Today's Spring-Bobbers Do Right!

Wilczynski typically has two spring-bobber rods, one rigged with a super-sensitive spring for working lighter lures, and another for heavier lures and deeper water. His St. Croix rods, for instance, are easy to adjust simply by moving the spring in to compensate for heavier lures, and out to match it up with light baits. You can also completely replace the spring with a lighter or heavier St. Croix spring.

“You have to find the balance point between weight of your lure and spring tension. The perfect position for a spring-bobber is a 30-degree bend, when your lure is lowered down the hole,” he explains. “Whether the fish bites up or down, you see the spring move and detect bites.

“But let’s say you change to a heavier lure and the spring bends at a 45-degree angle. On the St. Croix spring-bobber rods, push the spring back towards the butt of the rod until it bends at 30 degrees. Say the spring bends too much: The solution is to either push in the spring to increase tension, or switch to a heavier spring.”

Go Natural

Spring-bobbers enable anglers to make realistic bait presentations. In fact, the spring-bobber’s origins, according to Wilczynski, lie with Russian anglers trying to duplicate the action of scuds (freshwater shrimp), the dependable and healthy food source for fish all around the world. Wilczynski explains: “Forget for a moment that spring-bobbers serve as strike indicators. One of the best attributes of a good spring-bobber is that it allows anglers to make the soft and natural movements of real aquatic creatures. It’s virtually impossible to duplicate the action of a scud without spring-bobber rods—the action with other rods is too abrupt and unnatural.

“When I know there are fish in the area,” he says, “I rarely move from hole to hole trying to cherry-pick the active biters. Instead, I stick it out. Time and again I’ve proven that using a spring-bobber rod to make the perfect presentation gets inactive fish active.”

The proper movement according to Wilczynski is to work the bait periodically at different levels throughout the water column. “Many anglers try to keep the bait moving and bouncing in the same spot, which includes pausing it in the same location, too. I always try to imitate the movement of nymphs, larvae, and scuds, which is a soft, seductive swimming action that moves and stops, moves and stops, up and down,” he explains.

“Sometimes I work the bait up from the bottom, slowly raising, bouncing, and stopping the bait. I might also keep it 4 feet off bottom—bounce-bounce-stop. Other times, I start the bait high and move-stop it all the way to the bottom. With spring-bobbers, lure movements are smaller and the stops or pauses are more frequent.”

He points out that most strikes happen when the lure isn’t moving. “There are times when fish get aggressive, hitting the lures hard and bending the spring-bobber straight down. But most fish are gentle biters, and gentle is more than enough signal to set the hook.”

Noticing the slightest nibbles can mark the difference between having a ho-hum day on the ice or a great one, including that one hookset-shot at the trophy fish of a lifetime. Sometimes the spring moves less than 1/32 of an inch, indicating a bite and the chance to hook a fish.

I’m sold.

Company Contacts: Frabill, frabill.com; St. Croix Rods, stcroixrods.com, Thorne Brothers, thornebrothers.com.

*Greg Wilczynski, of Gurnee, IL, has such faith in spring-bobber rods that he worked with St. Croix Rods, designing a series of spring-bobber rods that feature his favorite actions.