IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! => Jigging => Topic started by: ice725 on Jan 19, 2005, 01:59 PM
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I have a resevoir in my back yard that I fish year round. In the summer I can catch sunfish/pumpkin seed by the bucketfull. Whenever I try jigging for them in the winter I never seem to get any bites, in fact in my three years of ice fishing that spot, I havent cought a sunfish through the ice. Usually after about 15 minutes I just give up and stick to my tip-ups because I figure they won't bite there in the winter. Does anyone have any solutions/patterns for this problem. Thanks :tipup: :tipup:
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They are all sleeping on the bottom, or atleast that is what I think. I have run in to the same problem and have not caught one thing jigging.
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Tipups for sunfish? I doubt they'll bite hard enough to set it off.
I catch all mine on an Ultralight jigging stick. Most times I see the line twitch, & the rod doesn't even move.
Paul
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lol, what I meant was that I give up fishing for sunfish all together and stick to my tip-ups set for bass and pickerel.
Do you have to use a lot of action when jigging for sunfish, or do they just bite when they are in the mood?? thanks :tipup: :tipup:
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sometimes you really have to search a body of water to find the panfish, sometimes the panfish only bite in the morning or evening - i would make sure that you have tried everywhere from shallow weeds and structure, to the deepest water (don't forget to try off the bottom for suspended fish occasionally). As for as how fast bluegill fishing can be - well, it CAN be catching a fish as fast as you can get the jig down there every single time, all day long - but i only see this a handfull of times per ice season.
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Panfish seem to be very easy to catch through the ice. It's more a matter of finding them. Getting them to bite is easy, well usually. When they are really turned off, tiny jigs like a 1/100 ounce nuclear ant tipped with a single maggot.
They seem to like the outside weededges near deeper water. At times they will be in the deepest areas of the lake, especially later in the winter. Perch will usually hug bottom, bluegills will be within a few feet of the bottom, and crappies usually suspend 1/3 of the way or more off the bottom. They will all respond to similar lures. Mostly when they come on screen, small subtle jigging motions work best. Mostly small jiggles and pauses. With crappies, if they don't take, it often helps to reel the lure up a little bit, and often they will give chase.
Tyler