Dave Genz’s All-Time Top Tips

4 Get a Reel Grip

It has become known as the pencil grip. Grab the rod from over the top, cradling the reel in your hand. You can hold it in an overhand position or turn the hand so palm and wrist are facing upward. By experimenting, find what works best for you and learn to vary it to achieve different presentations.

“The big reason to do it this way,” says Genz, “is that it takes your shoulder out of the hook-set. It’s all wrist, now. You can set the hook into that fish’s mouth before he can spit it out.”

Beyond the hook-set, there are presentation advantages. Especially when replicating the famous Genz pounding action, a rapidly vibrating kicking motion that makes the jig look alive, the pencil grip works better than the traditional grip. You can also achieve other looks, including a rhythmic swimming motion, or deadstick it by resting the back of your hand against your leg.

5 To the Jungle, Boys

As recently as a few years ago, Genz was telling us to drill millions of holes and concentrate on fishing the ones without too many weeds in them— always seeking pockets, edges, and lanes. Now, especially during the day, when panfish use thick cover to avoid predators, he’s telling us to seek the thickest weeds we can find.

What changed his mind? Probing below the thick upper canopy with his underwater camera. “In the years before the camera,” says Genz, “we tended to avoid those places. But now I fish right in that stuff all the time. There are thousands of fish in there. Even when the weeds are ugly and brown, sometimes the fish are in them. Now, we can look and see for sure what we’re doing when we try to fish in there. This is particularly true when you can find weeds that are thick at the canopy level and relatively more open at the stalk level.”

6 The “First 50”

In almost all ice-fishing presentations, twisted line—which causes your jig to spin when you stop or pause—is a problem. “Regularly take off 50 feet of line, put on new stuff, and pre-stretch it. I take an arm’s length at a time,” says Genz, “and pull on it until the kinks come out, so my jig hangs straighter. You have to get the coils out of the line. We’re not talking twist—we’re talking memory coils.”

7 Follow that Flag!

Genz: “Finally, a thought about joining the predator crowd. You’ll find panfish—especially bluegills—in the same places other people are finding northern pike. If you see a group of tip-up fishermen, follow the flags and flirt around the edges, and you should catch what you came for. It’s the classic predator-prey thing, which In-Fisherman has been preaching about for decades.”

*Mark Strand from Woodbury, Minnesota, has been a freelance outdoor writer for 30 years.