Tip - Storing Crankbaits

Are you tired of pulling out your favorite crankbait or jerkbait out of a compartment of your tacklebox only to find that all of the crankbaits are hooked together with your favorite one and exit the box at the same time?  Then, you spend another fifteen minutes to separate and restack them back in your box because they no longer fit as the tangled mess, and you still haven't tied your favorite one on the line?

When bass like this are on the crankbaits, don't waste time separating a tangled mess while you could be fishing.  And, if you take Bass Junky's tip to heart, using quality hooks will ensure that you land rather than lose fish like this.

Well now I have a tip for you!  Remove all of the treble hooks from your crankbaits.  And, while your at it, buy quality replacement hooks, premium extra sticky sharp hooks for reasons detailed in Bass Junky's latest blog post, Switchin out your trebles..a must?.  Place the hooks in a compartment or separate box and put them on after you remove your crankbait from the box.

Now you can avoid this tangled mess and store as many crankbaits or jerkbaits as you like in one box.

 You'll need a pair of split ring pliers to remove all the hooks, and also they help to put the hooks back on.  Carry them with you in your tackle bag or box.  If you forget them, you can always use a spinnerbait blade to open the split ring in an emergency. 

Split ring pliers like these come in handy even on the boat.

The only thing that you'll have to remember if you use this tip is to not forget to bring your hooks, unless all you want to do is practice getting bites!

What advantages does this tip give you?  Well, as Bass Junky noted, premium hooks mean more hookups and less chance of losing fish.  And with this tip, you won't have to purchase two hooks for every lure.  Just keep a dozen of each size that you need in your box, and switch them out between baits as necessary.  You won't lose all of your crankbaits in one day, but you may lose a couple.  Even then, you should still have plenty of hooks.

If you're like me, you probably stuff as many crankbaits that will physically fit into your box without breaking the lid.  With this tip, even using an entire compartment for hooks, you can actually fit more crankbaits in your box than before.  And, when you take your favorite out, it's not tangled with ten other crankbaits.

Now you can stuff your box full of crankbaits and never worry about a tangled cluster of crankbait mess to separate.

You may ask, "Doesn't it take a lot of time to add the treble hooks"?  My response would be, a lot less time than untangling a mess of crankbaits and restocking them back in your box.  Once you get the hang of using the pliers, which may take all but a few minutes of working with them, then you should be able to add the hooks back to the lure in less than a minute.

Oh yeah, before I forget, leave the split rings on the lures.  They're small and can be dropped and lost easily if you separate them.  You may have to change out old rusty ones eventually, but that's an easy task especially if you've already removed the hooks.

You may ask, what if I'm shore fishing or wading and can't do this in the field?  Simply add the hooks to the lures that you want to fish with prior to your trip.  I've used medical tape on the hooks before, so when it's not practical to use this trip, that's a good alternative.

Another variation of this tip would be to leave just one of your favorites in each tackle box compartment with hooks rather than remove them all.  That way, if you're in a hurry to change baits on the water, you have your favorites already rigged up.

In summary, spend less time untangling, more time fishing, and use quality premium hooks to stick and land more big fish.

What's the Buzz?

I had a small window of time after work last night to put in about an hour at best to fish at a local lake.  It sure didn't feel like a typical March day much less the first official day of Spring.  My plan was to fish from shore for a few quick bites and hopefully for some willing largemouth bass.  It was warm, muggy, buggy, with frogs and toads hopping out in front of me like deer crossing the road in front of your car at night as I hurried along a path to my fishing spot.  I had a hard time stepping around and over them in an attempt to avoid making frog or toad path pizzas.

I would have been in heaven if I had experienced that in my youthful life.  I loved to collect frogs, toads, and salamanders as a kid.  I had some pretty awesome terrariums throughout my life.  Amphibians are for the most part easy to keep, easy to feed, and become quite tame after a while.  I cringe at the thought of using them for bait because, well, they're my buddies.  However, I don't frown on other anglers using them, it's just my taste in fishing.

So, here I am fishing my cold weather early spring patterns, tossing worms and working them slowly through the water column without any bites, working dropoffs near shallow water but in the deeper holes.  There was a fair amount of panfish surface activity, so perhaps that approach wasn't the right way to go.

I decided to work the parallel to shore, wondering if the fish were up against the bank in the shallows in ambush of Kermit the Frog going for an evening swim.  I could work the dropoff and a good portion of adjacent shoreline doing that.  I had a bite and missed it, most likely a youthful bass or yellow perch, with not much weight to it.  But it was a clue that the bass were in shallow.  A couple casts later, and I had a good pickup, and set the hook into a chunky fourteen inch largemouth bass.

A chunky fourteen inch bass like this one fell for my plastic worm.  But I wanted bigger...something different.

But maybe I needed something different.  I just had a good feeling about it, frogs and toads hopping about, panfish surface activity everywhere, bugs in the air, warm temperatures and that evening calm on the lake... the lake was calling out to me for topwater. 

Luckily, I decided to pack my buzzbaits with me.  So, I dug one out and tied it on.  After several casts out to deeper woody cover without a bite, I decided to again work the shallow banks, casting parallel just inside the dropoff for my last hurrah before dark.

On my first cast doing that, with the lure heading towards me about ten feet away, the water erupted.  I hooked a good fish near the bank that was probably in the three pound range.  I gloated, and hooted and hollered to my buddy laughing that I hooked a bass in March on a buzzbait.  I wanted to land that fish badly, but it had other ideas, throwing the hook as I bellowed my frustration across the lake, scaring the geese that had landed just minutes before that were now cruising on the mid lake surface.  It just goes to show, that just as you can't count your chickens before they hatch, you can't count the bass before you land them.

I was spoiled, a few days earlier, I boated this 21.5" fat largemouth on a lipless crankbait.  I wondered if big sows like this were cruising the shorelines looking to eat Kermit the Frog.

It would have been my first ever bass landed on a buzzbait in March in Maryland, but instead, became my first ever bass hooked on a buzzbait in March in Maryland.  Heck, there have been years that I was still ice fishing during this time of year much less tossing topwater lures for largemouth.

This could be a trend!  More warmth on the way the next three days.  Time to break out the topwater!  Oh what fun we could have!

Tip - Hands Free Shore Fishing

If fishing from shore, and you have access to enough shoreline to move about freely to find fish, here are a couple tips that will save your back and give you more fishing time.  Most anglers will carry multiple rods to either offer different presentations when fishing for the same species, or to fish for two different species.  If you like to move around to find fish, constantly putting down your extra rod or tackle box gets old real fast, causing back aches in old fellows like me, and it wastes time.  After a while, you might be content to stay on one spot longer than you'd like simply because you don't feel like bending over to pick up your stuff and move.

So, since mobility is important to find and catch more fish, you have to be innovative to gear up to be mobile.  Here are a few tips to help.

1)     Wear a fishing vest to stow the tackle that you might need for the day.  Some of them have a large back pocket for extra gear or even a lunch.  I pack mine full of everything that I might need for a day.  The amount that you can carry is limited to the number of vest pockets that you have and the strength of your back.  You can carry a lot of stuff like me and be prepared for anything, or you can go as light as you wish.  That's a personal preference.

2)     Use a fanny pack or some system to pack water or more gear that won't fit in your vest.  I currently have one that has two water bottle holders and I'll stuff the main compartment with more tackle.  I carry my spinnerbaits in a soft tackle pack that I can clip to my belt or wear with a strap over my shoulder.

Notice the vest packed with tackle and the rod clipped to my vest behind me.  This enables me to fish hands free without having to bend over to put stuff down and pick it up all day long, maximizing my mobility.  I also have a water bottle and spinnerbait pouch clipped to my belt.  Here I am tossing spinnerbaits with my baitcasting rod, but have a plastic worm rigged on my extra rod clipped to my back for a back up presentation.  My brother Kyle, fishing behind me, found a way to attach and carry his extra rod on his fanny pack.

3)     Attach a clip large enough to fit around your rod blank below the bottom guide to the loop on the back of the neck of your vest.  That way, you can carry an extra rod for a separate presentation.  Make sure that they clip is easy enough to open and close to enable you to access the rod easily without removing your vest.
 A couple things to note when doing this, watch out for trees and don't forget that you have a rod clipped to your back.  All you have to do to get around a tree is to reach around and grab your rod blank, and pull it over your shoulder horizontally to get around tree branches.

Now, when shore fishing, you too can be mobile and catch more fish.  Try my tips above or come up with your own way to be mobile.

Save Money on Braided Line

Everyone knows that superlines like braid, fused lines like Fireline, or molecularly linked Nanofil, are much more expensive than monofilament and fluorocarbon lines.  But the advantages are that superlines last much longer, are much more durable in most situations, have much stronger breaking strength than other lines, are much more sensitive, have no memory, and have no stretch for rock solid hook sets.  If you are fishing for species that don't make long runs when hooked, here's a tip that will save you money and stretch out the cost of these no superlines.

Don't put it all on one reel spool!  Fill them all!

Suppose you just purchased a new spool of braided line.  When spooling up your new line, don't empty your old spool of monofilament or old fluorocarbon lines.  Rather, peel off about half 50 to 75 yards of line and leave the rest on as backing for your new braided line.  That way, depending on the diameter of the line and spool size that you're filling, you can fill several reel spools of line and stretch your fishing dollars.

You will lose some line inevitably from changing lures and other reasons, so when your spool gets a little low, peel off the braid and wrap it around an empty Coke bottle or something, and add some backing to replace the amount of braid that you lost, then reconnect your braid and spool it back on.  Voila, you now have a full spool again.

I like to add new line each season, but with braid, you should be able to get more life out of your line depending on how much you fish.  So, here's another tip within a tip.  Instead of trashing your old braid, tie off the end to a fence post (or something outside) and pull off the braid by walking.  When your braid is out of your spool and rod, clip it off from the backing.  Walk back to the fence post and reconnect the other end of your braid that was once your most used end to the backing.  Then, reel it back on.  The end that was once connected to your backing is now the end that you tie your lures on, and is just as good as newly spooled braid.  Since I've been doing this, I've been changing my superlines out every other year.

How does this save money?  If you assume that 150 yards gives you two spools using 75 yards, then switch the ends as described above, you actually get four spools of line out of your 150 yard purchase.

This is the first of a series of fishing tips posts.  I will be posting periodic fishing tips and will index them on a separate page.  If you check back and have missed my tips posts, rather than scrolling through old posts, check the fishing tips index page and click on the ones that interest you.

After Hunting Season Rut????

During a "normal" hunting season, everything seems to revolve around "the rut".  Maryland has a pretty late deer hunting season, with late bow season closing out the season for the last few weeks of January.  Normally rut behavior begins toward the beginning of October and is in full swing, peaks in November, and winds down in the beginning of December.  Although, sometimes there is a "second" or late rut that occurs for a brief time in December.  Maryland's gun season is in full force by then, so often rutting behavior is replaced by survival behavior and, as a result, seldom observed in the field.

By late season, most hunters probably believe that the rut is over, and, up until recently, that included me.  We're used to seeing colder weather and the deer yard up in larger groups.  By the end of January, sometimes we witness deer that pass our stands that, at first glance, seem like big does until it's realized that those big red spots on their brows resulted from their antlers dropping.

Hunters know that sometimes the antlers don't drop for maybe a month past the end of bow season, so we tend to focus our shed hunting activities a few weeks later.  However, my learned notions of deer rutting behavior changed for me a week ago when I witnessed something that may change my hunting tactics and outlook forever.

My work locale is a completely fenced in facility with guarded gates, and has been that way since the years following 9/11.  The environment is much like a college campus with some limited wildlife habitat scattered about, with the entire complex embedded within a suburban setting just fifteen minutes from the Washington, D.C. line.  It's not exactly known as a haven for observing a deer population.  A few years ago, we began seeing a few does that found their way on campus.  I asked a couple campus police how the deer were able to access such a tightly guarded facility.  The response was something like, "They walked through the gates.  What should we do?  Ask for their IDs first?"

A year or two after that, the first bucks started showing up.  Since then, the population grew.  We've had the luxury of observing deer behavior in a closed setting, including rut behavior and breeding.  I pretty much see deer every day right outside my office window or near any field or wooded area on the property.  Sometimes they simply walk around or among the many office buildings.  As a hunter, I can't hunt these particular deer simply because it's not legal.  However, the deer behavior that I observe here provides me with valuable clues as to what the deer may be doing on the properties that I hunt, only an hour or so away near my home.  Deer are deer everywhere, right?  Well, this approach seems to work for me. 

But, on February 2nd in Maryland, while on my way into work, after parking my car in the parking garage, I observed something that people only see once in a while in the wild, but even more strange, something that never happens this late in winter...in February (for crying out loud)...and if it does, it has to be a pretty rare occurrance.  Or, is it?

So, what happened?  I looked out of the back of the garage that caused my jaw to drop.  I nearly scraped my chin on the floor as a result!  I witnessed three bucks and a doe.  Two of the bucks, a large racked eight point and a smaller six point, were locking antlers in a shoving match.  And it wasn't just sparring, they were going at it.  On top of that, a medium sized eight point strutted over to join the fun!  The sounds of antlers cracked, leaves were rustling, branches were thrashed as the bucks wrestled for position to gain an advantage over each other.   Did I mention that this was February?

This was the bigger of the three bucks, from a picture taken a several months ago behind the garage.

As this happened, I'm scrambed for my cell phone to catch this action on film.  By the time that I had the movie feature ready, they were done.  Or, were they?

The smaller buck held it's own but was eventually chased off by the bigger buck.  The two eight points locked up and attacked each other soon after, but I missed that action too.  The good news was that the little buck worked his way back for more.  I only had about fifteen more minutes to watch this spectacle because I was due in the office soon, so if I was going to capture some sort of proof on film, it had to happen fast.  I figured that nobody would believe me.  I needed proof.  Meanwhile, the doe was standing there observing the whole thing, almost amused that she was the center of all of this activity.

After a few minutes, while the bigger buck worked his rack over a sapling, mangling it, the smaller buck snuck back toward the bigger buck.  The bigger buck turned, and the smaller buck approached, and they locked up again.  They fought for a good ten minutes before I had to leave.  I'm sure that they went at it for a short time after I left.

The good news is that I captured some of the event on film!

Once in the office, every now and then I'll get up to stretch my legs, to get the blood flowing after a few hours of performing my sedentary duties.  Of course, I have to glance out the window to observe any other deer behavior.  Upon doing that, I observed that the bucks were all bedded down together near that one doe.  By the way, there were four other does in the field directly behind my office, but the bucks had no interest in them.

After my tour of duty ended, I returned to the gargage to access my car and head home.  But, of course, I had to check behind the gargage and see if anything else was going on.  And, there sure was.  The bucks kept following that doe, nudging her behind with their noses and racks, and in some sort of pecking order (but not quite fighting), tried to assert each others dominance over each other.  They were actually in a late rut!  I couldn't believe my eyes!

Prior to observing this, I thought for sure the antlers would be dropping soon.   When the bucks made contact, and especially in the form of battle, I was sure an antler would drop off.  In fact, I was hoping that one would so I could run back there and nab it!!!!!!  But, they held strong.  No shed antlers for Fat Boy on that day.

So, was it the weather causing this?  In a large doe population, I can understand why the rut could extend until all does have been courted, which could take a while, but this deer population is rather small, about twenty to thirty deer at most.  Plus, five of those deer were bucks.  I thought this was such a weird event that I had to share it here and on some of the forums that I frequent.

What does this mean for my future hunting plans?  I can tell you that, during late bow season, I won't leave my rattling antlers, grunt call, or scents at home.  I'll be using them!

For your enjoyment, I've embedded the videos below.  I apologize for the lack of quality, but all I had was my cell phone.  The first video shows a few minutes of the larger and smaller buck locking antlers and fighting.  It's hard to see at first, but about half way through the video you can see them quite easily.

This last video shows the bucks following and nudging the doe.  Looks like rutting behavior to me!  There was a full moon last week.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.  Just when I think that I understand Odocoileus virginianus, they throw me for a loop with something like this.

On the Hardwater - Jigging Spoons and Blade Baits

A basic staple of cold water fishing is to toss chunks of metal into deep water where flash, vibration and flutter draw a reaction strike from some sort of predatory fish.  Many years ago, a resourceful angler, Julio T. Buel invented a fishing lure called a spoon, somewhere around 1821 and finally became the first to commercially manufacture them in 1848 (see footnote 1).  It's believed that he fashioned his first spoon lure from an ordinary tea spoon, possibly by severing the handle and attached a hook to it.  Spoons have been catching predatory fish even since, especially through the ice.  For the most part in ice fishing, we use two types of spoons, slab style spoons that wobble and flutter, or blade baits that vibrate in a similar manner to a lipless crankbait.  Both are affective through the ice.

Of course, spoons come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and styles.  I'm going to touch on some of my favorites simply because I can show you physical examples of them.  By all means, there are many brands out there that are equally effective.  Of course, the spoons that will work for you depend on the species that you target.  In this post, I'm going to cover spoons that work on lunker panfish as well as larger predatory species like bass, walleye, pickerel and pike.  I'll also cover some tactics and tips that work with these lures.

Ken Askins, a.k.a Bean on  Iceshanty , sports a nice walleye that was fooled on a Northland Buck-shot Rattle Spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Jigging Spoons
The most popular spoons used through the ice are collectively known as jigging spoons, and as the name suggests, are designed for vertical jigging.  Jigging spoons are equally effective  when fished in open water by fishing vertically or cast and jigged on the retrieve.  In this post, the focus will be on techniques used with these lures that are effective though the ice.

Larger spoons like these will take big fish through the ice.  From left, two Luhr Jensen Crippled Herring, Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon, Hopkins Spoon, Hopkins Shorty, Hopkins Smoothie, and a Bass Pro Shops XPS jigging spoon.  Use these to bounce from hole to hole and cover water.  Big spoons catch big fish.

The results speak for themselves, just look at this fat walleye caught by my good friend Mark Sirko of Pennsylvania that fell for a large jigging spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Mark displays a pike that fell for a large jigging spoon.  Catching pike while jigging spoons through the ice is a real thrill.  Nice fish Mark!  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

The spoons pictured above are similar in design to the original one invented by Mr. Buel in 1848.  They are, in simplest design, a slab of metal with a treble hook on one end, and a line tie on the other, then painted or finished in such a way as to attract strikes when jigged.  Some are concave, others are thin, others thick, and each type will have a different action.  They come in many shapes that also affect the action.  It's up to you to determine which shape or style will work for you.

These smaller jigging spoons are popular with ice anglers as they catch both panfish and predators.  When searching for big crappie, jumbo yellow perch, and plate sized bluegills, try one of these.  Top row from left, Northland Eye-Dropper Spoon, Lindy Techni-Glo Rattl'n Flyer, two Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoons (showing rattling chamber), Northland Forage Minnow, Hali Sukkula Jigs (showing different chain droppers).  Bottom row, Bay de Noc Swedish Pimples, Acme Kastmaster, and Bass N Bait Rattle Snakie spoon.

Mike Bushey, a.k.a. adkRoy on Iceshanty from New York poses with some fat jumbo perch that took a Hali Sukkula Jig.  These jigs are hot for panfish and predators alike.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Jigging spoons work well because they give off vibrations, flash, and some sort of fluttering action on the fall, to provoke a reaction strikes from aggressive fish.  However, tipping them with bait will also draw strikes from fish already on the feed.  Some jigging spoons sport internal chambers that contain shot or beads that rattle, adding to the attraction that may provoke strikes.  Others are painted in bright colors or even extremely realistic fish imitating patterns.


My buddy Ken posing with a huge crappie that nailed a Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon.  That is one slab crappie!  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Blade Baits
These spoon type lures are designed for a horizontal presentation fished vertically, with the line tie on one side, and two or more hooks on the other.  Most of the time, the line tie is merely a snap inserted through a hole in the blade (spoon).  Some models have multiple holes that provide different action on the lure depending on which one you choose to use.

When you jig these lures up off the bottom, you'll feel the lure vibrate rapidly on the pull.  On the drop, these lures flutter or spiral down.  When sitting motionless, they resemble a fish or a minnow.

Blade baits are great for targeting big predatory fish through the ice, but also work well on jumbo panfish.  From top to bottom, left column, Silver Buddy, Luhr Jensen Rattlin' Ripple Tail; middle column, Heddon Sonars; right column, Reef Runner Cicadas, Bass Pro Shops XPS Lazer Eye.

Fishing Spoons and Blades
When on the ice, I carry a couple rods that are slightly beefier than my panfish rods to jig small spoons and blade baits.  I use four to six pound fluorocarbon line with a small snap tied to the end, or a No-knot Fast Snap, so that I can change spoons easily until I find one that the fish will hit when targeting panfish.  For bigger spoons, my set ups are on eight to twelve pound line depending on the lake, species that I'm targeting, and the weight of the spoon.  Typically, I'll have one that has a rattle rigged on one rod, and a totally different style rigged on the other rod, like a blade bait.  This way I can try different presentations until I can get some sort of response from fish, perhaps bites or reactions that I can see on my camera or sonar.

When fishing jigging spoons or blade baits, most anglers prefer graphite rods with some backbone so that they can easily feel the strikes, and also work these larger lures a good responsive action.  If the rod is too "whippy", the lure action, especially in deeper water, isn't responsive enough.  In other words, your rod tip may be moving and working much harder without the result you're expecting thirty feet under water.  If you want your spoon to travel a foot on your jig, you won't want to have to work your arms and shoulders three feet to get that result.  More importantly, when a fish hits, you want to have a good hook set and a whippy rod won't effectively do that.

Here's a jigging rod set up with a Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon that allowed Ken to ice this fine walleye.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

Another thing that ice anglers do to draw strikes from inactive fish is to tip their lures, or sweeten them, with some sort of bait.  You can use waxworms, spikes (maggots), minnows, and where legal, fish eyes, minnow heads or belly meat.  In addition to tipping them with bait, you can also use Berkley Gulp Minnows or Minnow Heads. 

This jigging rod is rigged with a Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon tipped with a Berkley Gulp Minnow Head.

There are a couple ways to work a jigging spoon or a blade bait.  You can fish them aggressively or finesse them.

The Aggressive Presentation:
Drop the spoon until it hits the bottom, then reel up the slack until the line is tight.  Then, raise the rod tip to the eleven o'clock position quickly to draw the spoon off the bottom, then lower the rod tip slowly and let the spoon fall.  It's important to drop your rod tip at the same rate that your spoon falls to keep the line tight.  Watch the line closely because if it goes slack or twitches, set the hook.  Fish often hit these lures on the fall.  Sometimes, if fish are on the bottom, they'll hit as your lure reaches the bottom.  You may not see these hits, but you'll have a fish on when you raise your rod for the next jig.  By raising the rod, sometimes you actually set the hook on a biting fish. 

When you find the school and the fish are aggressive, spoons are good choices because, after catching a fish, you can get them back down quickly to target your next one.  When the schools move often, it's important to get that lure back down there before the school moves off.

Try first without tipping the lure with bait.  This gives the spoon it's best action which will draw reaction strikes from big panfish and predators alike.  Sometimes the strikes are quite violent!  When doing this, you can hit a bunch of holes and not really need your sonar or camera, assuming that you know the depth that the fish are holding.

If the fish aren't hitting the technique above, after a few jigging patterns, let the jig sit on the bottom of your jig for a second, maybe shake it a little bit.  Try different things until they strike.

When the fish are agressive, they'll hit a jigging spoon without bait.  Presumably, when finding your ice fishing spot, you've cut some holes and checked them with your sonar until you've located fish.  Then, you've opened up the area by cutting a series of holes, not just one.  Bouncing from hole to hole with a jigging spoon is a good way to get some quick bites on big fish and pick off the more active predators.  I've caught some of my biggest slab crappie this way along with walleyes, bass, chain pickerel and every now and then a pike.

I spend a lot of time jigging smaller baits and plastics for panfish, and sitting at one hole for any length of time tires out the old caboose and causes my feet to fall asleep.  So, every now and then I'll get up to stretch my legs and walk around.  You can either do this and not fish by visiting your fishing buddies on the ice to see how they're doing, or you can carry a jigging spoon rod with you on the way and hit a few holes.  You have to keep your lure in the water to catch fish.  So that's what I like to do when I need that type of break, to bounce around and hit some holes with my jigging rod, maybe catch a couple fish, and then visit my buds to see how they're doing.

Finesse Spoon Presentations
If your aggressive approach doesn't provoke strikes but you know that the fish are there, then it's time to try a more finesse spooning approach.  First, try adding a bunch of spikes or a minnow head to a treble hook and slow down your jigging.  Try shorter hops with an occasional larger jigging movement, then let the lure sit, maybe shake it a little.  Try different things to get them to hit.  This is when the camera or sonar comes in handy where you can see how the fish react and then adjust.

Mike teased his favorite fish, the rock bass, into hitting his Swedish Pimple.  Jigging spoons catch just about any willing fish through the ice.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Even smelt will hammer jigging spoons!  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

If you notice that fish are attracted to all of the jigging commotion but just won't bite, try changing the type of spoon, or color, or size, to see if that might draw a strike.

Sometimes aggressive jigging actually scares fish away.  You can see that on your camera or sonar.  When that happens, try a much more subtle jigging action.  If you've tipped your lure with bait, try jigging them as you would an ice jig with maggots.  On lakes that have larger panfish, jigging spoons worked this way might be worth starting out with, especially with perch and crappie when they're schooled up and moving around.  Often these larger baits will ice the biggest panfish in the school first, or at least the most aggressive ones.

Mike shows off a perch that he nailed on a Hali Sukkula Jig tipped with bait.  Perch just love these things and you can jig them aggressively or fish them like you would smaller ice jigs for finicky biters.  Photo courtesy of Mike Bushey.

Also, spoons are great for drawing the school in because of their visibility.  If the school moves off, jig your spoon aggressively to draw them back.  The flash, vibration and action in clear water under the ice often will attract schools of fish that are aggressively feeding.  If you don't attract the school in a reasonable amount of time, then maybe it's time to bounce around from hole to hole until you find them again.  Bring the sonar with you and your jigging spoon rod, check the hole for the school and if it's there, you can get that lure down quickly to hook up.

Mark shows that jigging spoons will catch a wide variety of fish through the ice.  He landed a jumbo yellow perch and a nice hybrid striper using a jigging spoon.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

I can't tell you how important sonar is in this type of fishing too.  They aren't called "fish finders" for nothing, they will locate the schools for you.  Not only will they locate what hole to fish, but also they tell you the depth to lower your spoon to especially if the fish are suspended.


Mark shows that using jigging spoons will ice big fish like this fat walleye.  If you currently don't include jigging spoons in your ice fishing strategy, you may be missing out on your chance to ice some of the biggest fish in your lake.  Photo courtesy of Ken Askins.

If you don't have jigging spoons in your ice fishing arsenal, then you may be missing out on some terrific ice fishing action.  These lures can ice fish quickly when the fish are aggressive, even fish that seem finicky when fishing smaller jigging presentations.  In other words, sometimes bigger is better.  Try them!

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Ken Askins (Bean on http://www.iceshanty.com/) and Mike Bushey (adkRoy on http://www.iceshanty.com/) for their contribution to this blog post.  Both of them have also contributed some great info on Iceshanty, helping to make it the premier ice fishing web forum on the internet.

Footnotes
1.  Old Fishing Lures and Tackle:  Identification and Value Guide by Carl F. Luckey and Russell E. Lewis

On the Hardwater - Jigging Soft Plastics for Panfish

I started out typing up the second post in this series with the intention creating a follow up to the last one, "On the Hardwater - Ice Fishing Basics I".  It's currently a work in progress and I'll post it in a few days, but I decided instead to post something more detailed, a subject that is truly my passion when fishing for panfish, and that is fishing with artificials, specifically soft plastics.

This yellow perch fell for a Bass Pro Shops one inch pumpkinseed Squirmin' Grub.  Soft plastics can catch a lot of fish in a hurry, especially in early and late season. 

Years ago, my go to rig included a 1/80 ounce jighead, either chartreuse or orange, rigged with a one inch Bass Pro Shops pumpkinseed Squirmin Grub, fished on four pound monofilament line on an ultralight 24" fiberglass cheap fishing rod.  In fact, my first fish on the ice came on that jig.  I tore them up that day on them, and became hooked on ice fishing at the same time.  Since then, that jig has caught many a crappie, bluegill, yellow perch, trout and bass amongst other species through the ice.  Over the years, my soft plastic arsenal has grown, mostly as a carryover from fishing for panfish during open water season, then taken to the ice.

Why fish soft plastics?  There are times when fish of all species can't stop hitting them.  And, you don't have to worry about changing old bait, or replacing bait stolen by fish, and you can quickly get your lure back down to them.  And, there are even times when they won't hit anything else, for reasons I have yet to understand.  During a hot bite, I can catch an extra fish while my buddy is baiting a hook.

So, what kind of soft plastics work well on panfish?  In general, I think small and light, although there are times when bigger is actually better.  When it comes to color, I mostly use either natural colors when the water is gin clear and there is a lot of light penetration below, or bright or glow colors when it's dark or dingy down there.  But, there are times when they need to see something different, and a glow or bright color may work when the water is clear.  I'm also a fan of red and black, red when the water is clear, black any time but especially in dingy water.  As you might expect, glow colors work great at night.  Basically, try different combinations and let the fish tell you.  One way to do that is to fish two jigs in tandem, with different soft plastics on each one, and let the fish choose.

This rod is rigged with two Ratsos, about nine inches apart.  The color choice here includes glow pink and glow blue, both hot colors for crappie and bluegills on the lakes that I fish.  If they both work, I leave them both on.  If one works better than the other, then I try two of the hot color or try something different altogether.  These Ratso jigheads are glow color too.

One of my favorite rigs has two Custom Jigs and Spins size eight Ratsos rigged about eight to ten inches apart.  Preparing this rig involves a small swivel with a three foot leader.  Using your favorite fishing knot, tie a jig about ten inches from the end of the line, but do not cut the tag end.  Then, at the end of the line, tie on the second jig.  Then, add two different soft plastics and see which ones work the best.  Once you determine that, double up on that color, size, or style because you might hook up two fish at a time!  The swivel prevents line twist.  You can tie this rig without a swivel.  I'll go into the advantages and disadvantages of using a swivel later.

This is the rod tip of my broken South Bend fiberglass cheap jigging rod.  When it broke (slammed in the lid of my box), rather than tossing it in the trash, I made a spring bobber out of light spinner wire and a plastic bead, and used fishing line and shrink wrap to attach it to the end of the rod.  The spring helps me detect the lightest bites.  Notice the swivel that attaches to the leader and main line.

My plastics selection can be divided into two categories, scented and non-scented.  The non-scented plastics are the traditional types that you find that are effective when fishing open water for panfish.  The scented types are soft plastics that are biodegradable or have some sort of scent mixed in with the plastic that have really gained in popularity over the past several years.

These non-scented soft plastic baits are among my favorites and have iced many a crappie, bluegill, or yellow perch.  The left column includes external tube jigs and insider head tubes.  The middle column includes twister tails or grubs, and Ratsos.  To the right are various colors and styles of jigheads used to rig these hot baits.

This lure is called the Shrimpo, basically,
it's a verticle version of the Ratso.
Make sure when rigging this lure that
you keep the tail rigged as shown, you'll
get more bites that way.

I usually carry tube jigs, grubs and Ratsos as my staple go to baits for non-scented plastics.  In addition to the Ratso, I carry Kalin's two inch grubs, Bass Pro Shops one inch Squirmin' Grubs and 1.5" Squirmin' Tubes.  These are very effective on the hardwater and in the soft water for virtually any panfish.

I also carry a box of various soft plastics designed for ice fishing that include such interesting critters as the Little Atom Wedgies, Nuggies, Duppies, Skimpies and Micro Noodles.  While you're ice fishing, if someone approaches you with the intent of giving you a Wedgie, don't run away, it may help you catch fish!  Another new group of soft plastics from the Reel Good Guide Store broke onto the scene and promise to fill ice anglers boxes with plastics and most likely their buckets with a limit of panfish.  These lures hail in the names of the Ice Mite, Paddle Bug, and GoJo.


These plastics are carried in my "other" plastics box.  These are designed specifically for ice fishing, but can be used in open water with good success.  The top left and middle columns are soft plastics from the Little Atom company, while the column to the right are from Reel Good Guides.  The chartreuse jig to the left is made by a friend of mine, and the one below that is from Custom Jigs and Spins called the Purist.  The Purist is great in shallow water less than six feet.

There are other soft plastics out there designed for ice fishing or for open water panfishing, and the only thing that they need for them to work is for you to try them.  My advice is, that if you have confidence in a particular soft plastic when fishing for panfish during open water, chances are that they'd work under the ice as well.  I'm not loyal or biased toward any particular brand.  Rather, if I see something that I think will work, I'll try them.

So, what's another way to add some oomph to your non-scented soft plastic jig to further tempt finicky fish into biting?  Add scent.  There are many commercial brands of scent, including Fish Formula, Smelly Jelly, Bang and Berkeley Gulp juice to mention a few, and I'm sure that there are others.  Some people make their own using anise oil or cod liver oil as a base, then adding other flavors like garlic or other fish oils.  What works best?  I really don't know, but I use scent all of the time.  Scent, if anything, covers human scent and other things that might not appeal to the finicky taste buds of fish.  It's quite possible that fish might bite these scented lures because of the scent, but at a minimum seems to result in fish holding onto the bait longer.  That added time might be the difference between hooking up on a bite or the fish spitting the lure out.

Scented Lures, which include biodegradable lures, are claimed by their makers to outfish live bait.  I can sometimes say that about any soft plastic, but there are times that these scented ones out perform anything else.  Probably the most popular ones are made by Berkley, but also Yum and Mr. Twister make versions that are very tempting to panfish.  I carry a good supply of Gulp and Powerbait products.

The column to the left are Berkley Powerbait products, and to the right are Gulp products.  The Powerbait products are as follows, Power Grub, Power Wiggler, Power Spikes, and Power Trout Worms.  The Gulp products are, top to bottom, Gulp Minnow, Gulp Grub, and Gulp Maggot.  These are awesome for finicky panfish.



Can you tell that I like Berkley scented products?  I carry these on every ice trip, and use them!

When fishing soft plastics, sometimes the bite can be easily detected, but most of the time the bites will be light.  Using a spring bobber or a very sensitive ultralight rod really helps to detect the bites.  The best way to detect bites is to see them.  During the daytime, in clear water, I use an Aqua-vu underwater camera when I'm over a good number of fish that I've marked with my sonar.  I can see them inhale the plastic lure and set the hook before they can spit it out.  Sometimes these fish bite so light that you can't detect movement on your rod tip or from your line, but with a camera, you can nail them. 

Bluegills like this one often bite so light that you can't see the bite on even a spring.  That's when a camera comes in handy, set the hook when you see the bite.  Some anglers when fishing shallow water, will "sight" fish by laying on the ice and peering down the hole.  This is the same principle as when using the camera.

Night Time Crappie
One of my favorite patterns of the Ratso tandem rig is the night time crappie bite.  The camera isn't much use at night, I've found, because there's so much zooplankton activity at night that are attracted to your camera light that it blocks out most of your visibility.  So, two things are key, your sonar and the spring bobber (or a very sensitive rod tip).

Before I go on, in my last post I gave a lot of credit to my buddy Jeff Redinger.  I have to give him credit here too, for turning me on to the Ratsos.  Since he pointed them out to me, I've caught a ton of fish on them.

OK, back to crappie.  The first thing to know is that, at least from my experience, crappie feed up.  What I mean by that is that they seem to respond to lures that are worked above them rather than on the bottom or below them.  That's not to say that they won't chase a lure down or hit them off the bottom, rather, they seem to be much more aggressive to lures presented above them.

Another trait of crappie, especially at night, is they almost always suspend.  If you're lure isn't where they can find it, then you won't get bites.  This is where a good sonar unit comes in handy.  As discussed in my last post, "On the Hardwater - Ice Fishing Basics I", you can see your jig or, in this case, both Ratsos, and you can see the fish.  With suspended fish, you know exactly what depth they are holding at because you can see them, so you can effectively drop that lure into your hole and jig it just above them.  Without sonar, you might drop the lure below them or fish too high, and the fish won't see it.

Crappie that bite "up" often push the lure up on their attack, creating slack in your line, resulting in your spring straightening out or moving up.  If you don't have a spring bobber, you need to really watch your line and make sure that any weird slack that all of a sudden appears is followed by a hook set, because that could be a fish!

When working the tandem Ratsos, most of the time the fish are focused on the bottom one.  When there's a thick school, you may see them surround both of them.  If you hook one, let it thrash a second or two and you'll often get a second bite, and you can catch two at a time that way.

 Using sonar, or a flasher, along with my tandem Ratso rig, allowed me to catch panfish for three hours non-stop on this trip.  I kept a few of them for a nice panfish dinner, the rest were released to catch another day.  My Ratsos have done this for me time and again.

How do I tempt them into striking?  First, the fish need to see the lures.  You've presented them because you're using sonar and you're keeping your lure slightly above them.  I also like glow colors at night, so I'm always using a light source to keep them "charged".  What I like to do is keep the jigs just above them, then lightly jig the lure and barely move it so that the Ratso tail is barely quivering.  As you do that, slowly raise, then stop, then raise, then stop and draw the fish up higher in the water column.  Eventually, they can't stand it and will hit before the lure escapes.  There are times when they may chase it all the way to the hole!  You really have to pay close attention to your sonar and watch their behavior.  When the fish finally are tempted to your lure and appear to be one with your lure on the sonar, take your eyes off the sonar and closely watch your rod tip for the bite.

Another thing to watch is when there's a thick school, after catching a fish, you may be in a hurry to get that lure back down.  So, you drop your jig in the hole and it's sinking then all of a sudden stops, and you may not see anything on your sonar.  That's usually due to one of two things.  Either it's hung on some ice frozen at your hole, or it's a fish swallowing your jig on the fall.  Set the hook.  Crappie are notorious for doing this.

What happens when the suspended school of crappie disappears?  They probably haven't gone far away.  The school is most likely nearby enough to see your jig but just outside of the cone of your sonar.  So, to get them back, jig your lure aggressively until they appear on your sonar, then go back to what you did earlier to get bites.

One more thing about using a spring with this Ratso rig, it really helps when it's windy to find shelter to fish.  For me, it's my flip over style Fish Trap, that allows me to fish out of the wind so I can easily see and detect the lightest of bites.

So, why do predators like crappie bite these micro sized plastics, especially at night when they feed so much on minnows?  These soft plastics, along with other ice jigs, are great for imitating small crustaceans.  Remember why I don't like the camera at night, because the zooplankton are attracted to the light?  Those are the critters that the crappie are feeding on at night.  Zooplankton become much more active at night, rising in the water column, and the crappie are right there with them.  See why crappie suspend now?  You can imitate them in your jigging technique, and it could trigger strikes.  What do they look like if you don't drop a camera down there, you might ask?  Well, just look into your hole.  The light from your lantern attracts them to your hole, and you can see copepods, amphipods, and daphnia flitting about in your hole.

One final piece of important equipment needed for a good night crappie bite is a lantern.  I bring out a propane fueled Coleman lantern.  In my shanty, it not only provides a great light source, but helps keep it warm in there.  It could be in the teens outside and windy, but in my shanty I could strip down to a flannel shirt and be toasty as can be.  Lanterns are great also for charging up your glow lures.  I really believe that the light generated by your lantern attracts zooplankton, and the crappie are drawn there as well.  Just don't let your line get too close to the lantern, or you'll be retying a new rig (speaking from experience there).  Also, don't let it near the canvas on your flip over shanty or you'll be patching a hole prior to your next trip.

Before I forget, let me mention the advantages and disadvantages of using a swivel, as promised earlier in this post.  The swivel prevents line twist, and also adds a slight bit of weight which helps to load your rod tip when using light lures.  Line twist causes lures to spin.  Huh?  Well, when watching your lure with an underwater camera, if you jig any lure with spinning tackle, you will twist your line.  When you stop jigging, the line unwinds, and your lure twirls or spins under the water.  Fish will approach the lure and look at it, but most of the time won't bite a spinning lure and will eventually swim off.  Sometimes, but rarely, they'll wait for it to stop spinning and then bite.  You can reduce this twist by using a swivel, or, keep jigging the lure.  The lure won't spin as much if you keep it moving.  But if you have fish that will only hit whne you dead stick your lure, if it spins, you'll lose a chance at that type of bite.

The disadvantage of using a swivel is that it's another thing to see on your sonar, and sometimes the fish will actually bite it.  I've been tempted to put a small jig on it, but have never done that.  I wonder if it will work?  Hmmm...  Another disadvantage is that you have to keep changing your leader as you retie your jigs or change lures.  That's not a problem at home, but on the ice in the elements it's kind of tricky, especially with my old age and poor eyesight.  Oh, you're laughing eh?  Well, just wait until your my age and have to tie up a new rig with one or two pound test in a shanty in icy weather!  Obviously, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Another thing that you can do with plastics is to use them to tip any of your ice jigs or spoons.  I really like doing that with the Berkley Gulp products, adding a Gulp Minnow Head or Minnow to a spoon can tempt bigger panfish or even bass, pickerel or walleye!

This Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon tipped with a Gulp Minnow Head will not only tempt jumbo perch, but may put a nice walleye or bass on the ice for you.

Which leads me to my next topic, bigger plastics.  Bigger baits catch bigger fish, right?  Well, that's sometimes true with panfish.  If the common forage of a lake is larger, and fish are feeding often on minnows or crayfish, bigger soft plastics might work even better than the micro ones mentioned above.  You can really clean up on slob bluegills, slab crappie, and jumbo yellow perch by giving them something a bit bigger and more tempting.  I've caught jumbo perch and crappie while jigging three inch soft plastics.  When the fish are aggressive, sometimes your best catches can result from going big.


Bigger can be better.  These jumbo perch and a bonus pickerel fell for three inch Gulp minnows on a 1/16 ounce jighead.

So, next time you go out on the hardwater, have a rod rigged with your favorite soft plastic lure for panfish, and give it a try.  You may find that you may catch more than you ever imagined.  This isn't the only or always the best way to catch panfish, so make sure to bring what you're comfortable with out on the ice, but give these a try, you may be pleasantly surprised.  Think of soft plastics like you would any other time of year, as another tool to catch more fish, a tool that I never leave behind.

For more ice fishing tips, techniques, talk and fishing reports, please visit http://www.iceshanty.com/.