Thinking about ice fishing? Go and hunt down an easy winter fishing target, the bluegill. Bluegills are aggressive feeders even on the coldest winter days. The key to finding good-sized bluegills is to work the area you have chosen thoroughly with jigs and wax worms.

The equipment you need is simple; an ice rod and reel combo, I prefer a Thorne Bros Panfish Sweetheart with a Shimano 500 reel spooled with 3lb mono, an auger, some ice jigs and wax worms, plus an Otter Sled to carry your gear and your fish.

When looking for sunfish through the ice think of a place that you saw sunfish during July or August. This usually means near the deep weed edge. Any points or turns in the weed edge will have more and bigger bluegills. If you are fishing new water and you are uncertain as to where the weed line is the basic rule is to start shallow and drill holes towards deeper water.

A MarCum LX3 flasher will help you determine where the weed line is. The LX3 also identifies fish for you. For those without a flasher you will need to fish a heavy jig in all your holes to determine where the weeds end. So if you pull up weeds with your jig, move deeper. This is not to say that the bluegills won't be in the weeds, they will be. But we have more success catching the big fish on the deep side of the weed edge.

Once you have found your weed line continue to drill holes along the edge of it. We have also found success by drilling some holes 3-5 feet deeper than the weed line. There are times when it may be necessary to drill 15 or 20 holes along a weed line to define where the bigger bluegills will be.

An Eskimo Barracuda Power Auger helps with this chore. My Barracuda is light and it eats ice fast. Fish all the holes you have opened with Demons, Rat Finkees, Bad Dog Flipper Tears and Fat Fry's from the TackleCity.com Sunfish kit tipped with a waxie or larvae of your choice. If all the fish in a particular hole are runts move to a new hole.

Big bluegills tend to group together in the prime habitat areas of a weed edge. In general when fishing intentionally for big bluegills I like to use bigger jigs and two whole waxies. This will help eliminate catching runts too. Big bluegills like a bigger bait!

Good lakes to hit for bluegill include:
• Lake Minnetonka's Wayzata Bay
• Staring Lake in Eden Prairie
• Pelican Lake near Orr
• Rush Lake near Rush Lake and Rush Lake near Ottertail.
• Middle Cormorant in Becker County
• Wood Lake and Squaw Lake in Western Wisconsin

Pete Riola is an avid ice angler and the founder of FishFever.com.

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