Fishing Wisconsin

Ice Fishing

One Man, One Lake, Many Fish

Skip Sommerfeldt, a longtime DNR fish biologist and northern Wisconsin resident, keeps a diary of all the fish he catches during the hard water season and shares his forecast for 2008-09.

Skip Sommerfeldt

Skip reeled in this 33-inch northern pike from Butternut Lake, Forest County.

Dec. 1, 2008 - My feeling for this winter is that it's going to be an average to above average year for several reasons. First, we had a late spring and as such, a late spawn for most of our warmwater fish species. This seems to have resulted in lower numbers of young-of-year panfish and forage, which should mean that food will be harder to find for the game fish and they should more readily bite.

My other indication is from my fall fishing on Butternut Lake. It seemed that the fall walleye bite was pretty good and fish were actively biting from September through October. And the walleye that I did catch seemed to be on the skinny side and not like the fat, robust fish of the past few years - indicating to me that forage is not as plentiful and that the walleye should bite pretty good throughout this winter.

Fishing was slower in 2007-08, but as an angler, that leaves me eager for this year's season, as we usually never have two slow years in a row. And that's my gut feeling going into this winter. We'll see how my prognostication turns out come March 2009.

Well, it's 3:30 p.m. and time to hit the ice for the first time this year.

Skip's Years on the Ice