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Volume 4, Number 3 |
| with "Big" Jim McLaughlin |
           
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"Mr. Ice Fishing"
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Q: When it comes to panfishing through the ice, and even fishing for bigger fish like bass, walleye and pike, you talk about using "small jigs that fish heavy". What does that mean? Dave: Especially when you're after bluegills, you don't want a jig that appears as a big silhouette to the fish. It's winter, the water is clear as it ever gets, and the fish get a good look at your bait most of the time. So you want a jig that's got a decent amount of weight to it, but with a small profile. You want it to look small to the fish. But it has to be heavy enough that it takes all the kinks out of your line when you're jiggin it. People who use line that's too heavy for their rod or the jig, especially when the line is old and kinky, won't be able to feel it when a fish sucks in their bait. The fish just suck the bait in, and that might straighten out some of the kinks, but you don't feel the tick on your end. Remember, the absence of the weight of the jig means a bite, too. It's difficult to feel the absence of the weight of your jig when the line is kinky. The line has to hang straight to give you the best feel.
Dave: Yes. But it can't just be light line. It has to be the right line matched to the weight of the jig and the action of the rod. And it has to be fresh, with clear being the best colour. What you should do is rig up the whole thing, including tying on the jig, and play with it in your living room. Stand up on something and let down about 6 feet of line, and a jig that isn't heavy enough to straighten it out. But you see people out there like that all the time. And this isn't only for fishing bluegills. This can be true when you're fishing walleye, crappie, perch and other fish, too. People over size their line all the time, and try to get by with old stuff that isn't limber anymore. A 'small jig that fishes heavy' can also mean smaller hook size. At the beginning of the ice season, a lot of baitfish in the water are still mighty small. So early in the ice season, you want to match the size of your bait with what the fish are eating. Last season we saw it on Mille Lac (a walleye lake in Minnesota): crappie minnows caught way more fish that fatheads. I saw lots of people struggling to find a jig that fishes a small crappie minnow effectively, and get it down into the deeper water, maybe 25 feet. If the hook is too big, it ruins the action of the smaller live baits, and the fish can probably see the hook better too. You can use a really light jig, but pinching a sinker on the line is never the answer, because it ruins the action of the jig, because you are now jiggling the sinker instead of the lure. I want the jig to offer a small profile, but be a decent amount of weight, and if you look around, you'll find jigs that are made this way. I want to be able to get the bait down the hole without spending so much time feeling it down the hole. Q: But what about the notion that fish tend to be suspicious of something that comes crashing down through the water column, then slams on the brakes right in their face? You yourself have talked about how a slowly-dropping jig looks more natural to the fish, and might be necessary to elicit a bite. Dave: Yes, that's true, but if you're fishing deeper water and the fish are nearer the bottom - say it's 25 feet and the fish are 3 feet off the bottom - I want the jig to go down the first 20 feet really fast. I want it to travel through the dead water fast, and then I can slow the drop with my arm. I can slow it down myself when I figure the fish can see it coming. Q: You've said that when you begin jigging in a new hole, no matter what species of fish your're after, you like to work aggressively, calling the fish in from a distance. Then, when the fish get there and show up on your FL8, you can change baits and change presentations until you figure out what they want to bite. When you're going for the maximum amount of calling power, what do you think about baits that have rattles in them for ice fishing? Dave: I'm not sure yet. I've played with some of them, and will continue to do it more. We've caught fish on rattling baits, but I guess I haven't been successful enough with them to say how important they are. Q: Still, no matter what, it's hard to beat live bait, right? Dave: In the evening, when the sun's hitting the trees and the fish are feeding, you can't beat a good lively minnow on a plain hook or light jig for many species. When the fish go on the feed, it's hard to beat live bait. But if the fish are around and not feeding, I think artificials will catch more fish. We're triggering now, and a bait that you can work, that flashes and dances around, can intrigue and fool a fish, especially if it's swimming horizontally. Still, I think a bait should have scent and flavour on it to catch fish at those times when they're not really feeding. The scent of a minnow head, or punctured maggot, puts more flavour in the water than a minnow hooked onto a hook. A minnow that's just hooked lightly introduces less flavour into the environment than one that's injured. That's why it's important to change minnow heads or maggots more often than most people do. Because it's that fresh scent and flavour in the water that brings on strikes, and it washes away quickly after they get down there. You need to keep your bait fresh. Q: What about noise? You always see big groups of people on a lot of the best ice fishing spots, and they seem to be catching fish, until the group gets too large. Dave: I think noise is a really big factor, especially during the daylight hours. Constant banging, running, driving, can definitely move fish away. When I go to a lake at midday that has people fishing on one spot, I go to a zone near the actively, but away from it. I drill holes and check for fish all around the fringes of the most activity. Fish will often bite, if you can find where they've move to. They don't swim all the way across the lake. A lot of times, they don't move that far, but they do move. I try to avoid making noise. But when I use a power auger, that's one of the reasons I drill four holes, or a dozen holes, in an area before I start to fish. I'm going to be moving some fish around by the noise and activity of the drilling. If I only drill one hole, I might move the fish off it and they won't come back soon enough to make it worth waiting them out. If you drill enough holes right away, then you can work your way around to all of them, and the noise has time to die away. The fish are more likely to end up under one of your holes, than if you drill them one at a time. Another thing I try to do in the middle of the day is fish relatively deeper water than I do at prime time, and try to find areas with cover like weeds, trees frozen into the ice, stuff like that. Q: What are the absolute keys to catching more fish through the ice?
Dave: Mobility is still the most important factor. If you drill one hole and sit there, you won't do very well most of the time. No matter how well you present your bait, if there isn't a fish under you, you won't catch one. I would say that the most important things you can do is to get a good depthfinder, a new auger so you'll drill a lot of holes, study lake maps just like you do in the summer, search out a lot of spots, systematically, until you fish and catch fish. Everybody is so worried about looking for a magic lure, or magic way to jig, and that's honestly the final link in the chain, in my opinion. Playing with different presentations is important, but you only do that after you do everything else right. You have to have fish in your hole before you can start defining what you're trying to get them to bite.
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obody has done more to change the sport of ice fishing for the better, than the inventor of the Fish Trap and the Ice Box. He's the best there is when it comes to finding and catching fish after the pond freezes over. In the following conversation, we explore a variety of topics with Dave Genz, the man who founded Winter Fishing Systems, and invented the Fish Trap shelter and the Ice Box sonar holder. He's constantly refining his own approach to ice fishing success. When he talks, all ice anglers should listen.
Q: So light line is one of the true keys to catching more fish through the ice?