Jigging spoons?

[apegs]

few questions on jigging spoons

1. Do you usually jig off the bottom or bounce the spoon off the bottom?

2. Does the bite usually come from the up motion, the fall, or at rest?

3. Is the bite very noticable with spoons or do you really have to pay very close attention to notice a bite?

[Wookiee]

1. Both thump it on the bottom to get some silt and draw their attention sometimes they will take it right off the bottom but mostly bring it up a bout 6inches to a foot and jig.

2. All of the above depends on the mood of the fish. Most times for me it's on the pause.

3. It can be both all about the mood but a lot of times if the don't thump it they will go over and knock the snot out of your minnow on the deadstick.

[Jim Almquist]

1. anywhere from 12" to 18" off the bottom but if you see something higher by all means lift your lure up to it.

2.It can happen at any time but I don't have a lot of up and down motion in my jigging maybe 1/2" to 2". Most of the time just enough to move my head on the spoon. If there are no fish present I will lift my lure 3' to 4' off the bottom and jig it down and there will be times when it will get hit on the way down. You have to pay attention to your flasher and your line just in case they come up on your lure you will see your line get slack. They seem to bite more often on the drop then the raise but I have had them just pound it after lifting it 4'and that really make it tough to get a good hookset.

3.The bite will always depend on the mood of the fish and this is why you need to pay attention to your flasher and see if they come right up to your bait and bite or just take a whiff and take off or do they hang around and seem like they are right on top of your bait. When you are jigging and have a minnow head on your spoon a walleye can suck the head in with out you feeling a thing or maybe just a little bit lighter then it should be and when that happens you have to set the hook right away before he spits it out. I can't tell you how many I have caught that way and the hook is just in there lips. You will know when the good bite is going on cause you will have to hang on to your rod

[looneyducer]

Last winter, on a similiar question, slipperybob wrote about writing out his name in the air, in cursive, with his rod tip. Thats the best explanation of good jigging I've ever heard. Write it out fairly big and slow, say 4 to 6 inch letters, and then wait a bit, when there aren't any fish below you. Essentially, you're calling them in. And then, when the red mark comes, try writing it in letters of about 1/8 inch, fast.

One of the most upsetting things about this method, however, is that sometimes some names seem to work better than others. I had an uneventful day going last year, just spelling out looneyducer over and over to no avail -- then I started to write out "slipperybob is full of..." the first one was 3 lbs, followed by a couple 4s, some more 3s, and a 7.

I think it might have been the double P's scratching at the bottom, puffing things up. Either that or fish really do read this forum and are terrified of slipperybob.

Of course, if that doesn't work, try writing explatives about me.

[Chef]

Fish moods dictate how I jig. Early, aggressive 'Eyes seem to charge in with little hesitation. I jig a spoon differently than a minnow body style like a Chubby Darter, Nils Master or Rap.

Your camera or color bars on the Vex show you a fishes "mood". Just adjust your jigging tactics to the mood and you'll increase your bite ratio. Also, a lone fish tends to be more cautious without competition around. An aggressive school of fish will bite more readily than a loner.

[apegs]

Fish moods dictate how I jig. Early, aggressive 'Eyes seem to charge in with little hesitation. I jig a spoon differently than a minnow body style like a Chubby Darter, Nils Master or Rap.

Your camera or color bars on the Vex show you a fishes "mood". Just adjust your jigging tactics to the mood and you'll increase your bite ratio. Also, a lone fish tends to be more cautious without competition around. An aggressive school of fish will bite more readily than a loner.

What exactly on a vexilar shows there mood?

[Craigums]

Originally Posted By: Chef

Fish moods dictate how I jig. Early, aggressive 'Eyes seem to charge in with little hesitation. I jig a spoon differently than a minnow body style like a Chubby Darter, Nils Master or Rap.

Your camera or color bars on the Vex show you a fishes "mood". Just adjust your jigging tactics to the mood and you'll increase your bite ratio. Also, a lone fish tends to be more cautious without competition around. An aggressive school of fish will bite more readily than a loner.

What exactly on a vexilar shows there mood?

Depends on what color the line is showing the fish...Kinda like a mood ring ya know?

[riverrat56]

I wouldn't say color of the line shows the mood, it just shows there relation ship to the sonar cone. But with some experience you can interpret it to mean things.

If a mark quickly goes from green to red it means the fish approached your lure very quickly, same thing if they jet up off the bottom to hit. Conversely, if you get a fish that comes in and is a nice solid mark indicating it is right underneath you, and then moves away quickly and becomes a weak signal, you did something wrong. There's more too it than that, but that is an overveiw of "interpreting mood"

As far as jigging spoon tactics go, I like to bounce it off the bottom when over a hard bottom, but I feel the silt kicked up when over muck isn't beneficial. For a jigging motion I will jig aggresivly at times, 4-6" snap up and let it fall on a slack line. I usually do this to try to get the attention of the fish, once they are near the jig I will keep moving it ever so slightly, usually with slow half to one inch lifts and let it fall on a tight line. At times I will stop it completly and only shake the rod tip back and forth but make no verticle movements.

Another trick I have used to trigger bites from walleye when they won't hit a jigged spoon but show interest is once they look but won't bite I will drop it to the bottom and let it sit for upwards of 15 seconds and then snap it up onces and let it rest again, I think it simulates a dying bait fish that has fallen to the bottom and is trying to swim still.

[TiNK3R]

Last winter, on a similiar question, slipperybob wrote about writing out his name in the air, in cursive, with his rod tip. Thats the best explanation of good jigging I've ever heard. Write it out fairly big and slow, say 4 to 6 inch letters, and then wait a bit, when there aren't any fish below you. Essentially, you're calling them in. And then, when the red mark comes, try writing it in letters of about 1/8 inch, fast.

One of the most upsetting things about this method, however, is that sometimes some names seem to work better than others. I had an uneventful day going last year, just spelling out looneyducer over and over to no avail -- then I started to write out "slipperybob is full of..." the first one was 3 lbs, followed by a couple 4s, some more 3s, and a 7.

I think it might have been the double P's scratching at the bottom, puffing things up. Either that or fish really do read this forum and are terrified of slipperybob.

Of course, if that doesn't work, try writing explatives about me.

rofl nice

[Team Otter]

Great information ALL. Thank you for your willingness to share.

[Chef]

Craigums is correct. An aggressive fish will be RED instantly if your ducer is positioned so that your lure/bait is within your cone "window". If you see faint orange that slowly turns red, you have a cautious fish.

Oh, and the thickness of the Red Line is not an indicator of the size of the fish. The Red line shows whether the fish is in the cone "window" or outside of it, e.g. Orange or Green.

[riverrat56]

The color only shows the corrilation to the cone, it could just be a fish swimming though, a carp even, that has no interest at all in your lure. This is why you can't rely only on color to intrepret mood, it may indicate somethings, but there is alot of other factors.

If the fish is "outside" the cone, it won't show up at all, when in the center it will be red (or the strongest signal color) as it moves outward it will turn orange, then green.

[late night]

This is why I like this site, talk'n about fishen. I watch all the TV showes, read all the articles and spend my fair share of time on the ice. However, one thing I have learned about fish over the years is, fish are just like deer. You think you got it all figured out one day and they make a fool of you the next! Just because it worked over there doesnt mean it will work over here or from year to year.

I usually stick to the same tactics for walleyes; jig one rod, bobber the other. I choose a jig mainly on the lake I am fishing and what has worked best in the past. Sometimes I pound the bottom, somtetimes I dont. I have a habbit of slowing, or stopping, my jigging when I see a mark. But, I do get pumped up when I see a fat, red mark on my vex. That means atleast I have a fish right below me. There is no way to tell if the fish is small and just in the right spot to send a strong signal back or if he is a hungry wally just about to tromp my bait. But the red line is a start. That can also prove very frustrating when you have lots of marks and no bites.

The only way to find good tactics is to spend time fishing learning from experience. You can cut that time right in half by spending one day with a guy who already knows what he is doing. Like my Dad used to say, "You can do it my way, or learn the hard way."

I am by no means and expert on catching walleyes. They have me scratching my head at the moment.

[tashit]

I have to disagree a little on the size of the red mark indicating the size of the fish. I understand the whole being on the outer edge of the cone and all of that, but I do see a difference in thickness of the red line when I catch a 6" perch as opposed to an 18" walleye. It's not always real easy to tell but there are definitely times when I have pesky perch pecking at my minnow and then I see a thick red blob appear on the flasher and I pull in a nice eye.