Need help catching gills

[Axhandle]

I'm fishing somes bays anywhere from 5' to 12' deep.  The water is clear. I think I could call heads or tails if I dropped a dime to the bottom.  Here's my problem - I see lots of fish, but only catch a small number of them. The gills will slowly come 1 to 4" from my jig, sit for a few seconds, and then slowly back off.  How do I "turn them on"?  I've tried a variety of jigs and seem to have the best luck with a #16 marmooska on 1# line.  By best luck, I mean I catch every 20th fish that approaches my jig.  I do catch a few crappies also.  1 crappie will pound the jig while the next 10 are pretty lethargic and swim away.  I don't think I'm scarying them off.  These bays recieve a lot of pressure on the weekends, so I generally try Wednesday or Thursday's.  I don't claim to know what I'm doing, so any help would be appreciated.   

[IceBob]

Are you tipping your jigs with some "meat"...(aka. Mousies, spikes, waxworms, etc.)?

[Big Dawg]

another good way to catch bluegills is use a size 2n swedish pimple and take the hook off then tie a 4-6in dropper with a size 8hook and tip that with a piece of nightcrawler and just twitch it then wait about 5-10sec and twitch it a little more and wait 5-10more sec. and just keep doing that

[perch pirate]

Hali jig size 35 perch color tipped with a spike or two. Drop it down to fish depth jig up 2 or 3 inches letting it drop back to the fish.

[jigginstick]

 Might try to get em hot by slowly taking it away from them. I use that technique when i'm fishing over my vexilar, but never tried it sight fishing.

[kerosenecounty17]

I don't fish any water quite that clear, but I can definately relate to the heavy fishing pressure.  Many of the lakes I fish get pounded pretty heavily too.  That being said, these would be my suggestions:

Jigs:  Custom jigs and spins ratsos, shrimpos, and nuclear ants and Marmish (found thanks to this site) ants and flies.  I used to think a jig was just a jig, and most of the "fancy" ones were designed to snag fisherman and not fish but I can't ignore the fact that these five out-produce the basic rockers and teardrops in my box every time. 

Baits:  Mousies and wigglers.  On heavily pressured lakes the fish have probably seen waxworms before.  They might even have been caught and released on them.  Give them something different and you might have a little more luck.

Techniques:  Like jiginstick said, tease them.  Keep pulling it away from them until they commit and nail it.  Don't just pull it a foot over the fish's head and then wait for him to catch up to it.  Keep raising it until they hit.  This past weekend I was catching perch, but had to tease them anywhere from 6-10 feet off the bottom before I'd tick'em off enough that they'd hit.  Also try to get some horizontal movement.  Swim the jig around the perimeter of the hole or back and forth across the hole from side to side. 

Hope some of that helps.  Good luck.

kero

[Axhandle]

I appreciate the information/tips from everyone.  I'll definately give some of these a try over the next 3 or 4 weeks.  We had 40 degree weather a few days this week in NW Iowa.  For me, the Daytona 500 is a yearly reminder that the ice fishing days are dwindling away.

[royalfish]

Hey axhandle,

     I assume you are fishin Miller, Emerson, Little Emerson??  Where do you live?  I live south west of spencer a ways.  Just wonderin

[Axhandle]

Royalfish
You're right on.  I've been struggling on Miller's.  Although, Sat., I went straight off the boat ramp out where there arn't any weeds.  The perch were really hungry.  A school would come through about every 45 minutes.  I could catch 3 or 4 out of every school.  Did take a few pretty decent fish, but usually the smaller fish smoked my jig before I could get to where the bigger fish were located. A few friends fished the weeds for gills and didn't do very good. I did try the very north end of West Okoboji but had zero luck.  Hopefully this week will be better. Probable be 3" of water on top of the ice though.  I'm from LeMars.  The in-laws live in Milford so I'm up your way quite a bit.

[royalfish]

Hey Ax,

      I went on Sunday.  Tried Spirit for crappies and got nothin.  Went to Millers around the corner and saw a ton of really nice gills.  I didn't have any hit.  They got close but took off.  A few friends went up Monday after we got out of school and brought home about 20.  I never asked what they used but I would assume if you used the KISS method it would produce.  We also went to Silver (Dickinson) and saw a guy pull in about 10 fish in an hour or so.  He was out by the aereator...further than we dared. 

[peple of the perch]

where is this at

[royalfish]

POTP,

   This is in NW IA.  Millers is on West Okoboji.  O and the fish that we saw the guy catch on Silver were walleyes.  It is a very very good walleye fishery.