it’s time to get moving for the spring. The offshore game is one that can be ultra consistent and patternable, meaning that if you find them in one area, looking in other identical locations often yields more bass. Long flat points with isolated rock structure and large flats adjacent to deep water (sub 30 feet) are great starting places for the hunt. Hard bottom and rock are the two keys for locating offshore ice-out largies. Rocks ranging in size from “baseball” to “pickup truck” can hold fish. 

Go-To Offshore Baits:

One thing I love about this time of year is that once you get that first bass in the school to bite, it can cause a chain reaction, and the school can become as aggressive as they were during the fall feed. But getting that first bite is the first piece of the puzzle with these deep dwellers.

Start Small. The first bait I find myself picking up day in and day out is a Ned rig. It simply gets bit and offers versatility in presentation by allowing you to pick the best plastic to match the forage in your body of water. I almost strictly throw a 3/16-ounce Buckeye Lures Spot Remover Ned Head paired with a 3-inch Ned Worm from Roboworm. I like to fish this particular head and size, even offshore in 25-plus feet of water, as the stand-up action and minimal weight offer a more finesse approach. 

The next bait I go to is a jig. Lots of folks like a traditional football jig, but for me it’s all about a super-small presentation, so I opt for a football head jig with no weed guard and a very fine skirt, like the Beast Coast O.W. Sniper, especially the 1/2-ounce natural brown and green pumpkin variants. This little jig has found its way into many anglers’ boats lately, and continues to be a growing trend across the country. My friends and I have been throwing it at ice-out bass for years, and it only seems to get better.

FIND THE ROAMERS

Roamers are the fish that don’t read all of your old-school bass fishing books. Prior to forward-facing sonar, these are the fish we thought just “walked up onto the bank.” As lakes begin to thaw and the sun begins to warm the water, some fish can get into a funk, aka “zombie mode,” when they leave their winter home. They’re not really relating to structure or cover. More so, they’re just floating a few feet below the surface in an area where the sun is shining brightly, the wind isn’t blowing, and the water is beginning to warm up, like a big pocket or even just the protected bank. Tricking these fish into interacting with a bait typically goes one way or the other. On one hand they haven’t been pressured for a while, so they’re as susceptible as they will be all year. On the other the cold still has them down and in “zombie mode.” I like to hunt these fish with my Hummingbird MEGA Live 2 in what most consider “mid-depth,” say 10 to 16 feet of water. 

With the recent surge of soft-plastic, minnow-style baits and fuzzy, tentacle-packed, alien-like baits commonly called “dice,” these fish have never been easier to trick into biting.

When picking a minnow-style bait, trying to match the main forage in the body of water is critical. A light head, like a 1/8-oz. Buckeye G-Stroll Head, paired with a Yamamoto Scope Shad, allows for that bait to be fish as slowly as possible and stay in the strike zone for as long as possible.

Some of my favorite dice-style baits are the Yamamoto Uni and Raid Japan 2Way Wacky Creature. Casting a super-light presentation on a spinning rod with braided line can be challenging. For this application, opting for a sinking braid like Berkley Forward and a Neko weight is critical for added fall rate and fishability. 

HEAD FOR THE SHALLOWS

The shallow fish have my heart and are the type of bass I’ve found to be the most productive for size and numbers. Some fish spend most of the season shallow and some move up a little sooner than others. Fish can surprise you and already be on some shallow cover (sub 10 feet of water), whether it’s a shallow hard spot, a secondary rock point, or an isolated grass clump in a spawning pocket, you might just be surprised where these fish position as the spawn rapidly approaches. Fish will often get close to where they want to be for nesting.

For these shallow—and often big—treasures, I like to mix things up a bit. Although the same Ned rigs, small jigs, and ‘scope baits can shine, a lipless crankbait is locked in my hands 90 percent of the time when I’m in the shallows. 

The bait is crucial here. For years I lived and died by a quarter-ounce Strike King Redeyed Shad in orange craw, though if baitfish were the main player, I would throw chrome black back to match the hatch. Recently, Bill Lewis came out with the Hammer Trap, which comes in a 3/16-ounce size and some awesome patterns. This lighter bait has put the Redeyed Shad on the backburner, allowing the same fishability with just a slightly slenderer profile.

My confidence in this bait started on an frigid day that required a spud bar to chop the ice at the launch. My first cast of the day, into 5 feet of water just off a sun-warmed rock bank, was rewarded with my new PB, a giant weighing just over 8 pounds. I’ve spent a lot of time with this bait. I almost never fish it on a straight retrieve, as it’s more of start-stop lure. I use the reel to move the bait instead of ripping the rod in a traditional “yo-yo” motion, turning the handle on a mid-gear reel (preferably a 7:1) as fast as possible for just a turn or two and killing it with the rod tip up and in line with the bait. I find letting the bait do the work helps trigger more and bigger bites this time of year. Using the reel to “yo-yo,” opposed to the rod, allows the bait to stay closer to the bottom, fall with a more precise shimmer, and it isn’t too aggressive for cold-weather giants. It creates a rhythmic retrieve that fish lock onto.

THE RIGHT ROD MATTERS

Being a younger guy, I’m always looking for rods that can kill two birds with one stone so to speak. A rod that works great for multiple techniques is hard to find, but here are two of my favorites: 

• FINESSE: For Ned rigs, minnows, and dice, I like the 7-foot 1-inch Phenix Feather with medium power and an extra-fast action. Having a do-all spinning rod is crucial. Once you learn its capabilities, you can manipulate it to make the bait do what you want. Plus, you’ll have a pretty good idea of just how big the bass is that you hooked. 
• POWER: Whether fishing compact jigs, lipless crankbaits, or jerkbaits, the 7-foot 1-inch Phenix Feather with a medium-heavy power and extra-fast action fits the bill. Most would be skeptical of a “one size fits all” rod for these applications, but the Feather’s backbone is soft enough when loading up with any bait to not pull or bend out hooks, yet stout enough to snap and pop baits to trigger reaction bites. Weighing in at only 3.6 ounces, it’s light and sensitive. 

Nobody said ice-out bass fishing was easy, but no one who’s caught a giant in February or March ever regretted making the trip. A combination of low pressure, increased opportunity, and bass that haven’t seen a bait since fall add up to some of the biggest fish of the year.

I always look forward to this time of year because it always seems to surprise me. Just when you think the cold has shut everything down, something bites and reminds you why you came. That’s the thing about early-season fishing: The fish are there. They’re always there. You just have to trust the process, put in the time, check the locations, and have confidence that you’re doing the right thing.

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