MAKE ‘EM CHASE

from Ice Team Digital Magazine | January 2023

SAFETY & STRATEGY FOR EARLY ICE PANFISH

Is there a task that you do so repetitively that it becomes automatic for you? A task that is so engrained into your subconscious that your brain completes the task without you even having to think about doing so? Sometimes athletes call it muscle memory. It’s how great free throw shooters shoot such a high percentage from the charity stripe and how great 3-point shooters can always seem to find that stroke even at mid-court. As a fly-fishing guide I’ve also realized that it’s why some people’s overhead cast is so much better than others’ cast. The folks that have to think through each step of the cast struggle while those that can perform the cast without even much intentional effort make it look like poetry in motion. I’ve even noticed that when teaching others to tightline nymph (also known as Czech-nymphing or Euro-nymphing) for trout, some clients struggle to detect the strike on the sighter above their flies. It’s something that I take for granted because I can see the strike on the sighter and set the hook without even really making a conscious effort. Working with these clients is good for me because it makes me step back for a moment and realize that it is NOT automatic for everyone and as such it becomes a skill that requires practice and honing until it starts to become an automatic, musclememory action for them.

I have also noticed a similar thing when I ice fish. There is something that I, as well as many other anglers, do so subconsciously that I take it for granted. As an Ice Team Pro, I get the opportunity to teach ice fishing to many people across the ice belt that have never dropped a jig through the ice. It’s at these times that I realize how automatic this “thing” is for me and how much I take it for granted. That “thing” is the cat and mouse game we play with the fish that come into view whatever we are offering them below the ice. The patient game of raising the jig away from the fish, making them chase it. I do this so often that I don’t even think about it but working with many newcomers has made me realize that it’s a learned behavior and not something that it instinctive to most ice anglers. It’s hard for me to remember a time where I DIDN’T try to make a fish chase my jig once I saw it on my Vexilar, but surely somewhere along the line in my development as an ice angler, I had to learn this skill as well. It’s also very interesting to me that for many of the newcomers I work with, it’s a skill they struggle to acquire. There are a few that pick it up right away and take the jig away at just the right rate. These folks I consider as being in the “middle of the spectrum”. At the other end of this spectrum, I have worked with others that raise the jig so quickly when I tell them to make the fish chase that it completely disappears from the field of vision for that fish before they would even have a chance to follow it. On the other end other end of the spectrum,

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there are some that only raise it a small amount before they stop and I have to keep reminding them to keep raising their jig as far as the fish will follow it.

One of the key concepts to understand in making a fish chase the jig is the longer you can get that fish to chase or the higher you can raise them, the greater your chances are that that fish will take the jig. Therefore, it is essential to figure out the maximum amount they will come up before they strike or give up. I like to refer to that as the “ceiling” and it can vary from day to day, hour to hour, or even spovt to spot. The ceiling is a nuance that is often very hard for beginning ice anglers to grasp. Most will either continue to raise after the fish loses interest or only raise a small amount and stop even though the fish is obviously more than willing to continue chasing. Speed is also very important. You don’t want to raise the jig so fast that a fish can’t keep up with it, but you also don’t want to raise it so slowly that the fish doesn’t feel challenged and loses interest in the jig. This can often vary depending on the mood of the fish; negative, neutral, aggressive. The speed can often vary based on species targeted. The takeaway speed that I typically raise the jig for bluegills is often slower than it is for crappies, and the speed that I raise for lake trout can sometimes be as fast as I can reel. There is no one-size-fits all for ceiling or speed that the jig is raised, so a large part of every day on the ice is figuring out those two factors.

Having the right mindset is also important. One of the things that helps me when making the fish chase, is keeping in mind that I just want to move it fast enough and high enough that the fish eventually feels like their chance to eat will disappear if they don’t take advantage of the opportunity. I actually try to visualize this scenario below the ice as it’s happening and I feel that helps me tremendously! I believe this “fight or flight” decision by the fish is what happens very near the ceiling. The fish suddenly realizes that if they don’t eat that jig VERY soon, it will probably disappear.

Typically, I have found that the longer and higher a fish chases a jig, the more committed that fish becomes. It is very rare for a fish to follow a jig up two, three, four feet or more and not bite. If they’ve already put the calories into following the jig that far, it just wouldn’t make sense for them to not try and recoup some of those calories by eating. The fish that you can only raise a few inches are the ones that are much tougher to trigger. They are not even interested in expending the calories to chase so there’s no real incentive for them to take in the additional calories.

Getting the cadence right is important too. It’s amazing to me the number of first-time ice anglers I’ve worked with that cannot jig and raise at the same time. It’s the ice fishing equivalent of not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Unfortunately, if jigging stops as the jig starts to raise, the fish will often lose interest and swim away. For many of us it’s muscle memory to continue our cadence as we raise the jig…we do it without even thinking about it. If it’s not automatic for you, it will require a conscious effort, every time, until it eventually becomes so.

The possibility that the buggy-looking thing swimming in front of their nose may swim away before they get a chance to eat it, is one of the most effective ways that I know of to trigger a fish to bite. This makes raising the jig a technique that is very advantageous to perform without having to think about it and the only way to get there is to practice. Not only does practice make it perfect, but it also creates muscle memory and THAT makes it automatic.