Not until Adam Christianson yanked his third fat perch from the same hole 10 yards away did I concede he might be onto something.
Being stubborn had nothing to do with my slow reaction. Until Christianson said something like, “I just love sight-fishing,” it never occurred to me that he wasn’t just jigging and waiting to feel a subtle tug. But yes, now that he called attention to it, he was definitely standing and staring into an 8-inch circular window while jigging a wispy plastic shrimp.
Christianson soon saw another perch inhale his pink bait, and set the hook and slid his fourth straight fish onto the ice without needing to reel. I had just assumed the waters were too murky to see perch swimming around, even though the sandy bottom of this big, long flat on the Mississippi River near La Crosse was only 3 feet below my bucket.
Fishing had been slow for my wife, Penny, and me after we dropped our baits into the depths at 7:15 a.m. Several nearby anglers already had several perch when we arrived at sunrise in late January. Others, however, were faring worse than us, even though Penny and I only had two perch between us by 10 a.m.
It’s tough to predict when perch will bite best, but sometimes they feed heavily at dawn on the Mississippi River. — Patrick Durkin photos
“You’re sight-fishing?” I asked Christianson in mild surprise.
“We don’t see clear water like this very often, but it’s fun when it happens,” Christianson replied, encouraging us to look for ourselves. I scooched forward atop my 5-gallon bucket and leaned over my hole. The angle was still wrong, so I stood and looked again.
As my eyes adjusted to the watery glare with help from my sunglasses, I made out my bait and the bottom’s rippled sand while trying to imitate Christianson’s jigging action. Still, nothing stirred, and Christianson moved to fish other holes nearby.
As he walked away, I turned to Penny and said: “The curse of the outdoor writer. Fish stop biting whenever they sense I’m near.”
We didn’t quit, of course. We’d been reminded repeatedly that perch sometimes take a while to get going. Christianson runs the Adrenaline Angling Guide Service out of La Crosse (www.adrenalineanglingguideservice.com), and we figured he and fellow guide Dom Flock would eventually put us atop some active perch. Christianson guides anglers year-round on the Mississippi River, and finds active fish far more than he fails, whether it’s perch, saugers, walleyes or bluegills in the big river and its backwaters.
Christianson met us before sunrise at La Crosse’s city marina and boat launch that day. After we toted our buckets and gear down the piers, we climbed into his airboat for a short ride across broken ice and open water to a solid ice sheet covering the flats.
Flock was drilling holes as we arrived, and moved us regularly to unfished sites whenever seeing perch on his electronics. Still, the fish seemed to spook as quickly as we moved. Fish in shallow waters tend to do that, of course, being sensitive to noise and vibrations above. Whatever the reason, neither Flock, me nor Penny were having much luck by midmorning.
Air boats allow safe travel on the Mississippi River, where conditions can vary from no ice in fast currents to foot-thick ice in the backwaters.
Finally, the action turned in our favor soon after Christianson suggested sight-fishing. A few minutes after he walked off, I saw black stripes on two greenish-yellow backgrounds moving in the water below my boots. I blinked my eyes a couple of times and looked closely, hoping to verify the visions as perch.
Yep. No doubt about it. And then a third perch finned into view inches from the first two. And then another perch swam in head-on. All four eyed my tiny plastic shrimp as it danced before them, looking tantalizing to my eyes.
Though curious, the perch just stared indecisively. I raised my bait a couple of inches, hoping to trigger a bite, but lowered it again when they moved out of view. I cursed their species quietly and considered hurrying to a hole 20 yards away to head them off. Then I recalled Flock cautioning me earlier to move slowly and quietly. It’s easy to spook fish in shallow waters by rushing across the ice.
Another perch swam in when I looked back down the hole I was monitoring. This one, however, suddenly darted at my bait and engulfed it. I lifted the 10-inch fish through the hole and slid it flopping across the ice as it splashed water in all directions.
I dropped the bait back down, saw it land with a puff into the sandy silt, and raised it 6 inches from the bottom. Just as I began jigging, another perch shot in and snatched it. I slid that perch, too, onto the ice moments later.
Penny soon followed with a couple of her own, and by noon we had a dozen perch between us; all measuring 10 to 12 inches. Other than the two perch I caught early, we caught the rest sight-fishing in late morning as bright sunlight and steadily warming temperatures soared toward the low 50s.
Contrary to popular belief, even two skilled fishing guides couldn’t guarantee our two-person limit of 30 perch that day. Christianson and Flock work a 120-mile stretch of the Mississippi River north and south of La Crosse, where the bag limit is 15 perch in pools 4 to 9, which is roughly Nelson to the dam above Harper’s Ferry, Iowa.
Christianson said he originally used ATVs to carry his icefishing clients around when starting his guide business four years ago, but soon switched to airboats. His airboat lets him carry up to six people safely, but costs more to operate, especially in winters with little snow. Airboats take severe beatings when there’s no snow padding the ice, causing metal fatigue and fractures.
“There’s nothing safer than airboats because you won’t sink if the ice breaks, but glare ice and cold temperatures break a lot of metal,” Christianson said. “I’ve spent over $10,000 each winter in repairs.”
He also said icefishing on the Mississippi River hasn’t been as good this year as in 2024, but thinks the best action awaits in March and April as perch spawn.
“Things get insane on late ice and the first couple of weeks of open water,” he said. “Fishing around the dams gets really good, but you’ll find perch in the backwaters, too.”
But don’t expect much, if any, sight-fishing once the ice melts and the river swells. Turbulent waters soon turn murky, and neither sun nor Polaroid lenses much improve your view of the river’s depths.
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