Spring Bobbers ?

One of the benefits to a noodle rod is the soft tip. True noodle rods load so slow in the tip at the hookset that the fish don't realize whats happening until too late. With springs you have to have really balanced combinations working or the rod, like in medium action loads to hard and sudden causing those misside hit even though the detection was there. If the spring is on a rod that's too soft in the tip you end up with a "double loading", first that spring and then the rod....also a source for missed hit. I have a couple rods that I retro fitted with spring of a couple designs and had a challenge to get things just right. The noodles go to work right out of the store so there are advanages of one over the other.

A few comments on lite bites, the spring bobbers actually help us detect a hit when the weight of the presentation is absent. The fish will inhale the jig and the spring bobber will unload signaling it is time to set the hook. On my lightest 2 lb set ups the added spring bobble helps to tone down the twitches some time to quiver the jig we will just tap the rod blank with our finger to get a reluctant fish to hit.

As far as the Ice Blue Rods, I have at least a dozen or so in various lengths, while the tips are light , they do have plenty of backbone in the butt section to handle larger fish such as bass and the occasional pike. No ice last season , so I only lurked here. Hopefully we will be able to walk on water a bit in another month or so. Got out for some cold water scouting and located a few more holing areas for the slabs, nothing over 14" but the results were promising.

Proof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aqD-_uqa2E

Springs will help some with the up-ward hits. Many of these newer noodle rods will show the same, maybe not quite as exaggerated as a spring, with most jigs except for the ultra light ones and those are tough to use in deep water scenarios.

Springs or good noodle tips either one will show the up-bite. Noodle rods with unbalanced outsized guides often won't show anything, they just keep yo-yoing. That kind of noodle rod is trash. Up bite happens all year around and it can be handled either way as deep as 20' and maybe deeper with 64th oz jigs, but you need to fish the lightest lines to make that work; so that you get a good straight line tightening. The real key is equipment properly balanced to allow the best monitoring of the light bite, and a whole lot of that will be visual. You don't need any help detecting the real strikes, but those will be far and away the minority of the crappie bite in the winter (actually in summer, too).

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Originally Posted by CTom

One of the benefits to a noodle rod is the soft tip. True noodle rods load so slow in the tip at the hookset that the fish don't realize whats happening until too late. With springs you have to have really balanced combinations working or the rod, like in medium action loads to hard and sudden causing those misside hit even though the detection was there. If the spring is on a rod that's too soft in the tip you end up with a "double loading", first that spring and then the rod....also a source for missed hit. I have a couple rods that I retro fitted with spring of a couple designs and had a challenge to get things just right. The noodles go to work right out of the store so there are advanages of one over the other.

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CTom:
I think you missed my point. Since we were fishing a valley period between a minor and major feeding period. The bite was extremely lite with the fish being in a neural feeding mode.
The problem was not getting a hook set but detecting the lite bite.
I could see the lite bites on the hybrid spring quite easily and my partner had problems seeing the bite on the noodle. One thing to remember the tip on a noodle is .032 where a wire spring is .010 to .015, twice to three times smaller in diameter.
With reference to loading on a medium action rod. A hybrid spring with a coil folds over quite easily. Using a quick snap hook set with a flick of the wrist usually ends up in a hook-up and takes loading out of the picture. I can see if a stiff wire spring is used loading could be a problem.
I have both type of rods and the both have there benefits.

That is some good stuff all the way around fellas. Very informative reading.

Bob...

Are these springs, the hybrids, an after-market affair or one thats commercially available?

They sound interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

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Originally Posted by CTom

Bob...

Are these springs, the hybrids, an after-market affair or one thats commercially available?

They sound interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

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The hybrids are home made. I believe st croix makes a similar bobber.
For years I used the HT ribbon but I wanted a indicator that is always well above the rod tip. Mainly for ease of viewing. So six years ago I came up with the coil/whisker combo. The first versions were glued to the rod tip; two years ago I came up with a detachable version.
It really is a simple system: Tack-L-tool is used to make the spring,some shrink tubing,silicon tubing,floss,SS wire, rod varnish, some time and you have a custom hybrid spring bobber. Then let your imagination run wild,a short whisker ,long whisker,end loop size large or small, bead type/size, color,glow,red or what ever fits your fishing needs.

The rods that I use from a local guy have a spring bobber already on them. They are mounted right above the top eye. I go through the last eye and then through a loop in the spring. The bobbers also screw off.

Sounds much like a St. Croix spring. I have a pile of those in the closet that I got to retro-fit rods with the top-side guide and grommet. The St.Croix is a nice spring that up-ward hits can't get around. I also have a bunch of the Thorne springs made for panfish, but the line runs thru the spring body and on open ice in the cold they ice shut. I a warm shack they are fine and for a barrel spring type of strike indicator they are something else....super sensitive and they show those up-ward hits really well.

There are so many opinions flying around about strike detection that its hard to stay abreast of the innovations and impossible to make everyone happy with one idea. I guess this is what drives tackle creation and the ice fishing industry itself. Great stuff.