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Icing Crappies w/ Plastics


Vitreus

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I just picked up a whole slew of little micro plastics. Just wondering what types of jigs some of the more experienced panfish anglers on here have had success with. I've grown up with walleye tunnel vision, and really just started getting interested in panfish. Also, I had a thought that some scent may be a good idea with these jigs. Any recommendations??????

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I'm going to be giving the northland slug bug and bros bloodworm. I had better luck with a jig/plastic combo I don't know the name of, and can't find any more of, than I did with any live bait last year.

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I fish primarily Crappies. Early ice with a "fresh spot" is the only time I have great success with plastics...been trying more and more of them this year trying to get away from live bait but still keep going back to minnows and waxxies to improve catch rate...although about a week ago I ran out of waxxies, had no minnows and put a pink Northland mini smelt?) on my treble hook rattlin flyer and got them to bite good.

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I have not purchased live bait for years. I have yet to be disappointed on a fishing trip. The key is to keep trying different combinations of lures, colors, types of plastics until something works. Keeping track of what worked on what lake at what time is the hard part. Eventually you will narrow down all the possibilities to a few "go to" setups.

One of my go to essentials is a purple nuclear ant tipped with a purple wedgie. I have yet to be skunked on this setup. Its always tied onto one of my rods and is usually the first thing I will drop down a hole.

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I tried some plastic from Little Atom several years ago and have not bought live bait for crappies, perch, or bluegills since. It's a very rare day that I have fish below me that I can't get to bite. The Little Atom plastics are scented. I've used a couple other non-scented plastics that I added scent to with the Little Atom C-9 formula and caught fish on them too.

90% of the time I'm using a Little Atom Nuggie or Micro Nuggie depending on the fishes attitude. I'll use the original Nuggie when they are active and will eat it and the Micro when they don't go for the bigger size. I probably use the Micros 75% of the time. They catch fish, are easy to rig, and stay on the hook for several fish. When fish are really turned off I'll use a Wedgie, sometimes only using a small piece of it - just enough to wiggle and quiver. The Wedgies get pulled off the hook a little quicker but still last longer than any live bait.

Almost always putting these on some sort of horizontal jig. My favorites are the Fiskas Wolfram tungsten jigs but also use Diamond jigs, Northland Mud Bugs, Genz Fat boys, etc. I ordered a few of the new Custom Jigs and Spins tungsten jigs the other day and have high hopes for them too.

It's important to keep everything horizontal. If you get a bite and miss it and the jig and/or plastic get pulled down in a vertical orientation they will NOT bite it unless the fish are really hot. If fishing a vertical jig, rig the plastic so it rides horizontally and can quiver.

The first time I used plastics the fish were biting well. I think that's important. Lots of guys that try them when the fish are off don't catch fish with them and then have no confidence in the plastics. I caught fish on them the first time probably 6 years ago and haven't stopped using them.

I do think it's often important to keep the bait moving at least slightly with plastic. They may hit it on the pause but not as often. That's not really any different than live bait though in my experience.

Like I said I don't even take live bait any more. If I'm not catching them on plastic they aren't biting. I normally use a white or red tail and some flavor of flourescent or glow jig. I've used all different colors of tails and just fall back to white, red, and sometimes glow at night, just becuase they always seem to work. Color never seemed too important to me though and the fish bite on black, pink, flo orange, etc.

Good luck with them and stick with it! It's sure nice to not have to stop at the bait shop for grubs all the time.

Tucker

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I was a true non believer in plastices. That is until I found the berkly Gulp Alive 1" fish fry bodies. The tails & scent just flat out work. I'd tried a lot of other plastics before this without much succes. Now I always have them in the tackel box when panfishing.

You have to be quick though they won't hold onto plastics like they do live bait once they bite.

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Gill man how do you rig your micro nuggies with a small jig. I am trying to picture it in my mind but am struggling to figure that out. Do you have a pic or anything? I have bought a ton of them but not trying to figure out how they will work the best. Thanks.

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I hook them through the upper part of the "ball." I pulled this picture from Google. This is about how I do it. In the pic the hook point is inserted about in the middle of the ball. If using a tiny hook you can raise it up in the ball to give you a little more hook gap, but the presentation/profile will be the same.

full-787-27292-la_nug_w_tungsten1.jpg

Tucker

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