How to stand out under the ice. Part 1

[JohnMickish]

Ever fish Mille Lacs or Lake of the Woods with the huge shanty towns and wonder how in the heck are you going to get your lure to stand out amongst the sea of lures under the ice? Heck, you don't even have to be in the big crowds, you can be off by yourself but if you're using the same rattling lure as everyone else, what's going to make you stand out?

Here is something I have been working on for a few years that I call the M rig. It starts out with your basic non rattle lure, but you add some glass beads above the lure on the line kind of like a Carolina rig. I use a simple rubber bobber stop 1/4-1/2" above the beads so each time you jig you get a different kind of rattle than every other rattle lure out there. I have found that by adding 3-5 beads above the lure you will get your rattle at the end of the up stroke and also at the bottom of the down stroke. Since the beads are above the lure on the line, it doesn't matter if the lure is falling sideways or not, you will get the beads hitting each other in both directions, making that wonderful tick tick that simulates fish feeding. I sometimes use a glow bead first to protect my knot from the abuse. By adjusting the number of beads and how far away you have the bobber stop you can change the sound from a simple tick tick to a fast or slow paced, loud or soft tone. The closer the stop the faster and louder the ticks will be, the farther away the stop is, the beads will fall at a slower pace, resulting in a softer tick.

5 or 6mm beads work best as bigger beads tend to be too aggressive scaring off the fish. The beads also help with the sonar return if you are using a slender lure. You can get the beads at any big hobby store and for a couple of dollars you can get a year's supply of beads.

When the fish are on an aggressive feeding pattern, use Salmo Chubby Darter to pick off the hungry fish, but when things start to slow down have a M rig ready instead of the typical rattle jig and stand out from the rest of the anglers on the ice.

Stay fishy my friends.

John Mickish

[Jared_P]

Good read and good info...I have dabbled a little bit like this as well. Thanks...

JP

[Garett Svir1582813971]

Good stuff John!

[monstermoose78]

I like the sound of that! Thank you

[Day_trader]

Running to Michaels as we speak... GOTTA TRY this.