Ice safety Make sure the ice is thick enough to support you. Drill a hole with an auger a foot or two from shore and measure the thickness of the ice, then test it again in the middle of the lake. Four to six inches is generally considered safe, but remember that ice is not uniform — it may be a foot thick in one area but only an inch or two thick nearby. Clear, black ice tends to be more solid, and ice that has become off-color is usually weaker. New ice is generally stronger than ice that has been around for
in the season before it snows, people flock to Patterson Lake near Sun Mountain Lodge to seek their fortune below the ice. The primary catch at Patterson is yellow perch — particularly good in January and February — but you’ll also find rainbow trout and kokanee. Some lucky ice fishers catch bass in Patterson, but they’re hard to snag because they’re inactive in the cold, said Rider. Because trout move throughout the water column, they tend to be easier to catch in the winter, said Snow. And winter is the only time of year when you can keep trout from Davis Lake, which is regularly stocked with rainbows that grow to 10 to 14 inches.
a while — for example, four inches of clear, newly formed ice may support one person, while a foot of older ice that has thawed and refrozen may not. Remember that snow insulates the ice, meaning it will freeze more slowly. Carry ice rescue claws, which you can make from pieces of wood or a broomstick with nails embedded into the ends, or from sharpened screwdrivers. The claws will enable you to climb out if you fall through the ice.
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Perch congregate on the bottom, but they fight hard, which evens the playing field and makes it fun, said Snow. There’s s no limit on the number or size of perch you can catch. Trout and kokanee are generally restricted to five a day. Leader Lake, on the east side of the Loup Loup summit, has become a particularly popular spot since it opened for ice fishing a few years ago. It has a good population of perch, bass and catfish, as well as rainbow trout, black crappie and bluegill. Ice fishing is also popular around Oroville and Tonasket, where there are many accessible lakes that freeze solid and nurture big fish, said Rider. Kokanee in Palmer Lake near Loomis tend to be more than a foot long, twice the size of the Patterson kokanee, said Mike Vaughan.
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live bait, a shiny lure or artificial maggots, said Rider. It takes some experience to figure out what works, since conditions are different under the ice, which makes the water darker. “A micro-jig head, tipped with a meal worm — that’s pretty tough to beat,” said Mike Vaughan. Most days, three or four hours is plenty of time to catch a lot of fish and still not get too chilled, he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t take long to get so many perch that you don’t even want to clean them all,” said Snow. )
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