Tungsten jigs are
definitely becoming the hot item to have in your
ice fishing arsenal these days
and the popularity is only growing. Being three times heavier than
lead, this material can be molded
with a small profile yet maintain a heavy weight for when you have
to get back down to fish quickly. It
easily drops through slush so you don’t have to be too finicky about
cleaning your hole and letting so
much light shine through, and, in my opinion, there is no better jig
to use with small or finesse plastics.
There are many ways to use tungsten jigs, but, as with every
fisherman out there, I have a few
tactics of my own that seem to work that I would love to share with
you.
First, I always tie my jigs, but especially my tungsten jigs with
either a loop knot, or a knot called
the “figure eight on the bite”. This is basically a standard loop
knot with one twist to the loop before you
route your jig through. This knot maximizes the strength of your
knot by reducing pinch point tolerances
adding 78% of your line strength throughout the knot.
I use this knot for my tungsten because with the semi- balanced
design of most tungsten jigs,
especially with a Pelkie design, the jig is more freed up to move
and still maintains a natural, horizontal
position while fishing it.
Although killer with “meat” on the hook, I prefer to use plastics
when I fish with tungsten. The
reason for this is with the heavy weight of the jig, it takes
minimal movement from the fisherman to
obtain maximum movement from your plastic. Small twitches, even as
slight as tapping your fingers on
your rod blank can make your plastic bait jump and shudder like it
just received an electric shock. This is
especially important when chasing finicky bull bluegills. At times
they don’t want to chase dancing baits.
Making the bait freeze isn’t natural so they will usually leave the
scene. With a tungsten jig, you can give
the plastic a natural nervous bait movement without really moving
the jig which will trigger the old
hump heads to bite most of the time.
My first choice in tungsten that is growing and becoming more
popular by the day are tungsten
jigs made by Skandia of K&E Stopper lures. High quality tungsten at
lower cost than most with all of the
hot, fish pounding colors of which my favorites are: red with black
dot (what I call the “Lady Bug”),
yellow with black dot (what I call the “School Bus”), and any in
their variety of glow colors.
Try out some of Skandia’s tungsten jigs and see what all the
excitement is about. I will
guarantee, you won’t be disappointed.
