Although his existing ice jigs still do the job, for Mike Yurk half the fun of ice fishing is trying out new jigs.

I just like to buy ice jigs. I’m not sure there is anything wrong with that. I do admit that I seem to have more than my share of ice jigs for the couple times each year I go ice fishing.

Growing up in the 1960s while learning to fish from my grandfather, there weren’t a lot of ice jigs out there. The Swedish Pimple seemed to be it. I remember my grandfather using only the Swedish Pimple when we ice fished.

The Swedish Pimple has been around for a hundred years and has certainly caught its share of walleyes. The only color my grandfather used was gold. I’m sure there must have been other colors, but it seems the only ones I used in those days were either gold or silver.

I used Swedish Pimples in the final couple weeks of ice fishing, when walleyes came in the shallow water bays around Oshkosh, Wisconsin where I lived. Walleyes were gathering near the mouth of the Fox River in preparation for the spring spawning run up the Fox River, and the ice was still strong enough to walk on.

In late afternoon and evening, I crawled out on the ice with a couple of jig rods in a plastic bucket, an ice chisel and ice scoop. Sitting on the overturned bucket, I fished one ice rod with a silver Swedish Pimple and the other with a gold one. It was the last ice fishing for the season, and not only did I catch walleyes, but there was always the potential for a big fish.

Some 12 years or so later, I discovered the Jigging Rap by Rapala. Again, I got it in just silver and gold. This time it was early in the ice fishing season and I was still walking out on the ice, since there wasn’t enough ice to drive on. I sat on a plastic bucket while fishing two jig rods, one with a gold and the other with a silver Jigging Rap. That day I caught walleyes, perch and crappies.

Over the next 10 years, I didn’t get a chance to go ice fishing again. And, when I returned to Wisconsin to retire from the Army, I found I had lost much of my enthusiasm for sitting on overturned buckets on the ice. Eventually, I was lured back into ice fishing with an annual trip to Lake of the Woods, usually in February, and later adding a trip to northern Minnesota’s Red Lake, normally in January. In both cases, we take heated vehicles to heated ice houses. This is the way to ice fish. No more sitting on plastic buckets on the ice.

I hadn’t ice fished for walleyes in probably about 15 years when I scheduled my first ice fishing trip to Lake of the Woods. This is when I found out about all the new ice jigs and the variety of colors available. Apparently, there had been an explosion in ice jigs and colors out there since the last time I ice fished.

On that first trip to Lake of the Woods, I found my most productive jig to be a fluorescent purple jig with a gold helicopter type spinner. I had only one of them, and by the end of weekend, it was all battered, with hooks twisted and bent. When I got back home, I bought a half-dozen of them. I thought I had found the hottest ice-fishing jig of all time. In subsequent trips back to Lake of the Woods, I never caught another walleye with it.

This started the obsession. Although I only fish four days on the two trips I take every winter, I look for more ice jigs in the continual search for the ultimate ice-fishing jig. Of course, I still use the Swedish Pimple and the Jigging Rap, but each year, I feel compelled to buy four or five new ice jigs. Each selection and/or color has to have at least two, just in case I would lose one or the fish tear it up.

As far as I am concerned, the only problem I have is, I haven’t found the ultimate ice jig yet. I admit that I have a bunch of ice jigs, so I am trying to be reasonable. Last year, I bought only two jigs, but I got them in several different colors. And before I realized it, I was leaving the sport shop with a bag of jigs.

This year, I haven’t bought any jigs so far. But winter is just getting started, and I have a month-and-a-half before I go on my first ice fishing trip. So I have lots of time yet. I’m sure I will find at least a couple more jigs I must have. Besides, can any fishermen have too many lures? I think not.

Even seasoned anglers can learn something new to help them catch more fish! Read the December issue of MidWest Outdoors, available the first full week of December at the newsstand or by subscribing on our website.