Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! > Trout
Dropper rigs for rainbows
mt.redneck:
It really just comes down to i need to explore the end of the lake where the tournament is held and figured it out a bit. I usually fish the shallower end and stay in 20 feet or less but the tournament is held closer to the dam and most of it is a very steep drop off right by shore into 50-70 feet and i dunno if the rainbows will have a tendency to stay closer to the shoreline and the drop off or roam the open water in the 50-70 foot depths. There are a lot of browns in the lake as well and both rainbows and browns can break the 10 pound mark but only rainbows count for the tourney
eyeflyer:
--- Quote from: mt.redneck on Jan 14, 2020, 09:07 PM ---Anyone try using dropper rigs, spoon with a jig or a fly underneath, and had success with rainbows?
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I have tried them with chironomids, scuds and leeches/balanced leeches. All caught fish but haven't had a time yet when they did a lot better than the small tungsten jigs under a dropper. I would have thought the chironomids and scuds would have done really well, as I pumped a couple fish I had caught and they had lots of both in them.
mt.redneck:
--- Quote from: eyeflyer on Jan 15, 2020, 03:54 PM ---I have tried them with chironomids, scuds and leeches/balanced leeches. All caught fish but haven't had a time yet when they did a lot better than the small tungsten jigs under a dropper. I would have thought the chironomids and scuds would have done really well, as I pumped a couple I had caught and they had lots of both in them.
(Image removed from quote.)
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Did you feel the flies did worse or just about the same under the spoon then just using a small jig and bait?
eyeflyer:
--- Quote from: mt.redneck on Jan 15, 2020, 06:09 PM ---Did you feel the flies did worse or just about the same under the spoon then just using a small jig and bait?
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If the fish are active and moving the chironomids did better, sometimes just tied by themselves (tungsten head) I have almost always done better with a dropper setup and rarely fish a presentation for trout in the winter without it. I use different styles and sizes of dropper spoons, my best luck with smaller silver ones but use chartreuse/orange as well. Dropper rigs are used when fishing 10 ft or deeper to get the small hooks down, shallow just use a hook. Like my spinner rigs in summer, silver on sunny days and chart/orange on cloudy ones. Unlike summer fishing when I get a good pattern I can have success with it all day, in the winter I switch around a lot more.
I tie up 6 rod/reel rigs before I go out and most times I change at least 2-3 of those when I get home that night on the rigs I had no hits on or to patterns that match the "bugs" in the trout I pumped. Sometimes completely new rigs, sometimes just a bit of variable to what I had success with.
This pic is a kastmaster with a water boatman dropper. also has a slider single hook on top of the kastmaster
This pic is a balanced leech on bottom silver chironomid up about a foot
This pic is chartreuse setup for deep water, cloudy days, willow leaf with a hornet jig dropper
mt.redneck:
I have a midge larva pattern that works very well but it just dosent have a lot of calling power. Will habe to experiment with it below a spoon along with trying a normal dropper with a jig and bait
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