Jackson: When the fish aren't biting, try downsizing

I am still amazed by what I've experienced. I am still not sure that the technique I'm about to share with you is something many anglers will or cannot embrace.

The following is not a fairy tale, but rather it's more like walking or ice skating on very thin ice. And that's because not many anglers will believe these words. It's a risk on my part.

It was probably 10 or more years ago when my friend was panfishing on the Spring Lake channel. He just figured he would try using an ice rod equipped with 3-pound mono and a tiny ice spoon.

While vertical jigging in eight feet of water, the rod starting bending almost to the point of snapping in two.

Five minutes later, he brought the fish close to the surface and, lo and behold, he had hooked a 36-inch muskie. His partner netted the fish, weighed it, and measured the length.

Keep in mind that this action took place in May. All the ice was gone and fish were starting to gorge themselves on shad and large minnows in fairly shallow water.

Not more than 15 minutes, my friend Donald dropped that tiny spoon down again to just inches above the channel bottom. The ice rod did another dance and Donald brought up a very fat smallmouth bass. That prize weighed 2 ½ pounds.

While he was never that lucky again that particular morning in trying to duplicate those feats, I came close at another location.

I was looking for channel catfish on Lake Marie. I had pieces of nightcrawlers as well as minnow pieces for bait. I rigged two separate spinning rods with different chunks of not-so-live bait. I drifted over 15-foot holes marked by the sonar with schools of fish hovering just off the bottom.

I was able to "drag" the live bait(s) right through the school without any takers. And then I remembered the "ice jig technique."

I motored over to shallower water, re-rigged one rod with an ice spoon tipped with a smidgen of 'crawler and allowed it to sink to just above the bottom.

And then another issue unfolded.

A stiff wind came up, and because I wasn't running a heavier bait, gusts of wind caught the line and moved the setup yards away from where I thought it should be. The 4-pound line created a slack condition as the wind moved it around.

As soon as the wind disappeared, the spoon and line went vertical.

And that's when I had a strike.

I was thrilled to see a small catfish come into the boat with the tiny spoon hanging from its mouth.

By noon, I had caught more than a dozen cats, kept three, and sent the rest home to stay out of trouble.

Next time when the going gets really tough for you, try downsizing to ice fishing sizes and run your own experiments.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.