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That certainly didn’t take long, did it? It seemed that permanent shacks and portables appeared overnight following the sustained cold snap that we experienced a week or so ago, and I couldn’t be happier.

As I drive around the area lakes, I see knots of houses occupying the usual spots for aggressive early-ice crappies and walleyes, and the reports have been very, very good. I’ve slipped into a few of these spots with my portable over the past week and found that I can nearly set my watch to the time that the crappies first begin to appear on my electronics.

There are only a couple of things to keep in mind if you go out and chase early-ice crappies this time of year: get set up and fishing by 3:30 p.m. and hang in there until 6:00 p.m. or so. The crappies really strap on the feedbag from 4:00 p.m. until shortly after dark.

My brother-in-law and I began fishing at 6:00 p.m. one evening and found that while a great number of crappies were indeed below our holes, they behaved very cautiously when presented with a back-hooked minnow. It was evident that these after-dark fish, when faced with an easy meal, had too much time to approach the bait for close inspection. After watching fish after fish on the electronics bump and reject my offering, I’d had enough. I changed my presentation and immediately began to catch crappies. I found that lip hooking the minnows with a small, vertical glow jig and teasing the crappies – sort of a cat-and-mouse game – triggered an aggressive, predatory response from these finicky fish. Keeping the bait six inches in front of the nose of a pursuing crappie and teasing the fish as much as six feet from where the chase began proved to be very productive, not to mention good fun.

It’s a good idea to hang a shiner under a tip-up at the same time you’re in the house catching crappies. One jigging rod will keep you busy in the house if the crappies are present and active, and you can bet that the walleyes will be nearby, too. In only a few outings now, my brother-in-law and I caught a couple of dandy walleyes - one of these “bonus ‘eyes” was a thick 20-incher that came to the hole on an ultra-light jigging rod.

Once I got out there and started catching fish, I realized how much I missed looking through a hole in the ice while my gas lantern hisses overhead. For all of you ice-fishing junkies out there, you know exactly what I mean.

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