Now is a good time to think about something that can really mess up your fishing: a bait that, at rest, sits and spins at the end of your line. Few fish will hit a spinning bait, especially if the bite is tough and they are content to study what you have down there for two minutes at a crack. The bait has to be at rest when you intend it to rest.
Some ice jigs are simply destined to spinning and little can be done to eliminate the spin except for removing everything from the line, walking it out twenty feet or so past the used limit and re-spooling under some tension. [This, incidently, gets dome just about every time I use the ice gear whenI get home and things get warmed up.] The more radical the jigging technique, the more apt any bait is to twist things up.
Knowing which baits do this is handy. Sometimes you can watch a resting bait while the rod is laying down or in a holder. With today’s locators, watch the bait at rest in a holder and if the signal flickers, the bait is likely spinning.
One of the leading, non bait or lure, issues with twisted line and spinning baits comes from closing the bail of the reel by turning the handle. Closing the bail manually eliminates all possible chances of line twist caused at the reel. Actually, closing by turning the handle has been shown to ADD 1/2 of one turn/twist to the line each time this is done. Think about it….how many times do you close that bail by turning the handle every time you fish? I don’t just close my bail anymore by turning a handle, open water or on the ice. I close it myself with a quick flip of a finger.
Ice brings with it a whole bunch of new headaches. And if fish are in the mood to study a bait at complete rest before hitting it, one sitting down there twirling around on your line will put you completely out of the hitting window. You can up the ante a lot if you are aware of what things are doing after you can’t see them under the ice. If you take time to think these things out you will become a better angler.
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