“I use the System Tackle Flyer for trout, walleyes, and pike,” he says. “It exhibits a circulating action, swimming out wide when dropped down on a slack line. It covers a lot of water. But to get it to do what you want it to, you have to spend time watching it.
“When a fish comes into the hole and I’m watching this unfold on my FL-8 flasher, I need to know what the lure is going to do if I rip it away from the fish, or just shake it right in the fish’s face. I can make the Flyer do a complete flip, swim out, or just rock in place. I’ve put time into learning that bait.” Only by understanding each lure, and how a certain rod motion affects the presentation, can you experiment meaningfully in triggering strikes.
“Some days,” Genz says, “I have more success if I make the fish grab the bait while it’s moving, so they don’t get a good look at it. Other days, the opposite is true; you can’t get them to bite unless you just slightly shake the bait or even hold it completely still.” But how do you decide what they want, or make a good decision to switch to a more or less aggressive lure if you don’t know what kind of presentation was refused or which one they were after?
In-Fisherman stresses that the best jiggers understand there’s the attraction phase (where bait is presented to get the attention of a predator fish and draw it near), and the triggering phase (where the amount of up-and-down or side-to-side movement is reduced, in order to get the fish to nail your bait). The best lures offer both attraction and triggering appeal.
“Sometimes,” says Paul Fabian, another serious ice stalker, “if you’re working a bait that swims in circles, you might go from big circles to smaller circles, to just a quick snap of the lure. Or try shaking the lure and raising it slowly. If the fish follows the lure up but won’t eat it, let it fall all the way to bottom, beat it on the bottom a couple times, and raise it again. Some fish have to almost be tricked into biting.”
“The thing to remember,” Fabian says, “is that if your first routine doesn’t solicit a strike, change your presentation. The common elements to a successful jigging style is to call ‘em in then slow down to get bit.
“It might take a lot of action to attract fish to your lure, but then you finally have to make it easy for them to catch it. So many times, the final thing you do just before you get bit is just kind of shake your offering in place. Just making the lure tremble. If you don’t get hit, try another hard pump that shoots the lure away, like it’s escaping.”
When it comes to learning to trigger bites, according to Fabian, technique is important. And experience is irreplaceable.
* Mark Strand, Woodbury, Minnesota, is an Ice Guide Field Editor who compiled In-Fisherman’s Ice Fishing Secrets book.
