Welp, we’ve reached skim ice season, folks. What a difference one week and a cold front can make, right? Last week, we had anglers catching pickerel left and right, trout biting well, and flurries of perch and bass in the reports. Even winter holdover stripers were biting for our friend Stavros Viglas on Martha’s Vineyard.
These are arguably the toughest conditions for fishing. Skim ice formed on local ponds overnight during brisk and windy weather earlier this week, and since then, we’ve had a couple little flurries of snow. This isn’t a weather report, I know, but the thin layer of ice over most of our smaller ponds created a stalemate; it’s not nearly thick enough ice to be safe, and it’s not thin enough to fish around it or through it. The good news is, this weekend looks like it should warm up just enough to melt off any ice that formed this week.
UPDATE 12/16/22: A majority of the skim ice has melted off of ponds due to heavy overnight rains and mild conditions. The weekend looks breezy, but don’t let that stop you from fishing a little wind-protected trout pond tucked away in the woods! Let’s enjoy the iceless conditions while we can.
Before the ponds froze, some friends and I fished live shiners under light-up bobbers one night. Unfortunately, we were met with nothing but yellow perch again. I don’t know what it takes, but one of these days we’ll hook a good bass or a big brown trout, and it will be glorious.
At On The Water, even our saving grace— the brackish white perch ponds—froze earlier this week. It got me thinking it might be time to start picking up new hooks and split rings for some much needed off-season maintenance. But I refuse to surrender to the cold conditions so quickly. Instead, I am choosing to embrace the possibility of more ice in the coming weeks by going to pick up some line to spool my ice fishing rod. I bought my first ice rod last year in anticipation of an ice fishing season that never occurred, but this winter seems like it could be the one.
Prior to skim ice, the ponds were giving up good numbers of rainbow trout, the occasional bass, and plentiful yellow perch. Aside from bait-and-wait fishing with live shiners, trout and perch were being caught on Kastmasters and PowerBait dough. The malleable, scented PowerBait can be rigged on a light dipsey sinker and fished on the bottom, or suspended beneath a bobber.
This bait and wait fishing requires the warmest gear you’ve got, because it comes with a lot of standing around and waiting. More than anything else though, winter fishing requires patience and a will to endure the elements just to bend a rod.
When the going gets tough, as it is now, exploration is the next step to finding a bite. Driving a little further than usual or fishing bigger lakes that may not have frozen with the smaller ponds can create rewarding experiences, even if the outings yield nothing more than a single trout. This weekend, it’s worth checking out our local spots, but I plan to do a little extra traveling to find new fishable waters to defer to when ice out comes again.
But, before jumping in the car in search of new waters, let’s check in on the bite with some of our local shops.
Connor at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay reports:
“We haven’t heard much after the crazy cold this week. Some of our customers are still catching trout on both shiners and spoons on the bigger lakes, but otherwise the shop has been pretty quiet. Even some of the marinas froze over earlier in the week! Assuming the more mild temperatures melt off the skim ice, this weekend should be a good time to get back out there in search of more trout, bass and white perch. We’re selling shiners if you need them.”
Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth reports:
“Mashpee/Wakeby Pond is giving up some trout due to the fact it has open water. If there is anything biting, it’s going to be trout and maybe a few yellow perch in slightly deeper water than normal for this time of year. Spoons and jerkbaits are the way to go.”
Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis reports:
“We’ve had a few customers catching trout this week but the cold really hampered the bite as some of the shallower ponds locked up. The anglers who were catching trout fished primarily with Kastmaster spoons and small jerkbaits, but there was one customer who cleaned up on trout using PowerBait dough. Hopefully some warmer weekend temperatures keep the ponds open to fishing.”
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Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain around Cape Cod and the Islands!
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
The best bet for the weekend is going to be trout fishing on the larger, deeper kettle lakes around Cape Cod. Outer Cape ponds may fish well for bigger holdover brown trout, while most of the other ponds should be fishing well for more recently stocked rainbows. If the trout ponds aren’t giving up fish, they are likely in deeper water that’s tough to access from shore.
As a backup plan, if you have a reliable white perch fishing spot or two, it’s worth checking them out. There’s rain and some mild temperatures in the forecast for the next day or two; a post-storm change in pressure combined with melted skim ice will have those panfish biting again.
I can’t be the only one staying hopeful for an ice fishing season. But this thin, unfishable ice… I just can’t do it. Make up your mind, Mother Nature. To freeze, or not to freeze?
Had to look up the word malleable, I’ll never be a writer!