Drop Shot Ice Flies

[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]I have been using unweighted ice "flies" for many years...either above a sinker on the bottom or in conjuction with either a weighted jig or a flash lure. There are times when finicky fishes, beneath the ice, don't want a bouncy jig type offering, but will slurp in something that moves slower and kinda floats a bit. Ice flies.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I originally started using them on Pelican, fishing for bluegills. I simply put a split shot on the bottom of my line and tied two short droppers at 12" and 24" up from the sinker. It was a drop shot rig before that term had even been coined. I used either standard trout patterns, on size 8 - 12 hooks, or some colored chenille wraps on the same size hooks. Hares ears worked good, as did Renegades and other dark patterns. Sometimes a simple chenille wrap, in hot red, chartreuse or white...with a hot red head...was the hot ticket. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Over the years, I have experimented a lot with drop shotting flies, both in open water and under the ice. Since I usually tip them with some kind of "sweetener", they are really just another one of my "bait bugs", but without weight. They are all part of what I call my BDD...bait delivery devices.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Colors can play a role in the effectiveness of BDD. Size also. The third biggie, as I have found more and more, is glow. I have just completed a new line of glow ice flies that I am anxious to try next week...after Mama Nature quits being such a "mother".[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A lot of us have used small jigs either above or below a little spoon...like Kastmasters or Swedish Pimples. These ice flies work well either above or below the spoons. They are also good to hang above a heavier jig. Sometimes even larger fish will slurp a smaller offering before they will a large jig.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I prefer having my ice flies above a weight heavy enough to keep a tight line and a slight bend in either my light rod or my strike indicator. Then, when there is any motion, up or down, you can assume there is something playing with your goodies. And, a lot of "up striking" fish are missed by anglers who do not anticipate something besides seeing their tip dip.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I have actually used large streamers and boogers for "drop shot" fishing. I have a couple of long rods, built from fly rod blanks, that I call "bubble chuckers". I used to use them mostly for bubble and fly flinging, but they are also great for hucking a string of split shot...with a couple of flies upstairs...a long distance. Reel them and bounce them back above a CLEAN bottom and hold on. A great way to entice BIG bottom hugging trout, wipers, walleyes and even catfish. I have taken bunches of white bass that way in Utah Lake.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]But, I digress. Here is a pic of some of my latest ice fishing weightless flies. There are a couple that include bead chain eyes, but technically they are still flies.[/#0000ff]
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[ironworker]

very nice collection of bugs. i might have to try the method at the berry next trip. hopefully it will be monday.
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[iceman1]

what do u mean droppers, u add line in then tie the on. if so how much line added.
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[tomegun]

Do you reckymember a couple years ago when I needed some secret flies to kick BLM's buttox? Thanks again for the emergency supply[cool].

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[acey]

Pat- I hit Deep Creek several days ago and the fish were suspended down 11 to 15 feet in about twenty feet of water. We caught a few but it was really slow catching. They wouldn't even hit your pink horse head jig. Dang. I thought that thing would be a sure winner. About the only thing that worked was a green "booger" on one of your green jig heads with a meal worm on the end. I tried several ice flies without any hits, but when I saw your post I liked your suggestions on the dropper flies. My question, is what is the best presentation for supended inactive fish to entice them to bite.
I met Windriver from Rexburg there with his Dad ice fishing also and they couldn't get the fish to bite either. Acey
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]If you do not already know how to tie a blood knot, or make a loop in your line, you will need to do some online "Googling" or get one of your fishing buddies to show you. Here is a moving diagram of the blood knot to help you with that one.[/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]I carry a spare spool of leader to tie on the extra lengths. This helps keep from having to respool quite as often. But, if you do not have extra leader, you can cut your line and then tie the blood knot.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]One of the keys is to leave yourself enough line to work with so that you are not fumbling to get everything to work. Also, if you are going to leave a "tag end", a length of line to tie on the dropper fly (or other lure), you need to leave a longer piece coming down from the rod. I usually try to leave at least six inches, to have plenty of line for tieing with. However, it is best to keep your dropper leader less than 3" long for this rig. Shorter droppers prevent tangles and keep you in better touch with biting fish.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Rough measurement would be to make the bottom piece about two feet long, working with about six inches for making the knot. Work with about ten inches from the rod end. When you get ready to tighten the knot down, moisten it with good old spit (unless you have been chewing on something corrosive) to lubricate the knot and avoid friction and heat. Clip off the unneeded tag end and then use the longer piece, from the rod end, to tie your flies.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]One of the downsides of this rig is that you have to retie every time you want to change flies. One way to offset that is to use a small loop in the line, and then just slip the loop through the eye of the fly and around it to cinch it on. Actually, the loop method helps hold the fly out more rigidly from the line too, which can help with presentation and strike detection. It is not as good if you are using heavier line or if the fish are finicky and are spooked by the extra line of the loop.[/#0000ff]
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Hope the flies helped. Kicking that man's behind takes a pretty high kick.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]By the way. Fair warning. You are one of my New Years resolutions. No...not to help you change your evil ways, but to help larn ya some new stuff...and to soak up some of your own vast knowledge. Well, maybe half vast.[/#0000ff]
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Acey, my friend, are you sure you don't want me to provide the key to world peace as well? Or, aren't you sure you would like the ability to understand, women, kids and computers? All those might be easier than coming up with a universal answer for why fish won't bite when you can see them on sonar. I always see more than I catch. Anyone who claims to do better will lie about other stuff too.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]That's why we always take just about everything we own when we go fishing. We never know what it is going to take to get the fishies. Some days almost anything works. Other days, the smell of skunk hangs heavy in the air. Been there, done that.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]You did not mention whether there were any fish higher or lower in the water column. If the fish were almost all suspended in one fairly narrow zone, it usually means one of several potential things. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]First, that there is a "thermocline" or temperature break that they prefer to whatever is higher or lower. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Second could be that there is a water chemistry factor, with poor oxygen levels or pH changes at (usually) lower levels. This early in the ice season, that is less likely.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Third might be a feeding situation. Fish tend to hang out where the groceries are. And, if they are feeding on zooplankton, and the zooplankton are massed at that level, that's why the fish are there. If that is what the fish were subsisting on, then it would also partially explain the slow fishing. It is hard to imitate a cloud of zooplankton with jigs. The fish feed by swimming through those clouds with open mouths and then filtering out the edible stuff with gill rakers. They do not key in on individual tidbits.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The last scenario is fish "mode". Fish can be active, inactive or neutral. Active fish will usually be seen at several levels in the water column. Some will be scrounging near the bottom for their food, while others may be anywhere between the bottom and just beneath the ice. Active fish move through the sonar cone fairly quickly, but if you are at the right depth when they do, you have a good chance of getting bit.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Inactive fish are just that. Whether they are full, from feeding during another time of the day...or whether they are responding to barometric changes or disturbances to their environment by noise or whatever...they have lockjaw and cannot be teased into biting. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Neutral fish are not actively feeding, but can sometimes be "triggered" into biting. Flashy lures, bright colors, sexy baits...all can sometimes help. Sounds like that is what you encountered. The fish were slow, but some of them were open to playing.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There are no universal keys to creating "reaction" bites with neutral fish. However, bassers and troutaholics have both found that when the fish are more tentative you can stimulate them by going either one of two ways. Either bomb them with something big and noisy...or seduce them with a tasty little tidbit that requires little effort to yawn and slurp in. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When ice fishing, and the fish are not hitting the larger stuff, you need to go small. Sounds like that is what it took to get some action for you. Sometimes just a tiny jig head, without any feathers or plastic, is all you can get by with to deliver your bait.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]One trick I learned, early in my ice fishing career, in some of the lakes of California's Sierra Nevadas, is to fish finicky fish just like you would in a stream...or open water in a lake. That is to use light line and put on the smallest split shot you can use and still get the bait to sink to the right depth. Put it a couple of feet above a small bait hook. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Use a single red salmon egg, a small piece of crawler, a single waxworm, small meal worm, a gob of Power Bait or even a small ball of Velveeta hackle and send it down. In the olden days, we did not have sonar. Our technique was to drop to the bottom and then bring up the sinker to place the bait either on the bottom or close to it. If we did not get bit, we would bring it up a foot or so, and then soak it there for awhile. We kept track of how many reel turns off the bottom it took to finally get a fish, and then duplicated that.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]With sonar, you have it easier, to at least know what level the fish are. As a general rule, it is better to fish slightly above them than below them. Fish are more likely to swim up to a bait than to look down and move down to get it. But, with a good real time sonar, you have a better shot at keeping your offering in "the zone".[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Neutral fish are not hard biters. You need a strike indicator or slip bobber to see the bite. However, fishing with just the baited hook, some of the fish will slurp it and get hooked, even if you are slow on the uptake.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If you work through your whole fishing "database", and try your whole arsenal of lures and baits, and the fish visible on your sonar are still not biting, you have several potential excuses:[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]1. Nothing but suspended carp.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]2. Moon phase is wrong.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]3. Danged personal watercraft.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]4. Holding my mouth wrong.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]5. Shoulda brung my Banjo Minnows.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]6. Defective sonar.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]7. (Add your own favorite excuse)[/#0000ff]
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[acey]

Thanks, Pat. I had not considered that the fish might have been in that 11 to 15 foot zone to feed on zooplankton. There was an occasional fish passing by on the bottom, but most were suspended. I did do better when I finally went to the smaller jigs, and still probably did not go small enough. You always provide excellant information. We appreciate your sharing it with us. Acey
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