jigging for 'eyes

[cityfishin]

I fish mostly for walleye out herein Minnesota and typically use live bait. Fatheads. I've tried jigging with spoons, swim baits and jig heads all tipped with minnows or heads. I always do better with live bait and a bobber. What am I doing wrong? I constantly hear about great success jogging and I want to do better. Thanks in advance.

[venom]

   Thats a good ? Im still thinking a bit cold yet just got of the lake here. Well all I can say is when fishing with my dad here on the chequamagon bay for eyes he uses a bobber and I dont and I usally out fish him just jigging. I dont know if it is the way you are jigging or the mood of the fish? I go for the jig 3 times twitch and pause for about 3 to 5 seconds and all over again. How ever bobbers have luck also. Good luck!

[icontact]

I fish mostly for walleye out herein Minnesota and typically use live bait. Fatheads. I've tried jigging with spoons, swim baits and jig heads all tipped with minnows or heads. I always do better with live bait and a bobber. What am I doing wrong? I constantly hear about great success jogging and I want to do better. Thanks in advance.

I discovered a few years back that jigging (walleye flyers and chubby darters)a lot less and in smaller increments was producing a lot more fish. Every time I put my rod down to get something and it would be still for a while,I would get a bite. I use wave buster bobbers all the time now as well, as in the winter the bites are so subtle that you may hardly feel them. I have had a walleye pull on the bait 3-4 times before it even submerges the bobber an inch. I started putting my rod down in the boat when summer fishing as well, also increased my bites, on a really hot bite of course this is not necessary. (Everyone has probably heard about the wife reading a book in the boat and outfishing them) I think on a slower bite this happens for two reasons, one the lure is left stationary for a longer amount of time, because when you are holding a rod you have a tendency to be jigging a lot more, at least that is true for myself. I believe the other reason is that when the walleye are in a non aggressive feeding mood they may just inhale the jig lightly, not actually inhaling it enough for a good hook set. With rod in hand there is a knee jerk reaction to set the hook as soon as you feel a little tug, at least for me anyway. If you ever icefished with an underwater camera you will have observed that a walleye may come up to your bait/lure three or four times before it will actually takes it, and that is only if you dont move it. I know that there are guys that will swear by jigging aggressively and having great luck, and when the bite is on, I may agree. What I have posted here is only my personal experience with trying to figure out the old walleye, but day in and day out I have found that a very slow and even a stationary jig presentation has produced a lot more fish for me.

[cityfishin]

What are you tipping your jigs with? Minnow heads? Shiners? Fatheads? Are you using swimming jigs or just spoons or jig heads? Glow? I think you could be right about jigging too much. It seems like many suggest pumping the lure and then using little twitches and a long pause. I guess I get impatient thinking that while my buddies minnow is constantly acting like a real minnow, I'm trying to make mine act real. Or at least tempting. A camera would probably help me see what I'm doing right or wrong.

[brokenline]

do they bite on the down fall?

[icontact]

I use frozen minnows, and sometimes just the head. The walleye flyer is a swimming jig, and the chubby darter is a more of a swimming crankbait, these are the two I use the most. You can use almost any jig but like I mentioned I leave the lure right on the bottom quite a bit of the time, the walleye flyer, slowpoke jig, or any other jig that has the hook sitting up when on the bottom, I believe will increase your hookups. I do use spoons sometimes as well but find they do work as well if you want to leave your lure right on the bottom. I usually only tip the chubby darters with a small minnow head, more for scent than visual attraction. I have used quite a few different lures over the years, but I really believe it is the flash of the minnow, and the action your lure imparts on the minnow that really attracts the fish,(viewed on camera) color to me is not really that important, for walleye fishing anyway. When perch and trout fishing I believe color and size of lure can make more of a difference, but in most cases your bait is smaller than the lure when fishing trout and perch, which is usually the opposite when walleye fishing.
Most of all of my hookups come with the lure at rest, either right on the bottom or just slightly above bottom. If you have ever observed a real minnow on T.V or in the water you will see that most of their movement is in very small jerking motions, and injured minnows will maybe rise an inch or two off bottom and then drop to the bottom, this is the movement I am trying to duplicate. How often have you ever seen a minnow rise vertically 1-2 feet instantly and do this continuously? This action will catch fish, but IMO I believe you will catch more fish going with the slow, small movements.

I have posted this before on the site, this unit catches fish, and was one of the reasons I started slowing things down.

[ChillerThriller]

What works for me is called a slater jig. Its a jig with 3 hooks on the jig head and you put a minnow in it and jig it. key is to constantly give it motion big jigs, little jigs, bounce it, quiver it everything. I also found that 2 inch crappie tube jigs with a minnow work really good for eyes.