The difference in observations can be wide Dutch. The waters we fish can also show a great degree of diffenerences in fish behavior. I'm either on the Zumbro or I'm on the Mississippi if I am ice fishing. On both waters I have areas that historically producer the larger, way more agressive feeding fish...that's where I fish. If the fish aren't in these locales, I go home. I won't waste time trying to entice medium to potato chip sized fish into hitting. That isn't fun to me. I'd rather catch four 14" crappies in a couple hours than thirty dinks an hour. And when these spots have fish on them, the fish are feeding hard and hit like trucks. On a locator they show up as a blip for about a second...they are aggressive and on the move. Most of these crappies will have small sunfish in their guts so they aren't doing the micro diet stuff. If I can get bit without the springs, thats how I prefer to get the job done. A very small minnow/plain hook with a micro-splitshot keeping it down can be deadly on crappies if they are getting fussy on a spring, but I don't see that happen often at all. If they'll take a swipe at a 1/8 jigging spoon with a 2" plastic hanging on it they certainly aren't hitting light.

I know you spend most of your time inside the metro and those lakes, given the amount of fishing pressure they see, can produce fish that have a real knack for light bites. I'm not denying that you run into that scenario up there. I just don't see it here because I am fishing water that doesn't see the pressure and the waters here are entirely different in make up from those you are on. The Zumbro has an inordinate amount of deep water with severely dropping shorelines. I don't fish on water any shallower than 28 feet, but I seldom have the line down more than 12'. One of my pet spots on the river has 33 feet where I fish and I hardly ever get below 18 feet there. Are there fish on the bottom in these places? You bet, tons of them. At times the bottom 4 feet will literally be moving with fish. Those fish aren't the ones that are feeding and cameras have shown big crappies right on the bottom with all of the other sizes. Put a bait down there and those large fisgh simply cannot be coaxed into hitting. Get that camera up in the mid column depths and you'll see crappies on the prowl but you'd better look quick because they are not just inching along. Every water produces its own style of bite, of that I am certain.

I've done that "slight angle change in the wire" type of bite before and I haven't the need to fiddle with those fish.