Why I'm Skipping First Ice and Heading to a Burbot Lake Instead

Four inches of new, clear ice is the minimum for one person walking or ice fishing (North Dakota Game and Fish). That single number is why I am not packing the truck for first ice this year. The early-season reports are always the loudest, and the ice underneath them is always the thinnest. If you are planning a destination trip, first ice is the worst week of the winter to chase it.

Here is my position: the best ice fishing destinations are not the first lakes to lock up. They are the lakes where the season's real fish show up late, and where you can stand on a foot of ice instead of four inches of question mark. That means burbot, lake whitefish, and lake trout — not the panfish bite everyone posts about in December.

First ice is a safety story pretending to be a fishing story

Minnesota DNR is blunt about it: four inches of clear, newly formed ice may support a person, while a foot or more of old, partially thawed ice may not. New ice is stronger than old ice, but new ice is also thinner, and it is seldom uniform. The same agency notes ice can be two feet thick in one place and one inch thick a few yards away. Ontario adds that near-shore ice is often much thicker and safer than ice farther out at the start of the season — which is exactly the water most first-ice reports are describing.

So when someone tells you the bite is on at a lake three hours from home, ask what they were standing on. If the answer is "four inches near the access," you are not reading a fishing report. You are reading a gamble.

Quick tip: if you travel for early ice, check thickness at least every 150 feet, per Minnesota DNR, and carry ice picks on a lanyard. I also like to bring a spud bar—it sounds archaic, but tapping ahead of you gives you a read on the ice that a auger never will. On a recent trip to a northern Minnesota lake, a friend found a pressure ridge that had opened and refrozen; the ice was four inches on one side and barely an inch on the other. We backed off and fished a bay that had a consistent seven inches. That decision saved us from a very bad story.

The late-season fish are the ones worth a drive

Burbot are the first fish to spawn each year, usually in late January, gathering in a quivering "living glob" of tangled bodies (Minnesota DNR). That is a destination event, and it happens when the ice is thick enough to drive on. A single female burbot can lay up to 1 million eggs. You are not going to find that bite in a December report.

Lake whitefish are the other underrated target. They spawn in the fall when shallow water drops below 45°F, usually at night over gravel and rubble. A common winter rig ties a flasher one to two feet below the ice with a white jig or small minnow below that (Minnesota DNR). That is a specific, learnable setup, and it fishes best in midwinter, not first ice. I've had good luck with a small silver Swedish Pimple tipped with a piece of nightcrawler, jigged right near the bottom in 20 to 30 feet. The bite is often subtle—just a slight tick—so watch your flasher like a hawk.

Then there is lake trout. Wisconsin DNR notes they prefer water at 48–52°F and feed mainly on alewife, smelt, and sculpin. They were nearly extinct in Lake Michigan by 1956, and Wisconsin has stocked about one million per year since 1965. That is a destination fishery with a real recovery story behind it, and it fishes through the heart of winter.

The counterargument: first ice is the most productive window

The strongest case against me is that first ice concentrates fish and produces the fastest action of the year. I will grant the premise and reject the conclusion. Yes, walleye and perch feed aggressively early. But walleye avoid light, so the best windows are morning, evening, and cloudy days (Ontario) — you can hit those in January just as well. Yellow perch tolerate a wide range of temperatures and habitats and often share water with walleye and bass (Ontario). None of that requires risking four-inch ice on a strange lake.

The counterargument treats "most fish" as the goal. For a destination angler, the goal is a fish worth the drive on ice you can trust. Those are different trips.

How to pick a destination without guessing

Use the thickness tables as a travel budget, not a dare. Five to seven inches supports a snowmobile or ATV. Eight to twelve inches supports a car or small pickup. Twelve to fifteen inches supports a medium truck (North Dakota Game and Fish). Alaska puts passenger vehicles and larger pickups at twelve inches or more. Ohio wants a minimum of five inches for ice fishing at state park lakes. Minnesota DNR's Gold's formula table is the most useful planning tool: at 50 psi bearing strength, about 4 inches supports roughly 800 lb, 8 inches about 3,200 lb, 12 inches about 7,200 lb, 16 inches about 12,800 lb, and 20 inches about 20,000 lb.

That table tells you something a fishing report cannot. A 20-inch lake can hold a wheelhouse shelter. A 5-inch lake holds a snowmobile and a bad attitude. Match the lake to your rig before you match it to the bite.

One more thing: don't overlook current. Inlets and outlets can have ice half the thickness of the main lake, even in late winter. I learned that the hard way on a lake trout trip in Wisconsin—we found six inches in the main basin but only two near a stream mouth. Now I always drill a test hole near any moving water before I set up.

Rules and dates that decide your trip

Destination planning is regulation planning. Minnesota shelters must be off the ice by March 2 south of the dividing line and March 16 north of it for 2026, with border-water deadlines from February 20 to March 31. Michigan shanty deadlines are midnight March 31 in the Upper Peninsula, March 15 in boundary waters and most Northern Lower Peninsula counties, and March 1 in the remaining Lower Peninsula counties. New York shanties come off by March 15 and must carry the owner's name and address in letters at least 3 inches high. Ontario huts come off by March 1, 15, or 31 depending on zone. If your trip lands in the last two weeks of a season, you may be pulling a shelter, not fishing.

Do not ignore the invasive species rules either. About 9% of Minnesota's 11,842 lakes are on the infested waters list. Transporting water away from a lake is illegal there, and violations can bring fines up to $1,000.

My recommendation stands: skip first ice for destinations. Fish the burbot spawn, the whitefish rig, the lake trout water. Wait for ice you can stand on with room to spare. The reports will still be there in January, and so will you.

Sources

• North Dakota Game and Fish - https://gf.nd.gov/ice-safety
• Minnesota DNR (ice safety) - https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/safety/ice/thickness.html
• Minnesota DNR (ice thickness by weight) - https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/safety/ice/ice-thickness-guidelines-weight.html
• Minnesota DNR (burbot) - https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish/burbot.html
• Wisconsin DNR (lake trout) - https://ua.dnr.wisconsin.gov/sites/default/files/topic/Fishing/Species_laketrout.pdf
• Ontario (walleye) - https://www.ontario.ca/page/walleye