Anybody ever use plastic tails through the ice? I tried it a couple times with no luck.
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Anybody ever use plastic tails through the ice? I tried it a couple times with no luck.
yes, use them all the time hav'nt bought spikes or waxworms for years. I use a lot of horizontal fiska,skandia, diamond stlye jigs with them.
Great!! Just got some from Bob's Jigs that look really good, want to try them out...Thanks..
did you watch the video put together by Lake fork trophy lures? amazing... i never had luck with any plastics with any type
of fish thru the ice till recently... caught some really nice perch on a plastic jig that looks like a craw fish and tiped with a minnow
head:crazy:
Ya, that was some video. They were using plastic. Them boys were catching some really nice Crappies..
I've tried plastics a couple of times without any luck, then gave up on them. I'm sure a lot of it is a confidence thing. Just need to go out a few times with plastics only and give them a fair shot. Now all we need is some good ice.
Ice thing is not looking too good. We got a warm week coming up.
Plastic is my preferred approach to crappies under the ice. I do things a little outside of convention and use a standard 1/32 head and full-sized crappie plastics, those baits up to two inches in length. I do not have my focus on the bottom where most fish are being marked on locators, instead I look for the random blips well off the bottom....those that show up for a second or two then go away as fast as they show. I get my bait to the level of those phantom flashes since those seem to be the largerst and hungriest crappies that show no problem at hitting a larger bait at all. If I have to go smaller in plastic size, I go home.
I've seen them work fairly well for Perch, but I personally haven't had any success with them for Crappies.
I agree with CTom....afterall....Plastics are Fantastic!
Hey guys, thanks for the information, I just need to make myself use them more than I do. It's hard for me not to take minnows when I go out. Do you tip with a minnow?
when I fish plastics I use no bait whatso ever. when I do bring minnows, I use tipdowns with them.
What's a tip Down?Quote:
Originally Posted by gwk
a tipdown is neutral balanced fishing pole that is positioned on a wooden base/stand over a ice hole.the pole is on a pivot on the wood stand. put a minnow on it and when a fish takes or bits the bait the pole will fall down to the ice{ tipdown} . they work excellent for crappie fishing though the ice. google sure-strike tip downs.for a pic. it takes next to nothing to make the pole drop to the ice . google the subject people have posted plans to make your own tipdowns. mine are made out of oak wood stands. they are identical to the sure-strikes.
Looked it up and also watched a video of a guy catching Crappie with them. Pretty neat. One guy was having trouble getting his to balance. Looks like their about $20 Thanks for the information....
Tried some plastic tails on my jigs yesterday, didn't do very good. The fish would just kinda bump it. But they weren't hitting much of anything else either.
Larry,
As you know this is the only way i fish, I just love the fact i don't have to buy live bait any more
Sounds like your jig was to big for the smaller fish, i also get this and found out its normally small bluegill, next time this happens down size to some very small plastics and i bet you get fish .
Did you get any fish today ? I didn't i was working banghead
We got 6 Pike, 4 on tip up and Sandy got 2 on her ice pole. We got a bunch of little Bluegills. Nothing big enough to keep. One Pike was 20" When you say small plastics, do you mean skirted ones? How small? I have small ball head jigs, not sure about the plastics?. Thanks..
Crappie 1.....I've caught almost all my crappies this winter on plastics. I like the ones I get here: Welcome to Your Bobbers, Down Inc.. I use the micro nuggies the most. I thread these onto a 1\64 oz. horizontal ice jig (glow). Sometimes I'll even tear the little bulb off first. This past weekend I used just the tail and attached it to a vertical ice jig at a 90 degree angle and did well with that. The tail on these things come to life when in the water. I will try to upload some photos of these presentations soon for you to see. Hope this helps!
Thanks P-row. I went to the site and looked at the plastics, I may have some that small. If I do, I will try them tomorrow. Thanks Again...
Size isn't the only consideration for plastics. Color and style and presentation all count, too. The Little Atom tails are very good, staples for many up here, but by no means the only ones, not by a long shot. Do not stick with one that is not catching fish. That is the real strength of plastic offerings, you can carry a whole tackle box of options in a pocket. Last evening we had to keep changing out poles and the offerings on them to keep taking fish, and keep moving from hole to hole to find more than one willing. That happens on ice as well as open water.
Last evening our very tiny offerings took perch and sunnies, but they also took several largemouths up to a good three pounds and one small pike. We had lookers at everything we put down, including buckshot rattle spoons, but we missed something to get them to finalize the deal. We moved through a whole lot of holes and very often caught the "greeter" but then nothing else just marks moving up and down around our offerings.
I am going to rig up a couple of dropper rigs with the tiny tails suspended off a larger attractor this afternoon.
It pays to remember that if you have the interest but cannot close the deal, you need to change something. Don't stay with the same thing that isn't working. Plastics offer a large variety of options not available to live bait in color, size, and pattern, but you can't just let them hang or you will generally just sit. The action need not be much, in fact, often less in more as long as there is something even if just once in a while. At other times you will have to work them vigorously, and that you must work out on every outing.
Another thing is that reeling back up and doing a new drop will sometimes trigger another greeter. Those that come up to meet a descending bait are the most likely to try to eat it. Then what you want to see are more than one mark moving up to look over the bait, very often they will compete for it, and you want to see the marks moving up quickly, those will be the most eager biters.
That's what I had last night. "greeters", then nothing. I'm going to a good lake tomorrow. Last time there I got 15 nice Crappie. I have my plastic arsenal packed, along with some minnows & waxies. Just been a weird winter for fishing. I expect when the ice starts to go it will get better..
This evening we had a lot of followers but very little bite, except for the two nice largemouths both about 16" or just under 3#. They were fun on the noodle sticks with 2# test, and just about filled the 6" holes, too. We pretty much figured out the followers were dink sunnies, too small to take the size 10 hooks even. Both bass took a size 10 yellow fatboy with a 1" white luv nub tail. We are used to bass showing up now and again in crappie fishing during open water, but the ones we have taken off this lake are the first we have ever taken through the ice, and they are not from the same spots, they seem to be scattered around, too.
This lake is proving to be real fascinating. There seems to be dink sunnies every where we have drilled holes. Some other places have perch, some up to ten inches. We are seeing pike, and even took a couple of decoy sized suckers. We haven't yet found our crappies, though, beyond just a single one about 5 or 6". The bass are the big surprise. I never expected to see a sucker through the ice either, but we have taken two of them in past few weeks.
A very interesting lake.
We went today. While I was experimenting with plastics & jigs my wife caught 7 Crappie. I finally caught 2 on a really small pink jig with pink hair on the back. Put 2 Spikes on it.. I'll keep trying...
That's about as good a setup to learn in as you can get, if you are willing to take a little razzing from the Mrs. in the process. You know they are there, and your wife's minnows show you what depth. Her catch is your "control" to measure against. One word of advice is not to jig too hard, and watch very carefully for soft bite. Sometimes the rod just feels wrong a very little bit. Actual strikes may not be very common.
Once you get it down, your Mrs may try her hand at it and beat you there too. :) The ladies with their softer touch can get very good at it very quickly.
If you aren't fishing with a flasher or some other kind of depth finder, that will also help you a bunch.
Ya, I have an FL 18 The bite was so light that if we wouldn't have been using 24" noodle rods, we would have never known we had a bite. My wife is a really good fisherman year around. She catches as many fish as I do. Makes up her own baits etc. Heres a picture of our dog with the Crappie.com tag on. In front of her is the Crappie we brought home, Should have put them on a board or something...Attachment 82705
One thing that really helped me when I switched over to plastics was realizing that a whole lot of the bite was going to be soft, very soft. As it turns out with the bonus gamefish we take, their bite is also seldom more than a tick, except for yearling bass... We became absolutely devoted line watchers and use very soft poles all year around for our crappies. More often than not with the tiny plastics the take is a sip rather than a strike. I have even seen full sized muskies do that. I got a chance to watch Cabelas feed the panfish tank one morning. There is a very marked difference in how crappies and bluegills take their forage. We very often still get surprised at how deep some of the crappies have taken the plastics with so little feel about it on the line, and that goes for the real slabs as well as the more average fish. Watching them feed especially when the initial frenzy was over and they were finishing off the straggler minnows explained a whole lot.
Hey no1son: I figured out how to use those plastics and catch fish. You put a couple spikes or wax worms on the hook. Got a bunch of Bluegills tonight but only 6 keepers. Had a red jig/pink & brown hair, I put a couple Spikes on it and they really went for it. Also tried a Tad Pole from Bob's Jigs on a yellow jig and got a really nice Small Mouth. We have a storm coming in tonight and the fish were biting pretty good.
That is certainly one way that works a lot of times. That is why so many manufacturers put scent and taste into the plastic bodies they make. There are so many different ways to use these things that pretty much the sky is the limit. The bottom line is always do they catch. Nothing that I know of says you have to be a purist in any of the options. With even a small number of plastic choices you can change to something else if what you have isn't working or you can work some sort of combination.
There are even times when I get on a good bite, I will switch to something new to see if I can get that working. That is the best time to try something new. You found fish willing to bite which answers the most important first two questions. If it clicks, you have just added another option to your arsenal.
You are seeing the front edge of the storm going through here right now. It is the 28th day of February and in Minneapolis it is raining. It might turn to snow after midnight but the worst part of the storm is going north of us this time. More towards weekend, and then the first week of March it is supposed to be in the 50's. Some winter!
I've caught alot of crappie on Ratso's and RatFinkee's but I have absolutely slayed huge crappie on the smallest Rapala Jigging Rap!! Those big girls flat out thump the raps!!!
We got some fish on plastics last winter, but not many. I have some of those Jigging Raps. and will be trying them more this winter. Thanks..
They can be dynamite. So can the littlest Chubby Darters. Both are often very good jigging in open water too. Or cast under a slip bobber. They rise on the draw through of the line and then settle on the release. Ice fishermen often adorn them with waxies, spikes or a minnow head. some of the little Gulp Alive baits work for this too.
We use the little plastics through the ice quite a bit, often more effective than spikes, but not always.
Hey no1, we had some good talks about this last winter. I tried some of the things you suggested and did fairly well. I looked up some of last winters fishing pictures and I guess we did better than I thought. I need to have more confidence in the plastics, and make myself use them.
I grew up under the adage that you can't beat meat. No pun intended - REALLY no pun intended! Once I started fishing plastic tubes for crappies during open water I found out differently. My late father always carried nightcrawlers in the boat as a backup bait, and I spent most of my life believing the only true crappie bait was a minnow.
I still carry spikes onto the ice as a backup, but my partner and I got a real eye opener a few of winters ago when we hammered crappies with a bare black Marmooska type jig, no live bait and no plastics, no hackle either. The pair of us had consistent results in one spot doing that with the high point of 70 crappies between us from the same pair of holes during one 1-hour period. All released and from shallow enough water that they should have recovered nicely.
We repeated that pattern the following winter, but in subsequent years the crappies vacated since the local muskies learned to identify our holes as handout points. The d**n tooth carps got to following our transducers from hole to hole and not just a single one of them. We got consistently wolf packed; so we moved on after one afternoon where we counted close to a dozen sunfish taken by the big toothies either coming to the jig or on the way down after being released. We both had the "heavy marks" on our screens just about the entire afternoon. That had been a honey hole, but died off pretty completely at least for crappies.
I think I said before I am not a fan of stocked muskies; I am sure I did. Nothing in the water will put crappies off around here faster than muskies moving in. All of my favorite crappies waters have been stocked with them.
Once you work out the Rapalas on the ice, don't put them away especially early in open water either. What we mostly do is just slowly raise the lure between about 1 and 4 or 5 ft and let it flutter back down on a just slack line. You work that up and down the water column. Most takes are true strikes on the flutter. Some will be on the rest at the bottom, too; so always be ready for that additional tension when you start a lift, especially if you let the settle go all the way to the bottom, where you might not feel the pickup. (just like you should do with plastics! We take so many fish that we first feel just as the jig comes off a rest on the bottom! That is even more true for perch around here than for crappies.)
That goes for the Phoebes, Little Cleos and Swedish Pimples, too. They jig just as well after ice out when you have an edge to work over. (Do not take the flicker off the Swedish Pimples, though! And the red one was best for us last spring.)
You gotta learn the techniques for that kind of offering, but it can be really dynamite when you get it down. We don't put away our plastics then either. They augment each other.
You are so right! We hit Glen Elder last March in a post cold front condition and the crappie wouldn't touch plastics, I put on a jigging Shadrap and they tore it up until my trolling motor died and I couldn't hold my position!!:biggrinQuote:
Originally Posted by no1son
Jigginraps are a main stay in my arsenal. I dont leave home without them!!!!!
x2 on the jiggin raps. you can trick them out with plastic too. lol http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...m/abombjig.jpglil tail glows and never stops moving. you can add sent to your presentation too, just like open water.
been using plastic for the past 3 years and i don't think i would every use meat again
Sure nice not having to make that stop at the bit shop
Attachment 106246TAttachment 106248he only time i use live bait when ice fishing is fore bluegills but crappie fishing plastics rule. 90percent of the time i use a northland slug bug tail on a fiska tungsten jig. plastic baits come alive from the extra heavy tungsten. Other great plastics come from maki plastics and fiskas nuggies work i've been haveing good luck with something a little differnt a bobby garland scent wiggler pinched off so thers only the last ball and tail its a little bigger than most ice plastics but big crappie love them. cant wait to try some new plastics this year.
This is a really productive approach, pretty much what we also mostly use. The new little tungstens are superb. The pinched off scent wiggler works real well in open water, too. With the bigger plastics and the little jigs one has to be careful to leave enough hook gap exposed though or one will be missing hookups.