With the cold weather months here, we like to supplement our bass fishing by breaking out the ultra-light gear for the purpose of catching some assorted panfish. Trout, crappie, bluegill along with other panfish are a blast to cast miniatures to.
Our friends at Rapala sent us a sampling of their new line of ice jigs so we figured why not? Let’s see how our local panfish react to them.
Rapala know fishing in the snow and below the ice. They have through the years been at the forefront of innovation for everything from tools and clothing, to baits designed for use under the ice. With a resume like that, who wouldn’t put their new products to the test.
Introducing the Nymph
The first one we tried is the pro-series Nymph Jig. We chose the 1/16 oz in Orange Chartreuse Glow.
The Nymph comes two to a package pre-rigged with Trigger-X soft plastics. The head colors match the plastic colors extremely well across the line but can be used with other trailers if you happen to run out.
The jig itself employs a VMC hook whose gap is 5% wider than the standard gap for a like sized hook. This increases your hookups fairly significantly over a traditional mini jig.
The head is well shaped for controlled depth fishing as well as maintaining a horizontal presentation if you’re using it to cast to fish on specific targets.
The soft plastic that comes with the jig complements it extremely well in size and color. It is a craw imitation that has a ribbed body with small pinchers and antennae. It aligns perfectly with the hook shank with the bend of the hook exiting the plastic just in front of the head.
There is a small but effective bait keeper close the the jig head which not only keeps your plastic in place but in so doing, extends the life of that plastic because it doesn’t get ripped out of place near as often.
This particular color does indeed glow. We put it under a flashlight for a few minutes and darned if the head didn’t give off an iridescent glow in the dark. Considering the water that we’ve been fishing has been fairly stained, this has certainly been a plus.
Casting the Nymph
For only weighing 1/16, the Nymph casts very well on ultra-light gear. We generally use nothing over 4# line so the combination is well suited for the pro-series jigs.
As small as the soft plastic is, it has a natural flowing motion when you use a steady jigging retrieve. This has been our most effective method for catching fish with the Nymph.
We have also found that targeting fish at a particular depth is fairly easy with this bait. It has a sink rate of about 14 inches per second so counting it down is a snap. From there just start your retrieve, slowly, softly bouncing your rod tip while just barely picking up line keeps it at the desired depth and in the strike zone.
We’ve caught numerous fish on one bait and have not had to replace any of the soft plastics as of this writing. Yeah, there are a couple antennae that are a little shorter than when they came out of the package but the fish just don’t seem to care as they continue to crush the Nymph.
The hooks are sharp from the manufacturer and have held up well. We did notice that one hook point got bent slightly upwards but about 2 seconds with a pair of needlenose made it look brand spankin’ new.
Final Thoughts
The balance on the pro-series Nymph is exceptional. Using a snap or a loop knot, the jig maintains it horizontal positioning easily which in our opinion is an important element in its effectiveness.
We can’t say with any certainty how this jig will fair under the ice but, in using it in our local lakes, the action that it displays while being retrieved is exceptional as is its fish attracting and catching abilities.
The pro-series Nymph is a well executed bait that adds an action and abilities to ultra-light fishing in one package that hasn’t been attainable out of a single bait prior to this. Yeah, you could throw multiple baits with each mimicking some portion of the action of the Nymph but why would you when you can have it all in one small but complete package.
The Rapala pro-series Nymph ice jig gives you the action, attraction and versatility in one bait to catch multiple species on the same outing.
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See ya’ on the water …
