This summer, a winter walleye bait might be your best bet for bass. So say Bassmaster pros Brandon Palaniuk and Jacob Wheeler. Each has amassed big bags of open-water bass with ice-fishing jigs.
“It’s a little trick up my sleeve that I’ve kept secret for a long time,” said Palaniuk, who revealed the tactic after notching a top-10 finish with it last summer on New York’s Lake Cayuga. “I always like doing something different. You can separate yourself from everyone else if you can find quality fish doing something that not every else is doing.”
Wheeler agrees. A Rapala Jigging Rap was instrumental to his top-15 finish this February in the 2015 Bassmaster Classic on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell. “At times, the fish wouldn’t eat a drop-shot or jigging spoon. That was when the Jigging Rap was key to me getting them to bite.”
Ice-fishing jigs are designed to catch fish schooled up deep, which is exactly what bass do during the heat of the summer. When fished through ice, lures like the Jigging Rap work best with a vertical pump-and-swim action. A successful open-water presentation, however, requires aggressive rod snaps throughout a horizontal retrieve.
“Snap your rod and it will dart a foot or two off to the right and then continue falling fast,” Palaniuk instructed. “Snap it again and it might dart two feet back over to the left, or forwards, or backwards. For fish that are in a negative, inactive mood, that erratic action triggers a feeding response.”
For Wheeler on Hartwell, the key was dropping his lure to the bottom as fast as possible near the edges of flooded timber in 35 to 40 feet, giving it at least three vertical snaps and then letting it fall back down on the pause.
“When you stop it, it doesn’t just sit there still,” Wheeler explained. “It still moves a little bit. And that’s why those fish would come up and eat it.”
So next time you’re out over open water and lethargic schools of summer bass won’t go for a spoon or a drop shot, give a nod to the guys who fish hardwater. It could be the trick that lands you a winning sack.
