The rumor was some big perch were being caught on Pine Mountain Lake, and Dave Genz, the "Godfather" of ice-fishing in Minnesota, proved it. Watch for a good bite through the ice this winter on Pine Mountain Lake and many other lakes otherwise known as secret waters. Photo by Tim Lesmeister.

There were already a couple dozen holes drilled in the ice where we parked the snowmobiles.

"Someone has been here, and they caught fish," said Dave Genz, the "Godfather" of modern ice-fishing.

I wasn't sure how Genz knew this just by looking at some holes in the ice, but he is the man who engineered the Fish Trap portable ice shelter, came up with the idea of using sonar for ice-fishing, and he has pioneered nearly every innovation from high-end rods and reels to clothing designed purely for ice-fishing. When it comes to ice-fishing, Genz clearly is "The Man."

Therefore, I probably sounded a bit sheepish when I asked him how he knew fish were caught. You could obviously see anglers had been there, but I saw no potential signs of fish catching.

"I talked to some of the guys that were here, and they said the crappies were 12-inchers, and the walleyes moved up in the evening and they all were in the 18- to 19-inch range," Genz replied.

So, it wasn't a psychic phenomenon I had just witnessed. It was good old-fashioned research by phone.

"I get a lot of my information from other fishermen," he said. "It's a good way to get a feel for where they're biting and on what."

Where they are biting and on what is always the question ice-anglers ask themselves. Since they are relegated to an 8-inch hole, being in the right place is 90 percent of the formula for success. The other 10 percent is how to get the fish to bite.

"Fish follow patterns in the wintertime just like they do in open water," Genz pointed out. "At early ice, you'll find the shallow structure is productive, and as the winter progresses, the deeper holes get better. By the last few weeks of good ice, the fish will migrate back into those shallower regions."

Genz has a method for finding fish when he doesn't have the benefit of some inside information from his posse of Power Sticks (the name given to members of his ice team). He drills a bunch of holes and searches with his sonar.

"It's like trolling in open water. You cover ground by drilling where the fish should be, and then you use your sonar to see the fish so you know that a particular hole has potential," he explained.

And when you have covered the 90 percent rule of finding the fish, how do you decide which technique brings you to that 100 percent point where the rod is bent?

"That just takes some experimenting," he said. "You take a lure, tip it with some meat and send it down the hole. You can watch the fish on the sonar as it swims up to the bait, and, if you're not getting them to commit, try a different presentation."

Genz said options are wide open when it comes to the lures and the bait. The presentation, because you're fishing through a hole in the ice, is a bit more limited.

"The lure can be a horizontal style or a vertical style," was how Genz described the way the lure rests. "The horizontal style would be a jig like the Fat Boy or the Genz Worm," both lures Genz designed strictly for ice-fishing. "The vertical style would be a jigging spoon like the Frostee," he added.

Genz explained he typically tips the lures with maggots, even when fishing for walleyes and crappies. Occasionally the minnow, or parts of one, will tip the hook. Perch are very receptive to a jigging spoon tipped with a minnow head.

"The biggest mistake ice-anglers make is, when the fish swims up to the bait, they stop jigging," he said. "It was the action that attracted the fish in the first place, and now they stop, let the lure rest and the fish swims away. You can switch from a radical jigging approach that has attracted the fish to a quiver, but I never stop working the lure until I set the hook."