With much of the nation being hit with bad weather, we asked our pro staff to give us some suggestions on things you can do during those days when you're snowed or iced in this winter to give you an edge in the upcoming fishing season. Follow these tips and you won't be wasting any time on or off the water when the fishing is right.

1. Cull your dead baits - throw out baits that you do not throw or that are torn or don't function properly.

2. Sort through your jig box and pull out those jigs with mangled skirts and dull or rusted hooks. Do the same with spinnerbaits and buzzbaits.

3. Take inventory of your terminal tackle. Make a list of expendables you’ll need to buy before you hit the water.

4. Look back at the lures you threw most last year and prepare to stock up on them.

5. Organize your tackle boxes, boat and garage. Go through each of your tackle boxes and bags, and organize your lures, weights, crankbaits, etc. so that when spring comes, you know where to find everything.

6. If you carry too many crankbaits in the boat, sort through and pick out the ones that you regularly catch fish with. Place these in a separate box and always have them in the boat.

7. Think about every tournament you are fishing in the upcoming year and all the possible line and lures you might need. Make a list and either get online or go shopping as soon as the weather breaks.

8. Sharpen or change out all of your hooks.

9. For catfish, use this time for snelling hooks to leaders to allow for more fishing time and less tying time when you could be fishing.

10. Make sure your reels are functioning correctly. Clean, oil and lube them and spool each with new Vicious Fishing Line.

11. Check for broken or loose guides on rods. Clean the guides and reel seats.

12. Research the market for new products like Vicious Fishing Pro Elite Fluorocarbon.

13. Study the most up-to-date lake maps and locate new areas to try out – such as channel bends, creek inlets, wing dike areas, etc. Mark up a paper map and make it a point to try one new area each trip. You might be surprised at all the fish you are overlooking.

14. Utilize the Internet to study lake information – past tournaments, results, creel surveys and articles about the fishery. Be sure to look back at your old log books as well.

15. Schedule practice fishing days to learn a new technique.

16. Check your batteries and electronics as well as their connections. If you didn’t do it last fall, change the lower unit grease in your outboard.

17. Check the tires (including the spare tire) and hubs on your boat trailer before one leaves you on the side of the road.

18. Use the day to spend with your family because you know where you'll be this spring.

19. Make a calendar with all your tournaments, shows and event dates for the year and give it to you significant other now. There will be no surprises later. It may not improve your fishing but it will improve you family life!

20. Most importantly, GET VICIOUS! Make sure to have all types of Vicious line and know how and when to use each one.

Tom Dietz, Professional Musky Trail Angler and Vicious Elite Team Member, says:

When you are hitting the ice this winter, make sure you are spooled up with the best quality fishing line you can buy.  It is important to use a premium ice line that has enhanced abrasion resistance and has low memory in cold water and cold weather conditions.  I prefer the Vicious Hi-Vis Yellow for the majority of my ice fishing applications because the bright yellow color enables me to detect even the slightest of strikes.  The yellow line is easy to detect on the ice if you are re-tying or re-baiting your hook and lay down your jig rod.  If I am chasing bluegill or crappie I typically spool up with Vicious Panfish Ice in four pound test (PIYL-4) for my ice rods.  I jig small ice jigs like the Rat Finkee by Custom Jig & Spins tipped with a wax worm or spike to fool hard water bluegill and sunfish.  The supreme sensitivity of the Vicious Panfish Ice line allows me to detect even the softest bites in the cold water which in turn means more fish caught.  Winter crappies will often take a small minnow underneath a slip bobber.  I prefer to tail hook my crappie minnows under the bobber to allow them to struggle more to trigger more strikes.

If walleyes are my main target, I use eight pound test Vicious Panfish Ice line on my jig rods and ten pound test on my tip up leaders.  My preferred ice jigs for walleyes are jigging Rapalas in size five or seven, and Buckshot Rattle Spoons by Northland Tackle Company.  One good tip when using jigging Rapalas is to use a quality ball bearing swivel such as the ones made by Spro and create an eight to ten inch leader using Vicious Fluorocarbon in eight pound test as your leader.  The ball bearing swivel above your ice jig virtually eliminates line twist and allows your jigging Rapala to spin easily on the pause, triggering more strikes.  When fishing with tip ups for walleyes, I use thirty pound black tip up line on my tip up spool, which I then connect to a three foot leader of ten pound test Vicious Panfish Ice in hi-vis yellow by using a Spro ball bearing swivel.   Use this combination with a quality treble hook like a Gamakatsu in a size eight with a three inch sucker minnow rigged a foot to eighteen inches of bottom and you are all set.   Get Vicious in all of your ice fishing set ups and you will catch more fish this season!

Outdoor writer/broadcaster Wade Bourne has covered sportfishing for more than 30 years in national magazines, radio and TV.

Fish are cold-blooded creatures, and their metabolism slows down/picks up relative to their watery environment. In cold water they are sluggish, but when the water starts warming in spring, their metabolism picks up, and they are more active and will take faster, more aggressive baits/presentations.

This is why anglers must choose baits and presentations to match fishing conditions, and this is especially true in late winter after a cold front passes. Some fish go almost inactive during these conditions, and a very slow approach is called for to have any chance of a good catch.

For instance, if using a suspending jerkbait for bass, after reeling the bait down to desired depth, pull it with the rodtip a foot or two, then let the bait hang motionless several seconds before pulling it again. When doing this, count to yourself “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three,” etc. Count as high as 15 seconds before moving the bait. This style of fishing takes enormous patience, but it’s a deadly method for coaxing bites from big, semi-dormant bass.

Another application for panfish would be fishing a small jig/grub or minnow combo under a float. Cast beyond a sunken brushpile, stake bed, stump row or other cover, then very slowly reel the float back across the cover (with the bait dangling vertically below). This slow, helpless look is very tempting to crappie and bluegill hiding in the cover.

The point is, it’s hard to fish too slowly in cold water. Don’t get in a hurry; gear down and be patient. This is one of the best secrets for coaxing bites from slow-moving fish before the spring warm-up comes.

Outdoor writer/broadcaster Wade Bourne has covered sportfishing for more than 30 years in national magazines, radio and TV.

Vicious Fishing pro staffer member Gerald Swindle practices “finesse-spooning” to catch a wintertime mixed bag of bass, crappie, white bass, stripers and other predator species.

When the water temperature drops into the 40s, these fish collect in deep areas where shad concentrate in large schools. Swindle idles along channel ledges as he continuously monitors his graph recorder, looking for telltale returns that indicate that shad/predator fish are present. He typically finds these fish in the deepest one-third of large tributary embayments in major southern and Midwestern reservoirs.

Swindle won’t drop a bait until he sees fish on his electronics. Then he positions his boat directly over the school and lowers down a “finesse spoon” - a half-ounce nickel or white jigging spoon. Swindle fishes this bait with spinning tackle rigged with 10 lb. test Vicious braided line and a 6-foot Vicious fluorocarbon leader (8 lb. test).

Swindle stresses that a subtle up/down jigging action produces the most action with this lure. He lowers it to the level of the fish, then he jigs it up only 4-5 inches, allowing the spoon to flutter back down between flips. Also, sometimes he hovers the spoon between flips and twitches it among the fish to entice bites. He says strikes vary from a solid “thunk” to a “spongy feeling” to simply losing contact with the bait. In other words, if there’s any different feeling whatsoever, set the hook!

Swindle adds that the hardest part of this entire technique is finding the fish with electronics. Again, he never starts fishing until he’s marking a school of baitfish with larger returns of predator fish holding under or around them. Then he begins “finesse-spooning,” and usually action isn’t long in coming.

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