Underwater Camera Applications

The solution is to take a 1/80-ounce white or glow-white bare leadhead jig with a barbed collar (no body), the leadhead nearly the color of the live waxworm, which comes next. Select a single plump waxworm, nick off the head and thread the morsel onto the jighead, just as you would a plastic grub. Snug the waxworm tight to the leadhead over the barbed collar. You’re now good to go.

The same thing can be done with a maggot, but select a jig without the barbed collar, which deflates and drains these delicate baits. Choose jigs with hook shanks a bit shorter than the length of the livebait. You want a streamlined package that leaves just a tip of tail wriggling behind.

“Something I’ve done as a result of watching panfish feed on the Aqua-Vu is T-bone the bait (a waxworm or micro plastic), hooking it in the middle,” Genz recounts. “T-boning forces the fish to commit to the hook because it doesn’t show them a definite head end—the portion fish prefer to key on.”

We’ve also watched dozens of walleyes strike spoons near the head or line-tie. When they do, the hook and minnowhead dangle freely outside the fish’s mouth. Anglers might also be surprised how often walleyes completely miss the bait. Most misses are walleyes swinging at fast-moving jigging spoons. Anglers jig too fast and too frequently, without the necessary long pauses. Hyperactive jigging might work for some situations, but given what our camera revealed, long pauses (10 to 20 seconds) are a better option.

It’s captivating to see that things happening below aren’t as we imagined. We’ve watched channel catfish swim absolutely vertical in the water, lightly brushing baits with their entire bodies, nose to tail. We’ve been shocked as muskies and pike have engulfed entire camera housings. Small pike have bullied an entire legion of bluegills away from our baits. The largest yellow perch in a school often refused to strike any bait.

But drop the spoon in the mud and the perch go crazy rooting in the silt to uncover and eat it. Every excursion with an underwater camera has the potential to reveal something extraordinary.

*Cory Schmidt, Brainerd, Minnesota, is an avid multispecies ice angler, freelance writer, and public relations director for Nature Vision.