A project by John Tibellpimpel.seHow do I ice-jig?
Mormyshka, jig, bait and tip-up: how, when and for what, under the ice, with numbers to take out with you. One method at a time: what it is, how it's fished, which sizes and lines, and the mistakes everyone makes at first.
Six rhythms, and the pauses between them
A mormyshka is a small weighted hook on a thin line. The movement comes from the rod tip. Pick a rhythm and watch it lift.
The base rhythm is the medium one. Going faster is the beginner's first mistake: the fast lifts are for searching, not for fishing.
The fish doesn't strike
At four degrees the fish is stiff with cold, and saving its energy. It doesn't strike. It opens its gills a few centimetres from the bait and draws it in with the water.
That's why the line is thin, the tip soft, and the mormyshka as small as the day allows. The name is Russian, from mormysh, the small freshwater shrimp it imitates.
Four ways to fish a hole
The small weighted hook, a thin line, slow lifts with a trembling tip.
One glides out in an arc and turns. The other hangs straight under the hole and knocks on the bottom. That's how you search.
The broad, spoon-shaped attractor with a baited hook below it. For char, trout and rainbow.
A dead bait by the hole and a flag that waves. Pike and zander, and burbot at night.
Three winters in one
Thin clear ice and little light. Small, shiny mormyshkas. The fish are shallow, and willing.
Thick ice and snow, dark underneath. The big perch go deep. Glowing baits, slow lifts and longer pauses.
Sun, and water in the holes. The fish are active. Bigger, brighter baits, and char and grayling.
Who's down there, and how deep
- 010 m20 m30 m
- Perch1–8 mThe whole season.
- Pike1–3 mShallow, by the edge of the reeds.
- Whitefish4–10 mIn open water, at dawn and dusk.
- Arctic char10–30 mBest on first ice and in late winter.
- BurbotOn the bottom, at night. It spawns in January and February.
- Brown troutOn the drop-off, where shallow meets deep.
- GraylingIn running water.
“The bite comes in the pause.”
Three to five seconds every ten centimetres, and longer when it's cold. The pauses are almost more important than the movement, and they're the first thing to be forgotten.
