Presentation—Of course, working the jig properly is important. A typical scenario proceeds like this. Drop the jig to the bottom, watching it fall on sonar. Occasionally, lakers intercept the jig on the way to the bottom. Say bottom’s 50 feet down. Raise the jig three feet above the bottom and momentarily hold it still. Now sharply raise your rod tip three feet and immediately return it to its starting position just above the ice hole. The jig darts up and then swims in a semicircle back down to its original position.
Sometimes lakers just swim in and bang the jig right then. Other times, you see a mark just above or below your jig. Jiggle the bait just enough to wiggle the tentacles. Jiggle again. Maybe once more, a little more aggressively. No response? Give the bait a sharp lift-drop again. Try the jiggle-jiggle routine again. No go? Then suddenly reel the bait up five feet. If that doesn’t trigger the fish, he’s probably not hungry.
If you don’t get a response in short order with the jig three feet above bottom, raise the bait to the 40-foot level and work that depth for a minute. Then raise the bait to 30 feet, then to 20. Lots of times, most of the fish are holding at a particular depth. It’s common to catch lots of fish 10 to 20 feet below the ice over 40 to 80 or more feet of water. We don’t spend much time working water deeper than about 60 feet, though.
In most places, the tradition is to fish much larger lures than those I’m describing here. Airplane jigs weighing an ounce or more. Monster jigging spoons. Huge bladebaits. I can see those sizes working for large trout, but I believe at the expense of a vastly reduced overall catch.
Instead of larger, I see more need to occasionally choose baits even smaller than the 3/8-ounce baits we usually rely on. Last year, 1/4-ounce baits on 6-pound-test line produced more than 3/8-ounce baits on 8- and 10-pound line. One angler even dropped down to 4-pound line. Might not seem possible, but even 10-pound lakers are relatively easy to land on 6-pound line. Admittedly, though, if a 40-pound fish ever happens along, we’ll probably never land it.
From Flaming Gorge to various areas on the Great Lakes, anglers who have adopted these baits and general tactics are having topnotch success in tangling with big fish with an attitude. An angler from New Hampshire dropped me a note last year after reading about our preference for Gitzit-style baits. He was fishing a local lake when two anglers walked by and saw his Gitzit lure. You after bass, they asked? Nope, lakers, he said. They laughed. But during the next half hour he landed two trout while they didn’t get a bite. “Got any more of those bass baits?” they asked. Have faith and you’ll have fun.
