Want To Catch More Fish With Your Ice Jig Selection?
When you open up your tackle box containing your ice fishing jigs it is not always easy to choose the right weapon for your fish hunting. It’s not easy, I know that I can’t always choose the right tasty looking treat for the fish. The thing that you have to remember when you are looking at your selection of ice fishing jigs is that the one you choose is not going to catch the fish, you are doing the work and you are making the fish strike your lure.
When an ice fisherman is sitting there in the wind, on a bucket, no fancy equipment, the fisherman makes the fish strike your bait, this is often because the fisherman often doesn’t k now there is a fish staring at the hook. This is why kids often have great success when jigging beside adults that have been doing this for years.
When using a camera, sounder / flasher or even when you see the fish with your eyes the instinct for most fishermen is to become dead still, not move the hook at all, not even breath. This is often a big mistake, if the fish is able to stare at an artificial lure, get a really good look at it, there is a big chance the fish will not bite, a fish knows what real food looks like. Real fish food moves, breaths, smells and tastes. The longer a fish can stare at an artificial hook the more likely it is that it will detect something wrong.
People don’t seem to understand that it was more than likely the jigging action that you imparted into your presentation that got the attention of the fish, than drew the fish closer, if the fish is now staring at your bait, why change it up. It obviously wasn’t a lifeless piece of lead dangling in a strange pillar of light that attracted the fish in the first place.
Pound it, twitch it, vibrate it, or do whatever you think you were doing to attract the fish in the first place, that’s what will trigger a strike from that curious fish eyeballing your bait.
When you are using live bait, what I call the “WIGGLE FACTOR” is the most important part of rigging. When fishing for panfish I most often use maggots, Maggots should be hooked right on the end. The produce more wiggle this way, more wiggle is more effective. Same thing with minnows, I hook then right under the dorsal fin or through the very back end high in front of the tail.
Soft Plastic baits should always be on your hook perfectly. If the bait doesn’t go on just right, the fish will know this, If you are threading it onto a lead head jig make sure the plastic is absolutely straight, no bumps and wobbles, fish just like a straight bait better.
With dead baits like frozen minnows, which is what we use in Alberta because live bait is not allowed, I try to rig the minnow on a lead head jig, I run the hook in through the lower lip and out through the back slightly to one side of the spine. The minnow stays in place a little better this way. When using dead bait, it is important the minnow not stay still very long. I make very slight movements all the time, when the minnow is not moving at all, a hungry pike or walleye will casually slide up to the bait and stare at it. I have watched them on my camera for at least thirty minutes before they either slithered off or I manipulated the bait enough to coerce a strike. Getting the strike after a pike has been staring at a minnow on a jig for some time can be more work than you want.
I hope that you now have a litle more insight into what may be help your artificial bait and jig fishing.
Thanks For Reading
|
