If you enjoy catching large bluegills through the ice, there is such a place right in Siouxland.

It"s West Lake Okoboji, the Iowa Great Lakes gem which year after year produces the finest fishing in the state for a number of gamefish species.

For the past several years, the bluegills have been coming on strong here. They are big and robust. And more often that not will cooperate with the fisherman, meaning, of course, that they will bite.

I haven"t had the opportunity to fish West Okoboji this winter, but my longtime friend and fulltime Okoboji guide Jim McDonnell has. He has had several guide parties each week on the ice and has been in on the action.

"This year it has been as good as it ever has been, especially for bluegill," the Fishing Professor confided to me last week.

"There has been no consistency on the perch," he continued. "They are on a down cycle and they are not very big. We"re talking 5 to 8 inches on them; but, the bluegill are a very nice size."

A bonus to the bluegill fishing is crappies.

"In the areas we are fishing bluegills, we often come in contact with roving schools of crappies," McDonnell said. "The bluegills are running 8- to 9-inches long and the crappies are coming in at 10 to 12 inches."

Green weeds are one of the keys to locating bluegills and that"s why the best fishing takes place in the bays of this lake.

"Early in the winter, Little Emerson and Little Miller"s freeze first and you can get on them safely," he continued. "Now you can get on the ice on both Emerson and Miller"s. All of Hawards" Bay can be good, the north end of the lake at Triboji Beach is safe to get on right now. Smith"s Bay has been kind of sporadic because of all the snowmobile and ATV"s buzzing around.

"We"re finding bluegills in anywhere from two to 10 feet of water," he said. "On high traffic days, I tell people the bluegills will be right in against the shore in maybe three feet of water. You would think they would go deep, but they don"t. They go shallow. Maybe there's a food thing there we are not conscious of, too, but they get less pressure because a lot of people say, 'That"s too close to shore to fish." That shallow bite holds true all winter."

Perch fishermen should look at Big Spirit Lake.

"Perch will be anywhere from 6 to 15 feet on West and in Big Spirit they will be out in the basin in 16 to 20 feet of water," Jim said. "Perch are a little different cat. Some days they will appear in the bluegill arena and you don"t know why there are there and the crappies, they just seem to go where ever they want.

"I"d hate to try to pinpoint crappies," he continued. "Last week up by Trickles Slough the crappies were there for two days and then they were gone. We"d go back and catch bluegills again but the crappies had flew the coup to some other area."

Just about any panfish ice lure will catch bluegills, but McDonnell recommends two different styles: vertical jigs such as tear drops or horizontal baits such as the Genz Worm.

"There"s a gadzillion panfish lures anymore, but you should have both horizontal and vertical lures and don"t leave your spot until you have tried both of them," he said.

"Bluegills will come in and nose up to baits so you have to do something different. Maybe change to a waxie, change to a sliver, a sliver, of Gulp! or something. It seems like the smaller pieces of plastic work better than the big chunks. Some days the bluegills want a waxie hooked in the middle. I don"t know why they would want that, but there are days when they will ignore a waxie hooked in the front. Maybe it lets out more scent or something."

What"s the best bait?

"The wigglers, mousies and all of that works, but it seems everybody is gear to waxworms," Jim said. "I don"t know why that is, but they sell a lot of waxworms. I never go out without waxworms, Gulp! and little minnows because some days when crappies come through they will ignore everything but little minnows."

McDonnell has three permanent houses and two portables to accommodate clients. He can guide up to six people at a time and his contact number is (712) 933-5532.

Larry Myhre is Outdoor Editor of the Journal. Reach him at (712) 276-5965 or email at: lfentfish@msn.com