Pounding?

[Preacher_man]

 Ok! Would somebody explain what pounding is? I think I know but I'd rather someone explain it to me!

                                                                                 Preacherman

[Bean]

Ok! Would somebody explain what pounding is? I think I know but I'd rather someone explain it to me!

                                                                                 Preacherman

Using quick movements of the wrist (your hand looks like it's shaking, or "nervous") to impart a tiny dance or flutter to your jig.

[Thor]

I asked this very question of Bob G. at Cabela's Ice Weekend on Saturday.  He explained to me that it is the technique of using a fairly heavy lure (spoon, genz worm, etc.) to repeatedly "pound" the bottom of the lake to stir up a commotion.  Once you find the bottom, you raise your lure a foot or two and allow it to drop quickly and hard to the bottom.

The techniqus is supposed to be most useful for perch and walleye, who feed near the bottom and are curious to investigate what all the dust up is about.

[Byron/PA]

And herein lies the problem

I think Bean and Thor are both correct. It is my understanding that when Dave Genz originally coined the term "pounding" he was referring to the method Bean described. I often tell guys to drink way to much coffee, then try to hold the rod almost steady, and you'll be pounding.

Recently, pounding has come to mean what Thor referred to, bouncing the bottom to kick up silt and add to the vibration of the lure, make fish come in and see what's going on.

I'm not sure which definition is correct, depends on who you listen to and how you look at it. But both methods are very effective

[jiggin617]

On Sunday I talked to Bro about pounding and he described it the way Bean just did. I'm familar with pounding the lake bottom but I'll be sure to try the other way too.

[seaweed01]

Preacherman,

Lets try it at the small lake when the perch are not hitting very well on
the ice this winter. We had skim ice on the shore today. Hopefully we will
have ice between Xmas and New Years.

Pete

[Fat Boy]

The concept of pounding was originally intended as Bean describes.  There was actually a lure designed for this method, called a pounder, that was very effective but sadly is no longer made.  The lure was designed to give off maximum vibration and had a vertical profile.  Now, most people pound just about any jig made, just about any size, and at any depth.  A variation of this technique lead to the development of the buzz sticks.  Personally, I like the coffee method, it's cheaper

Stirring up the bottom with a heavy jig is also one of the concepts of the tight line rig popular for bluegills and perch.  You stir up the bottom by "pounding" the jig on the bottom and then hold your line tight as the gills feed on the critters that you've stirred up and hopefully hit your fly or nymph about a foot off the bottom.  Tightlining works well and is a great mid day technique on those days when everyone else is sitting motionless on their buckets.  Use your Vex to locate fish and if those fish don't hit the more traditional rigs, give this one a try.  Search this site for how to rig or do a Google search, lot's of info out there too.

[beerthirty]

You guys had me at pounding....I thought this post was about beer!!! Boy was i fooled!! he he 

[Bob_G]

 O.k. guys, I found a link to a Dave Genz article on pounding. The article goes against what I said about dropping the jig on the bottom. I do however, stand on what I said. That is what I call pounding. The kicking motion that is mentioned is a jiggle technique that I use, and it works great. Sorry if anyone feels misled from what I have said.
 Here is the link to the article:
 The moderators edited the link so it will not work. Obviously good information sharing on this site is illegal. If you want the link to the article Pm me.

[Preacher_man]

  Hey Seaweed,
                      I was thinking the same thing - about trying pounding on our perch lake! I've been watching the temps fall and been thinking it won't be long now! Come On Ice!!!!

                                                                                 Preacherman

[Fishbreath]

Hi Preacherman, A version of pounding goes back to the early 80s which can be seen in the in-fisherman ice fishing secrets 1 or was it in#2. Al Linder was doing it to stir up the muck to get the attention of the fish. I've been using the method since and it does work.

[jigerjim]

Hey Preacherman remember me, I about 1/2 way up to that Perch lake.

[Fat Boy]

O.k. guys, I found a link to a Dave Genz article on pounding. The article goes against what I said about dropping the jig on the bottom. I do however, stand on what I said. That is what I call pounding. The kicking motion that is mentioned is a jiggle technique that I use, and it works great. Sorry if anyone feels misled from what I have said.
 Here is the link to the article:
 The moderators edited the link so it will not work. Obviously good information sharing on this site is illegal. If you want the link to the article Pm me.

Bob, first of all, your technique is a good one regardless of what Dave Genz says, and the article that he wrote is a good one as well. 

[Bean]

I found this article on the web that should help those that are confused about what Mr. Genz calls pounding.

Dave Genz on 'Pounding' Ice Jigs, by Mark Strand

The name, Pounding, came up in those old heady days when breakthroughs were coming fast and furious.
Back in the 70s, the inventive mind of Dave Genz was working overtime, and the sport of ice fishing was being dragged kicking and screaming out of the Stone Age. The Fish Trap, which has been called a bass boat on ice, allowed us to bring along what we needed but keep moving until we caught fish. And a lot of presentation refinements were being developed by Genz and his cohorts. Because of Dave's pioneering use of the Vexilar, he could see his ice jig no matter how deep or dark the water, and even see when a fish showed up to inspect it.

One of the things Genz came up with, after realizing fish can be right there in the hole with the bait but not biting it, was the idea for a tiny hook and single maggot (or something similarly small and tempting) suspended below the main jig. They called it a dropper rig, and it was deadly on finicky panfish.

"We started thinking of the jig as our sinker," remembers Genz. "We kept fishing the jig aggressively most of the time, and a lot of fish came on the jig. But, especially back then, we spent more time trying to make fish bite rather than looking for fish that were in the mood to bite.

"We started that whole thing about 'sniffers' and trying to convert sniffers to biters. It got to the point that we'd hold the jig perfectly still on some fish, wait until it stopped spinning, hold the dropper hook in front of the fish and hope it would bite. If they bit our 'sinker,' fine. But an awful lot of those (sniffers that eventually bit) came on the dropper."

Over time, they began to notice that many outings were dominated by sitting over sniffers, converting a few.
But the restlessness in Genz grew.
In the evolution of his thinking, Dave, being an aggressive angler by nature, eventually drifted away from the dropper most of the time. Over the years, he has come to rely more and more on his 'sinker,' sans dropper, fished in his signature Pounding style.

And so we come to the present day, when Genz talks about pounding every time he gives a seminar or even chats with fellow anglers out on the ice.

"People ask me all the time," he says, "'What is this pounding?' It might not be the best word for what we do, but that's what we named it.

"You're trying to get a good 'kicking' motion when you jig, so the eye of the jig is the pivot point and that tail portion (often holding maggots or wax worms) kicks up and down like a horse's legs bucking. You don't want the entire jig to bounce up and down in high hops. The pivot point is just that; it doesn't move up and down much.

"It's almost like a very rapid rocking motion, from a horizontal position."

When you watch Genz do it, it's hard at first to even see that his wrist is moving up and down, but it is, very rapidly, without raising or lowering very far. The whole key is to watch the jig.

"It's important to practice where you can see the jig and see what it's doing," says Dave. "My favorite jigs for this style of presentation are horizontal, like the Fat Boys and Genz Worms. To learn how they behave in the water, you can just let it down below the ice, where you can still see it. Sight fishing (in clear, shallow water) is a great teacher. And using an Aqua-Vu lets you sight-fish at any depth, lets you see what the jig does when you have more line out."

When Pounding?

There are times when a smoother, more rhythmic motion is more effective than pounding. That's why you should be paying close attention to what the fish seem to want on any given day, and even hour to hour.

"But especially in dirty and deeper water," says Genz, "it usually works better if you add vibration and scent. Scent comes from maggots, wax worms, wigglers, whatever you tip the jig with. Vibration comes from pounding it."

This is not to suggest that you should abandon pounding in shallow water. Not at all, in fact. In many sight-fishing situations, that rapid vibration and kicking motion really trips the trigger of the fish.

Nor should you think that pounding is only for panfish, or only for sunfish. That rapid kicking motion suggests the natural movement of many items that all fish eat, at least at certain stages of their lives. You'll tempt crappies, sunfish, perch, pike, walleyes, bass, and even lakers and muskies by pounding jigs of appropriate size.

When it comes to bluegills, especially, pounding can be the difference between a nice catch and nothing during the daylight hours. At prime time, "when the sun is hitting the trees," as Dave likes to say, they'll rip the rod out of your hand if you not hanging on tight. But when it's a battle of finesse against fish that aren't in the mood to cooperate, you have to pay attention to detail to succeed, and that often means fresh bait and a horizontal jig, kept kicking with a pounding motion, as you raise and lower it.

[Fat Boy]

You guys had me at pounding....I thought this post was about beer!!! Boy was i fooled!! he he 

ROFLMAO!