Crazy bass action to start ice fishing season

Ice fishing season is finally here again. As usual, I sort of pre-plan where I intend to fish and what I'm attempting to catch, well in advance of the season. As opposed to last year's goals of trying a bunch of new spots, this season, I plan to hit more of my usual spots, hopefully bringing my sons along as well.

After a lackluster outing on first ice earlier in December, I decided to take Zev out for a day of jigging, in relatively warmer weather. With the high just around the freezing mark, and him dressed as warmly as possible, we got out to jig for perch and pike.

Action was much slower than I hoped for, but my I achieved my main goals of training Zev to effectively use a flasher and jigging rod, as well as to get an idea of his general resistance to cold weather. He did stay warm overall, but unfortunately for him, he seems to have his mom's hands when it comes to freezing quickly. Despite the relatively warm weather, and my heaviest gloves lined with additional disposable hand warmers, his fingers were still very cold.

We didn't manage all that many fish, a few perch, and 1 small pike while jigging.

For our next outing together the following week, I picked up a couple Zippo electronic rechargeable hand warmers on clearance at Sail. Definitely get a lot hotter than the disposable powder ones. We headed up to a lake where I've had some very productive fishing for a mix of largemouth and smallmouth bass, as well as jumbo perch. With the weather hovering around -5 and very little wind, it was about as good of a day as I could hope for.

We trekked to out spot, and got to work trying to locate a pattern. After spending a good hour or so of searching, we got into some sporadic perch at about 28 to 32 feet of depth. Sizes were good, I even managed to land my biggest ice perch at 13.5 inches.

Still only 1 bass nearly 3 hours into the outing.

Based on past experience on this lake, I had a hunch the bass action would pick up after noon. Sure enough, once we located them between 25 and 28 feet of depth, the action was just about non stop. Over the next few hours, we managed to land a whopping 33 more largemouth bass, as well as a couple smallmouth bass too, with Zev catching the majority of them, as I was guiding him along. Mostly caught on small lipless crankbaits, as well as small spoons.

Zev was more than thrilled, and couldn't believe what was happening. He'd never caught that many bass in any given season, let alone in one afternoon on ice. So much for largemouth bass being a "warm water" species... Better yet, he was able to push through his frozen fingers to get at the fish. Truly a unique experience I was happy to be able to get him onto.

At this point, it looks like my 2025 season has come to it's end. It's been another fun season, with many very nice surprises. From a crazy week of catching saltwater fish in a freshwater canal in Miami last winter, to the insane numbers of pike and walleye landed during a few of my summer vacations, to some trophy carp in fall, and now ending off with this latest bass frenzy on ice. Just about ready to get my 2026 season under way as well.

At this point, I'd like to wish everyone a great 2026, with lot's of good fishing, great catches, and a happy new year!