Every winter, Dave Genz "researches" new ways to catch big bluegills and crappies. Photo courtesy of Dave Genz

By Tim Lesmeister

You walk into the bait shop, kick the snow off your boots, look over and spot two guys huddled in the corner - and they're whispering. One guy has a serious look on his face as he listens intently to the other. You mosey in closer to hear the conversation and the guy listening taps the other guy on the shoulder and points your way. They split up and head for the door. Obviously they were discussing a lake where the panfish were huge and the bite was hot.

Everybody tries to keep the hotspots a secret, but it never happens. Someone discovers that honeyhole and just can't help but tell a friend, who tells a friend, who tells a friend . . .

And then there are guys like us who give up the secrets as fast as we learn them. I had been fishing a weedline in Crystal Bay on Lake Minnetonka during the summer months for bass and would pick up the occasional crappie there on a jig-and-grub. There was a deep hole in the middle of the vegetation and I thought it might be a great winter location. In early January last year I drilled some holes there and lowered the transducer into the hole. I thought there was something wrong with the sonar, but it was just marking fish - crappies, and tons of them. The fishing was phenomenal.

It wasn't long before the people I told this to came out to visit and set up portable shelters to fish from. There were a lot of fish and everyone had a great time catching them. Will the spot continue to be productive in 2005? Maybe not, but there are plenty of other places to catch big crappies.

Just ask Dave Genz, the angler who pioneered the mobile ice-fishing style. He'll tell you that the latest and greatest bluegill and crappie honeyholes are just an auger hole or two away for the angler who knows what to look for and has the tenacity to explore lakes that others won't go to until they hear about the hot bite going on there.

"To stay on top of the big fish, you have to go where the bite is best," said Genz. "It changes from year to year. As an example let's look at the high-water situations like we had when I first moved from Detroit Lakes to Minneapolis some years back. All the lakes in the Chisago area were high that year and I thought I'd died and went to heaven. I moved from Detroit Lakes to Minneapolis and found the fishing better. The water got high, spread the bluegills and crappies out, provided a lot of additional forage and then those fish had a chance to grow. When the water dropped in Chisago, Lake Pulaski was rising. The fishing got great there. This happens in lakes every year. Some provide great fishing for big panfish for a few years and then you start looking again once the big panfish bite starts to slow down from the fishing pressure."

Genz follows the hot bite every ice-fishing season, and here are a few of the lakes he plans to explore this season.

Genz is not one to follow the crowds, but he explains, "It's a big body of water, so your schools of fish are bigger, and that means it's not as bad to slide up between a couple of other shelters."

With a lot of anglers setting up shop on Minnewaska you might think the fish are going to be smaller in size because of the fishing pressure. Genz says this is not the case.

"It's a popular location for anglers, but there are a lot of nice fish there," he said. "You find panfish there that are honest three-to-a-pound in size. A big one is a half-pound. So maybe the fish aren't huge like you find in some lakes, but they're nice."

For more information, contact Koeps Glenwood Corner at (320) 634-4660.

"There are huge sunfish in this border water," said Genz. "It's a tremendously popular spot for anglers on the west edge of the state, but there aren't that many anglers out that way, so Big Stone doesn't get a lot of pressure."

The winter pressure the lake does receive is definitely pinpointed at the big bluegills, which is kind of unusual because there isn't a lot of vegetation, which is where ice-anglers usually search for bluegills.

"The bluegills there relate to the rockpiles in this lake," said Genz. "Big Stone doesn't have a lot of weeds, so when you find a rockpile, you will find bluegills."

For more information, contact Bud's Bait at (320) 839-2480.

"Up on the north end during the first part of January will be pretty good for big crappies," he said. "You need to get away from the crowds on this lake if you're going to find the bigger fish. There will likely be a lot of stationary shelters out on the ice, and these areas are going to be heavily exploited by now, and the fishing pressure will have removed the aggressive fish."

The key is to be mobile.

"Venture out from where the fishing has been heavy and you'll find schools of fish," Genz said. "That's what's nice about fishing the north end. The schools of crappies can be anywhere there. The obvious spots where it narrows down get hammered early, so find the untapped schools and you will be catching some big fish."

For more information, contact The General Store at (320) 859-5159.