01-06-2022, 07:53 PM
In ice fishing, "less is more" is sometimes the best approach. I still remember a good lesson along those lines I got from ice fishing legend "Pikeman". Early on that day we had both been catching nice perch at a decent rate. Then things slowed down. While I was changing up different jigs and different baits, without any success, Pikeman began to bring up more perch. I walked over to his holes and asked what his secret was. Nice guy that he is he shared. He had scaled down to a small chartreuse bitty jig and a very small piece of nightcrawler. I rigged up the same and also started catching more fish.
There are a couple of things that seem to favor using a smaller offering. The first is when the fish just go into one of their funky moods and are not actively feeding...but will still sip on something small. The second is late in the ice season...just before the perch start spawning. The biggest females are swollen with ripe eggs and have little room in their body cavities for large meals. At that time they will slurp up small zooplankton (green soup) and will respond better to a small jig and bait offering than a larger one. As might be expected, the bites on the bitty stuff are very light...so having a spring bobber can increase your catch. Even the bigger fish often just suck the bait in rather than chomping on it.
There are a couple of things that seem to favor using a smaller offering. The first is when the fish just go into one of their funky moods and are not actively feeding...but will still sip on something small. The second is late in the ice season...just before the perch start spawning. The biggest females are swollen with ripe eggs and have little room in their body cavities for large meals. At that time they will slurp up small zooplankton (green soup) and will respond better to a small jig and bait offering than a larger one. As might be expected, the bites on the bitty stuff are very light...so having a spring bobber can increase your catch. Even the bigger fish often just suck the bait in rather than chomping on it.