Photo by Ron Sinfelt

It's time for ice-fishing again in Indiana! Hardwater angling enthusiasts, who have waited patiently since last winter, will soon be rewarded. Cold winter winds and dropping temperatures will set the annual ice-making machine in motion, and by Christmas (with any luck), there will be safe ice for eager ice-fishermen to venture out upon.

Most Hoosier ice-fishermen are hoping that the weather this December and January will be a bit friendlier than it was last year. Last winter featured wild temperature swings that hampered good ice production and harassed fishermen. Some anglers never drilled a hole all season.

Last Jan. 1, the daytime high temperature in the northwest part of the state was a balmy 53 degrees. Four days later, the temperature had dropped into the mid-20s and 8 inches of snow had fallen. On the following day, the mercury dropped to 13 degrees. Good ice was just starting to get a foothold when a sudden warm front moved in to spoil the party. Temperatures soared to 60 degrees by mid-January, and heavy rains ruined the newly formed ice.

Rollercoaster weather patterns of that sort are the enemy of ice-fishermen everywhere. No one knows what the weather will be like this winter, but let's hope the ice will arrive before Christmas and linger into March. Regardless of when the first safe ice appears, though, rest assured that ice-fishermen around the state will be ready and willing to get out and wet a line.

Although some Hoosier ice-anglers will head for their favorite lakes, others are always on the lookout for new hotspots. Still, others aren't sure where to start. Well, look no farther. Indiana Game & Fish has identified five (six, actually) excellent places to fish to help narrow your choice. They include Holem and Cook lakes in Marshall County, Silver Lake in Steuben County, Rockville Lake in Parke County, Whitewater Lake in Union County and Ferdinand State Forest (SF) Lake in Dubois County.

HOLEM AND COOK LAKES
Since safe ice usually comes first to the northern part of the state, let's start with Holem and Cook lakes in Marshall County. Although these are separate lakes, they are connected by a common channel and are treated as one body of water by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR). These two lakes are just southwest of Plymouth, and are also connected (via culvert) to another popular fishing lake -- Mill Pond. Holem and Cook comprise a total of only 133 surface acres, but they are an excellent place for ice-fishermen to pursue panfish. Jeremy Price, the District 1 assistant fisheries biologist for the DNR, was quick to single out these lakes as a great fishing destination.

"That whole chain of lakes is among the best bluegill waters that we have," he said. "We surveyed Holem and Cook in 2002 and got great numbers of big redear and bluegill sunfish."

"We collected 1,281 fish in that survey, and 905 were bluegills ranging in size from just under 2 inches to 9.3 inches," Price said. "But the real story is the size of the bluegills. More than 10 percent of the bluegills that we caught were 7.5 inches long, and almost 15 percent were 8 inches long or better. It's a great-looking bluegill population!"

The resident redear sunfish are also doing very well. According to the survey data, redears were second only to bluegills in relative abundance, and individual fish as large as 10.6 inches were sampled. Really big redears also made up a very large percentage of the sample, as 11 percent were 9 inches long, and more than 12 percent were at least 9.5 inches. As if that wasn't good enough, a whopping 14 percent of the redear sampled were 10 inches long or better! Those numbers speak volumes.