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Posts: 59
| I recently returned from a trip to a lake in northern MN. The portions of the lake I was fishing were very deep with depths of more than 150 feet. It may be worth mentioning that this lake is also populated with ciscoes and whitefish. There were a few shoreline areas that I fished that went from 3-4 feet of water to 40-80 feet of water within a cast or 2. There were also a few extremely deep rock piles. As I reflect back on what I would do differently in the future, one of the things that I contemplated was jigging Bondy Baits along the breaks, over deep holes, and over deep structure. At what depths would you jig at? At depths of 150 feet or more, I can't imagine that these fish would be in the lower portion of the water column. Even if they were, I wouldn't want to bring them up from those depths for fear of killing them. Much of what I've read about jigging Bondy Baits dealt with rivers and river channels. I'm curious how you would use these baits in lakes given the parameters described above. |
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Posts: 719
| Thanks for the inquiry. The baits are used quite extensively on lakes, in fact out of the more than two dozen tournaments the bait has won, only a handful were in current. I will comment further on this later today when I get a chance, but maybe others can chime in. Jon |
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Posts: 815
Location: Waukee, IA | Pretty safe bet that any muskie brought up more than about 35 feet will die. If they're down that far, leave them alone |
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Posts: 285
Location: NE Wisconsin | I haven't used the Bondy, but I jig the Fuzzy a lot. All on lakes. We are on LOW now and jigging is our number one method right now. But we are not jigging in over 34'. Mostly 7-20'. We do well on under water extensions off points where wind concentrates bait fish and necked down areas where slight current can do the same. Any spot on a spot is worth jigging in their faces. |
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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | I have not done it much, plan to do more in the future. I would think it would me smarter to target above the thermocline. |
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Posts: 258
Location: Mayville, WI | It works on lakes quite well and you don't need to go to extreme depths either. I mainly do it on cisco lakes near/in/around bait balls or where I know suspended muskies like to consistently hang out - this is anywhere from 10-20 feet down in the summer over 30-100 FOW and usually near the top of the thermocline. When you get the big schools of bait you can feel the bondy bouncing off them. Works great in the fall as well along steep shorelines or deeper holes.
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | No need to jig down to 150’ as you would be wasting your time unless the lake you are in has lake trout. There’s a lake that I jig in deep water for pike. This lake has holes as deep as 110’. I look for balls of bait on my sonar. When I find the bait I will drop my bait down to the depth of the bait & sometimes just below the bait. In one instance I was over 75’ with bait balls between 35 & 40 fow with big hooks under the bait & off to the side. My sonar has as strip on the side that’s a flasher so I jig my bait next to my transducer so I can see how deep my jig is. If your unit has a spilt screen function then you can have the regular graph on one side & the flasher on the other. Another option would be to use a line counter reel if your sonar doesn’t have a flasher built in. If your trolling motor has the spot lock function then use it once you find balls of bait so you can stay on top of them. I also fish a small musky lake that has about 150 yard stretch along the shore that has a sharp break that goes from 2’ to 22’ within 25’ or 30’ from shore. I jig about a foot off the bottom right along the base of that drop. I prefer to have the wind blowing the boat parallel to the shore but I use my trolling motor to move the boat along when the wind is not in my favor. |
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Posts: 705
Location: Alex or Alek? | Do you guys predominately use original bondys to jig? Any luck with Bulldawgs, orbas, and other lure? Jigging has been one method I've been wanting to start doing but it just feels so weird to me. |
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Posts: 719
| Before the Bondy was made about 16-17 years ago, I jigged with all sorts of stuff. Most were too light and got tangled on the fall, or had a terrible hooking ratio. If I was to jig with anything else it might be a big bulky buck tail jig with a treble trailer. |
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Posts: 719
| Although I really like the look and action of the vibrations tackle stuff! |
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | Bondy - 10/10/2016 3:56 PM Although I really like the look and action of the vibrations tackle stuff! I bought some of the Vibrations Tackle several years ago at the Michigan Musky show & they have sat in a box in my garage unused. It's hard to change from a Bondy Bait that I have more confidence in than any other bait I own. |
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | MOJOcandy101 - 10/10/2016 3:36 PM Do you guys predominately use original bondys to jig? Any luck with Bulldawgs, orbas, and other lure? Jigging has been one method I've been wanting to start doing but it just feels so weird to me. I use originals & wobblers. I also use Bondy Jr. in the small musky lakes & for deep water pike. I have tried jigging a 6" blade bait that a local tackle shop sells that has the same shape of the original Silver buddy but much larger. I have caught anything on it & the past few years it has sat in my basement. I've only jigged it in the river & not in the lake. The various large blade baits tend to get blown out too much in the river so I stopped using them. |
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Posts: 1084
Location: Aurora | Tuff ta beat the classics.
Cast & crank um or jig um and you can't beat the hookup rate.
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 Classics.jpg (48KB - 483 downloads)
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