It’s gettin’ close to hard water time and I really need to expand my horizions. This year I want to target perch, crappie, and trout. I have used glow Ratfinkes and small chartreuse jigs, but I keep getting a feeling that I’m missing something. Tube Dude mentioned roadrunners in another thread. What do all of you use? I live in Utah and live minnows are illegal. Thanks in advance for something newer, bigger, better, and different than what I now know.
A sweedish pimple and a small white jig of your liking.
I use half a minnow,
Josh’s is my favorite brand. the come in two or three sizes.
thay are pickeled or processed some how, so they live a good long time in the jar.
I snip them in half and put them on my jigs, unless I use the small ones then I just hook them in the back.
I also like mousies and wax worms. and if you have a bees nest in your barn you can rob it come winter… just keep them cold because they will wake up if you take them in side.
I switch back and forth day by day even hour by hour because the fish change their minds on what they want to eat all the time…
Hey Bioman,
I’m probably not the best one to be recommending stuff - there’s lot’s more accomplished ice anglers on these boards than me.
But anyway, here’s some of the stuff I have that works for me.
These are some jigs that I hook worms(wax, meal or crawler) or pieces of minnows on.
[inline “ICE JIGS 1.JPG”]
Here are some jigs that I have plastics on.
[inline “ICE JIGS 2.JPG”]
Here are some of the other plastics I use.
[inline “ICE PLASTICS.JPG”]
These are usually inline attractors and for ice fishing I generally take the trebles off - but, sometimes I will hang some meat on them and fish them like they are.
[inline “ICE LURES.JPG”]
Here are some of my ice flies.
[inline “ICE FLIES.JPG”]
These are commercially prepared and preserved or packaged baits that I keep in my tackle box just in case I don’t have time or I can’t find any fresh baits. I have wax worm, meal worms, earthworms maggots, grubs, crawdads, and minnows. They are not as good or as effective as their fresh counterparts, but they do work.
[inline “ICE BAITS.JPG”]
Fishhound, I think you got it all.
Here in Wisconsin we can yse live minnows, I don’t use them all the time.
Back when I was just a boy, my dad and I would cook up some spaghetti to al-deity and slip a small price on a gold hook (that is if we could find a gold hook back then, or we would have to paint them) got us a lot of Gills and Crappy. So if a person is a little creative or you can find the old timers out there on the ice, ask them I’m sure they well help you out. I do when the young ones come to me.