Northerners - what are you rigging up for the first trip out?

[Jar11591]

Ice-out is still presumably over 30 days away for my part of upstate NY. But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about what I’ll be rigging up when I can finally get the boat out on a thawed lake. 
 

I’ll be going out with 8 rods - 1 spinning and 7 casting. The baits ill have rigged up are:

 

-Wacky senko 5”

-3/4oz Rattlin’ Rap

-MB Vision 110 JR

-Alabama Rig

-Catch Co. Bull Shad

-Bladed jig

-Siebert Outdoor 3/8 oz brush jig

-Strike King 3/4oz double willow spinnerbait

 

I’ll probably spend more time throwing the spinnerbait than anything else for the first trip post ice. But I spend more time huckin a spinnerbait than any other bait no matter the time of year. The last couple years I’ve gotten away from throwing a lipless early in the season but I wanna devote more time to it again. It was always a good producer in the spring for me. Also excited to spend more time throwing the A-rig and bladed jig. I told myself I was going to fish the bladed jig a lot more and try to make it a confidence presentation. 
 

So my fellow northerners who are still iced in, what do you plan on throwing that first trip out?

 

 

 

[A-Jay]

Jerkbaits of assorted sizes, running depths and types of sound emitted.

(or not)

Bladed jigs (see above).

Rattle Baits, again see above.

Flat sided Square bill.

Black hair jig.

Paddletail swimbait on a ball head.

As for colors, patterns, size & profile,

there's generally two themes if you will.

1.  Baits will usually come close to matching local forage especially in clear water. Dirty water rarely produces super early season for me.  I do send in the clowns at times.

2. Default in all scenarios is "perch".

A-Jay

[casts_by_fly]

It depends a lot on what lake I can go to.  A few of my regulars here are trout stocked and shut until early April.  I'm also not going to them the first 2 weeks of trout season.  The lake I'll spend a bunch of time on this year that I know is 20' low at the moment and the ramp is out of commission.  With ice out in 2 weeks possibly, I don't think its coming up 20' without catastrophic rains which would make it unfishable anyway.  The two big lakes around would be more of a boat ride than fishing time, though I could see FFS playing into it.  The small lake I normally start on doesn't have a public boat ramp (but does have a car top launch) but I might just have to pay to use the marina ramp for the first trip of the year.  In that case, I'll have on some crappie jigs because there are BUNCH in there.

[MediumMouthBass]

9 casting combos, 1 spinning

 

#1. Lipless: Berkley Warpig

#2. Chatterbaits: The one we cant name, and the Siebert Tremor

#3. Shallow cranks: 13 Fishing Flat Daddy or the Scamp

#4. Jigs: 3/8oz Berkley swimjig and a 3/8-1/2oz Siebert football

#5. Jerkbaits: Megabass Vision 110 Jr/+, Jackall Rerange, Berkley Stunna, Lucky Craft Pointers

#6. -2oz swimbaits: 6" Daingerous or the Whale

#7. Glidebaits: 13 Fishing Glidesdale

#8. Texas rig: 1/8-1/4oz weight paired with a Zoom Mag UV, Yamamoto/Daiwa Neko Macho/Gambler Burner Craw

#9. Wacky rig: 5" Ocho, Okeechobee Craw.

 

Around mid March this smaller powerplant lake should be open water after 1pm, and they usually stocked trout already, with another one coming in March, and then April. Im going to be taking a bunch of different color lures, baits, trailers. But im mainly going to be using reds/browns or trout patterns. I have to remove some wire tied skirts from a few Chatterbaits because i want to put my trout skirts on them to really match the hatch.

 

 

 

[gim]

I'm still over 2 months from this happening.  It will be highly dependent on the water temperature.

 

A jerk bait seems like a regular early in the season.  Maybe a bladed jig if it's a little warmer.  Both worked quite slow.

[MN Fisher]

^ As Gim said, it's a couple months away for me...but

 

Suspending Jerk worked slow

Weightless Fluke

Shakey Head

 

I'll probably have some others rigged up - but those three will be my starting point.

[Bigbox99]

Early April for me is when my 1st fish of the year comes.  I've tried March after ice out but the fish are stuck in their winter pattern without electronics.  I'll be throwing lipless crankbaits and flat side crankbaits back in the shallow flats on a sunny day on some of my smaller bodies of water from a kayak.  For my bigger shad based system I'm going to crawl a yellow perch 68 special rof 12, long pause jerkbaits and bottom bounce lipless on points at the mouth of bays with spawning grounds trying to catch fish positioning on the point to move up later.  I'll burn a flatside like a OG 7 on the shallower portions of the point just to see if I can get a reaction out of a sun bathing fish.  I'll try an umbrella rig for the 1st time in my life this season too deeper on the points.

[bwillis]

Probably a square bill, lipless crank, bladed jig, soft jerkbait, tokyo/jika rigged craw

[Mr. Aquarium]

I’m in MA. I had ice out fish, jerkbait, crank bait, glide, and shakey head

[33oldtimer]

Red Spinnerbait. Ned. Jig.

[MonsterZero]

I know some guys are catching already, so I am going to try to get out next week. I cleaned the reels and rigged everything up a little while ago. I have one with a Texas rigged Pit Boss, one with a spinnerbait, and one set up for a weightless fluke to start. We will see what conditions look like when I actually hit the water.

[OHBuckets]

My last bit of ground ice melted away yesterday, but I woke up to an inch of new snow and rising.

 

So I'm just going to stare at this all day:

[Texas Flood]

Jig and a bladed jig are always my go to. Might toss a wacky if I’m feelin spicy. 

 

 

 

Oh yeah I forgot you can’t say the C word anymore. Silly me

[TheBaitMonkey]

Ice out can’t come soon enough!

 

1 - 1/2 oz jig with a flapping hog

2 - Jerkbait of various depths

3 - Jighead minnow (likely a 4” Sakamata or Freeloader)

4 - Dropshot

[TriStateBassin106]

I went out today to a few ponds and caught nothing, but we had a warm spell in NJ that was quickly killed by the gusting winds, In the time I had to fish the open water I threw around a slow rolled megabass sv-3 spinnerbait, a 3inch keitech easy shiner and a finesse trd. no bites again but that's usually what I start out with, fished deep until the wind was too much. 

[webertime]

Jerkbait/Fluke

Magdraft Freestyle 

Ned/football with a ned

Shallow crank/lipless

bladed jig 

[MonsterZero]

6 hours ago, TriStateBassin106 said:

I went out today to a few ponds and caught nothing, but we had a warm spell in NJ that was quickly killed by the gusting winds, In the time I had to fish the open water I threw around a slow rolled megabass sv-3 spinnerbait, a 3inch keitech easy shiner and a finesse trd. no bites again but that's usually what I start out with, fished deep until the wind was too much. 

The next two weeks or so look even better, at least by me in Burlington County. This wind has been insane, hopefully it lets up for a few hours at least.

[r83srock]

Spinnerbait for covering water and on windy days.

 

Jig for pitching to stumps and docks, swimming over grass flats. 
 

lizard swam and hopped for something different.

 

senko for when I really need to slow down

[Pumpkin Lizard]

Black and Blue jig, with a rage craw trailer. Fished very slow. 

[Dan N]

Ned Red has been my best very early.

flat sided crank, Rapala OG , and tiny

and lipless, various.

I’ll try a couple jerk baits  also, but not a ton of confidence in them. I know they work, but I just have never done great with them.

[JediAmoeba]

Mostly gliders. Maybe a jerkbait and a hair jig briefly. 

[Phelptwan]

Probably;

Damiki Vault in Chrome or Blue

Blue/Chrome Rat-L-Trap

Stunna in Shad Fillet

Bluegill colored 3xd

Bluegill colored Frittside

Red JackHammer

Wack Rig

[The Baron]

It’ll probably be mid-late April before we can get on Lake Ontario for the early bass season (open now, closes May 10).  We’ll try for smallies with finesse football jigs, dropshot, jerkbaits and underspins.  But I’m more looking forward to some fat prespawn largemouth with squarebills, bladed jigs, spinnerbaits, a compact jig and likely a wacky rig.  
 

But first we need to pickup the new boat and figure out a whole new tackle organization plan now that we’ll have about 3x the storage space. 🙂

[ww2farmer]

Jerkbait, bladed jig,  swimbait, ned rig,  finesse football jig, blade bait.

[C.Tucks]

Most likely 

ned

small swimbait/paddletail

hair jig

blade bait

jerkbait