Mo,

This is not the winter to learn about ice fishing, if you are at all leery. Some 8 or 9 vehicles have gone through the ice just in my home county, Hennepin in Minnesota this winter. There have been a number of people who didn't make it out. Our county sheriff ordered all county lakes closed to drive on, it has been so undependable. There was a definite amount of griping about that, but there really isn't the normal amount of relatively safe ice up here this year. Way way too warm. Quite a few businesses have been hurt by the mild winter. I don't much blame the sheriff either.

I will underscore what has been said about the tiny rattail plastics in this thread. They work on all kinds of species and it is not just in the winter. The ones with the most active tails work best, too. We are also finding that it doesn't pay to overlook the blues and transparent blue cast ones either. My partner lost a very good pike right at the hole (he couldn't get the head started) on his last blue luv nub to a cut off there. This winter alone they have taken largemouths, pike, carp and even a couple of white suckers besides the targeted panfish. We keep them around all summer too. You really never know just what kind of fish will pick up the little plastics next. About as big as we ever go any time of the year is the Bobby Garland 2" Baby Shad almost never on a jig bigger than 1/32 with a size 6 hook.

Everything eats tiny quite frequently if not by volume, including muskies. I caught three of them up to 32" last summer on the little plastics, and I know they were direct takes, because I saw two of the three of them happen, that was in addition to something like a dozen and a half cutoffs. Last summer also produced a number of walleyes, too. BTW that was all fishing on foot and all on ultralight targeting panfish.