Despite the current warm-up, ice fishing is still red hot in Northern Michigan. Sport Fish Michigan has been on some great fishing this past week establishing consistent bite patterns for perch, walleye, and bluegill.

Walleye and large perch have been actively feeding in the same general area on several different bodies of water. The best action has been found fishing 28-33 feet of water directly on top of larger flats consisting of a soft bottom. Fire tiger tungsten jig presentations tipped with wax worms have been deadly. Size 3-5 Jigging Rapala’s in black and silver have also been great for targeting walleye and keeper perch at the same time. We have found that rigging our tip-ups with a 3/16oz egg sinker, 18” 4lb fluorocarbon leader accompanied by a #14 gold treble and blue minnow has been most effective for both species.

The bluegill bite this past week was very good! We had several limit catches on some smaller bodies of water fishing in 12-16ft. The most desired presentation we found consisted of glow 1/32oz tungsten jigs tipped with natural colored spikes. The fish really wanted the jig moving, consistently attacking the jig on the rise 2-3ft off of bottom.