Tungsten Advantage

Tungsten has been a buzzword in the bass world for several years and in the ice fishing for the past few years; however, the last couple of days of Erie Ice Camp clearly showed me a real advantage of tungsten ice jigs.

The best bite we found for big bluegills, yellow perch and trout was in 40 feet of water. Most fish were suspended -- some quite high in the water column -- but others were at the bottom, and they were apt to show up almost anywhere so it was important to move up and down a lot. Anything light took a long time to fall through the water column, meaning a lot of wasted time, and at times the fish would be gone before the bait ever got within ambush range. They wanted a small profile, though, so a spoon or a big lead jig would draw lookers but not takers. A VMC Tungsten Tubby proved ideal for getting down to the fish efficiently but showing them something subtle.

We would have caught several fish with other offerings, but I'm confident that we caught far more with the little tungsten ice jigs that we could have with any jig made from lead. I wouldn't use them in all situations both because of the higher price and because I think a slower fall is sometimes better. It's definitely worth having a some tungsten jigs in your ice box, though.