ICE JIGS
These budget friendly small profile weapons can deliver fish in a hurry!
How to fish Ice Jigs
Ice jigs are a small profile sinking hard body with a profile of a small bait fish. By flicking the Ice Jig it jumps up, darts and flutters imitating a small bait fish on the move.
Locate the fish
Use your sounder to look for schools of Bass, don’t always look for the monster schools as once you drop down the Ice Jig and twitch it a few times Bass will often move into the area. At Lake Glenbawn in July – September the best area to target is from the “Narrows” or mid section of the dam to inside the 8 knots zone. Start looking for Bass schools in 30ft of water or deeper. You may see lots more Bass in 20ft but they tend to be hit or miss, you’re better off spending time on Bass in 30ft plus.
The basic technique
Now it’s time to use your electric to stay stationary or tie off to a tree as you want to fish these fish vertically. No casting required just drop the Ice Jig down to the bottom, if you watch your sounder closely you may even see Bass follow it down. Fish that follow it down are usually more aggressive. Let your Ice Jig sink hard to the bottom then just turn the handle of the reel a couple of times to wind up about 3″ off the bottom. Ice Jigs usually have a hook off the nose and butt as well as a set of trebles on the belly. By winding up you will save yourself from most snags while learning.
The easiest technique when starting out is to twitch the Ice Jig, you can do this by simply flicking or snapping your wrist. Don’t move or use your forearm – it’s all in the wrist. Keep a steady rhythm say every 3 seconds put a flick on it this steadiness can really aggravate the Bass into biting whether it be for eating sake or more territorial reaction.
Most times the Bass will hit the Ice Jig as it falls and they will hit it hard. Sometimes the bite will feel like a rat a tat tat, you can lift your rod slowly as your feeling this and sometimes the Bass will load up on your rod or you can try and strike. Remember you’re on schooled fish so if you have caught a few or had a couple of bites and missed the hook up they may go off the bite. If the Bass shutdown just move 20ft in a different direction or move to a fresh school, you can come back to this school again in 30 minutes or more
As you get comfortable with Ice Jigging and had a few results you can try other techniques with it such as doing a high slow lift (as high as you can lift up). You can also chase the suspended fish i.e. If you are fishing 40ft and the Bass are on the sounder at 20ft simply wind up and stick the Ice Jig in their face
As you are fishing schools and Bass can excite one another it’s not surprising to catch one after the other or even 20 – 30 Bass in a two hour session.
Kids, Newbies and Anglers with Back Issues
For KIDS
Ice Jigs are probably one of the best ways to chase Bass with kids of ANY age. Kids never want to soak their lure their always on the move and Ice Jigging is perfect for them.
For NEW Anglers
It can be an amazing experience and for the Boater it’s easy work. You’re fishing pretty stationary so both of you can be on the front deck watching the sounder. There is nothing more exciting than showing someone new to fishing a Bass chasing them down on the sounder and watching them hook up on that fish, not to mention how a school can suddenly light up and fill your sounder screen.
For the Angler with the BAD BACK
It’s simple – there’s no casting required. You’re just dropping and hooking up and we all know when we’re catching them we never have a sore back from fishing 🙂
Ice Jigs are a very affordable lure. The stand out colour for Lake St Clair and Lake Glenbawn is the red and black but other good colours are blue, orange and green. There is a huge variety of colours available so mix it up!
At Aberdeen Fishing and Outdoors we have Ice Jigs in various Brands – Jackall, NilsMaster, Smak in a variety of weights and colours. So call into the shop,give these a go and you may just catch plenty of Bass in a hurry!