Marcum flashers ice fisherman's go to tool

When working a jig though the water column a loop knot will enable a jig to dance more naturally without the line impeding it's action. All line will create a certain amount of resistance if secured to the eyelet.therefor to get more action from your lure a loop knot works great. It's actually part of a system.

The bigger picture is that I'll use a flasher to read the whole water column. The sonar will read a fish as it swims into the sonar cone. I'll lower or raise my offering to where it is coming in at.Once it is dead center of the cone or directly below me I'll lift my bait trying to trigger it's strike sense.

Depending on the mood of the fish it will raise up 1-5 foot after my bait and swallow it. I have a spring bobber mounted to my rod which will read even the lightest hit and then I'm rearing. The flasher will not only show me the depth ,but are there fish under me and how aggressive they are.

For instance on Fri. with the barometer over 30 they were very negative. They came through at the bottom and would only lift 2-3 feet before they would stop and go no higher. That's what I call the ceiling.Once I determined their ceiling I would slowly lift them to the ceiling and wait for them to hit my jig. Sat. on the other hand was much different. The fish were stacked up to 6 feet from the bottom. They gave chase much faster and hit quicker. Checking the barometer I saw it was still high ,but it was dropping which triggered a better bite. As a general rule I'll up size when they are aggressive and downsize when the mood is neutral to negative.

Lifting fish is a lot like getting a cat to chase a string of yarn.So the cat's sitting there and you lay the yarn infront of it.the cat will just look at it just as the fish will do.Thenyou'll start to pull the string away and the cat will crouch.As you get farther away from the cat with the string there will be a point that the cat thinks no or never and gives chase.You have just triggered it's strike sense.With fish you want to do the same thing.As you pull away from the fish you will get close to the ceiling. The fish will think now or never and give chase.Watching your sonar you'll see this play out over and over.Once you figure out how high the fish will go is the ceiling for the day .Run everyone of them right up to the same spot.The ceiling will change from day to day so the trick is to watch on that 1st fish.If you lift to high drop back down slowley.That fish raised so it wants to feed but you went to far.Notice where it stopped and re lift to that new ceiling.This is where a flasher comes in to play.It enables you to see how that fish reacts to what your doing.

During that lift the fish will cover your jig .Stop watching your flasher and watch your rod & or spring.Give the fish 5 seconds,if it does not hit raise an inch.Watch for 5 seconds and repeat.You may get to high on a negative bite.You'll have to push that fish back down and re lift again.This is called working the fish.It may take several lifts.That fish may not bite .If they are that tough it's time to downsize.Having another rod with a smaller jig on will allow you to drop down quikly and get another shot at catching that fish sometimes.