Last Wednesday I went ice fishing out of my car. After a couple days of rain you are fortunate if you can drive a truck around out on Leech Lake. The best way to get around right now is by ATV. Walking is not a good option unless you have high boots. With spring coming up now is the time to either get some close-out ice fishing equipment or start building up your arsenal of lures for spring and summer.

Choose Your Lure!
Before you choose your lure you need to know what are you going to be fishing for and what consider what time of year it is. Leech Lake has most of the species of freshwater fish that fishers of all types aim to catch. Most are looking to catch Walleye but the open season on Walleye does not start until May 15, 2010. So you are going to want to keep those small jigs around for Panfish, like Crappies, Bluegills and Pumpkinseed since they are always in open season. They can be a lot of fun to catch too since when one is biting usually all of the others are too. This means many platefuls of fish!

Panfish
Get some bobbers. They are cheap and make all the difference in being able to see any nibbles. Use some tiny jigs, even ice fishing jigs will work. For bait, wax worms and maggots are best. Panfish are not too picky about color. They are not too hard to persuade. If it looks mostly like food, they will try to eat it. As long as you stick to brighter colors they will usually try to bite.