Wisconsin: Ice fishing gains 110,000 anglers over the last decade

MADISON – One hundred ten thousand people can't be wrong.

That's how many more Wisconsinites are ice fishing these days than a decade ago, according to results from a recently released national recreation survey.

"Clearly more people are getting interested in ice fishing in Wisconsin, which is great," says Mike Staggs, Wisconsin's fisheries director.

"It's a low cost way to try fishing or to extend your season if you're a veteran open water angler. It's as easy as drilling a hole -- or finding a hole someone else left behind -- and using some basic equipment to catch some fish for dinner."

An estimated 590,700 Wisconsinites 16 and over report they ice fish, up from 479,900 in 2000, according to the most recent National Survey on Recreation and the Environment. Department of Natural Resources staff are using results from the federally funded survey and other studies to develop its 2011-2016 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan.

Terry Margenau, a DNR fish supervisor in Spooner and an avid ice angler, credits the sport's growing popularity to several factors, perhaps primarily to the development of specialized ice fishing gear.

"I'm not talking just about the basics, but more on the creature comforts side and, of course, technology," he says. "I have never been one to freeze my buns off for a fish, so have always traveled with a shelter and a heater.

"But now shelters have evolved drastically to be light and made of high quality fabric, heaters are better and safer, and take your pick on sleds to transport your gear. Not to mention the apparel now available to keep you warm. Anglers are equipped to catch fish and be comfortable while doing it."

Margenau also thinks more people are ice fishing because it provides angling opportunities that don't require a boat. And more second-home owners from the Twin Cities, Milwaukee and Madison metro areas seem to be spending more of their winters in the Northwoods as the internet makes it easier to set up a home office anywhere.

"Tag returns from fish tagging we have done supports the contention that historically the winter is dominated by residents," he says.

Skip Sommerfeldt caught this 25-inch walleye early in the 2010-2011 ice fishing season. He had the most flags and caught the most fish in 27 years. See Ice Fishing Wisconsin for the rest of his fishing diary.
WDNR Photo

Skip Sommerfeldt, a DNR fish biologist based in Park Falls and an avid angler, adds a few other reasons for the growing popularity, including increased media coverage and the popularity of recreational television shows, the milder winter temperatures and lower snow totals than in past years, which make it more comfortable to be outside, and an increase in the amount of leisure time, whether through the growing ranks of retired Wisconsin citizens and a higher unemployment rate that makes more 'fishing time' available to some.

"And to toot our own horn -- the success of Wisconsin's fisheries management program," Sommerfeldt says. "Season limitations, size regulation and various management activities have ensured that there is an abundance of sport fishing opportunities all throughout Wisconsin."

And lastly, says Sommerfeldt, who ice fished 93 of 96 possible days last year and recorded both a record number of flags and fish caught, "it's just plain fun! There's nothing like watching the slow steady turn on the spindle of your tip-up and knowing that there's a big fish on the end of the line ...and then seeing that fish fill the hole as you slide it out onto the ice."

Lack of ice slows start of hard water season…but wait a while and then whoa Nellie!

Moderate temperatures this fall -- against a backdrop of rising temperatures statewide over the last 50 years -- are conspiring to push the hard water season back. While there's some ice formation in northern Wisconsin, it's behind normal, fish biologists are reporting, and all but the smallest southern waters are wide open, they say.

Once the ice forms solid, get ready for some fishing fun. Early ice offers some of the season's best fishing, and with the holidays coming up, anglers might just have more time to get outside when the fish are biting.

Ice Fishing Wisconsin an online resource for the hard water season

While waiting for the ice, anglers can get ready for their first trip by visiting Ice Fishing Wisconsin on the DNR website. Find tips for great fishing and for successful outings with kids, lists of places to go fishing, and the latest diary entry from avid ice angler Skip Sommerfeldt, a fish biologist who's kept detailed records of his ice fishing on the same Price County lake for the last 20 years.

Once the fish start biting, check the DNR Outdoor Report every week for reports on what's biting and where, and consider sharing your stories and photos via DNR's Facebook page www.facebook.com/WIDNR or Twitter account twitter.com/#!/WDNR.

Follow rules to prevent spreading fish diseases

Ice anglers eager to start the hard water season are reminded to take steps to prevent spreading VHS and other fish diseases and aquatic invasive species.

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia, a virus that can infect several dozen fish species and cause them to bleed to death, has been confirmed in all of the Great Lakes and in the Lake Winnebago system. Testing to date has shown that the virus has not spread to new waters, but 2011 results showed that healthy-looking yellow perch in Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan were infected with VHS virus even though there was no fish kill, and earlier this year VHS was as the cause of a fish kill that left thousands of gizzard shad floating in the Milwaukee harbor ship canals.

Here is what anglers need to know to help prevent the virus and other fish diseases from spreading:

Follow bait rules. Buy bait from Wisconsin bait dealers. If you take minnows home after a day fishing and you’ve added lake water or fish to their container, you can return with them only to that same waterbody the next day.
Preserve bait correctly if you catch your own. If you use smelt or other dead bait, preserve it in a way that does not require freezing or refrigeration.
Don’t move live fish away from the water. Keep the fish you catch and want to take home on the ice until you leave at the end of the day, or carry them away in a dry bucket.
Drain all water from your equipment. That includes all buckets and containers of fish. When you’re leaving the ice, you may carry up to 2 gallons of water in which to keep your minnows.

Following these rules will protect Wisconsin lakes and rivers and anglers’ pocketbooks: a citation for carrying live fish away from a water runs $343.50, while the penalty for failing to drain the water from fishing equipment is $243.

Wisconsin ice fishing fast facts

An estimated 590,700 Wisconsinites 16 and older report ice fishing, up from 479,100 in 2000-1 and 496,900 in 1994-5.
Ice fishing trails only sledding, snowmobiling and ice skating outdoors as the most popular of outdoor winter ice and snow sports.
Anglers spent 11 million hours ice fishing in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That's 21 percent of the total 52 million hours spent fishing across all of the 2006-7 license year.
Anglers reported catching 14 million fish while ice fishing, and keeping 6.6 million of them, or less than half. During the open water season, about one-third of all fish caught are kept.
Panfish, northern pike and walleye, are the top species caught, in order, with 11.7 million, 866,000, and 750,000, respectively.
In 2011 there were 122 ice fishing tournaments held in the state. For 2012 so far there are 56 approved permits, with likely many more to come in as folks continue to submit applications.

Sources: DNR statewide mail survey of anglers during 2006-7 license year; 2011-16 SCORP

Search This Blog

Family-Outdoors