It's not like I hadn't heard about glow jigs before, but a couple weeks ago on Gull Lake I went from being passively interested to a full out believer. You see I had this notion that fish were no more interested in glow jigs than they would be in any other jig. Over the years I've often said that the most important color is the one you have the most confidence in and for the most part, that's still true. But now I have to make a small exception. Fishing deep into the night or deep into the water, the 'glow' of a glow jig offers a visual target for cruising gamefish. Ayr Miller in both cases demonstrated the effectiveness of a glow jig to me.
On our recent trip to Gull Lake, all the other anglers, including the hard-core group had long since gone home. Ayr and I were staying to take it to a new level. It was completely dark, save for the light of the moon. My jig had been producing well right through sunset, but the action had dried up. Ayr on the other hand, would pull out his LED pen light, charge up his glow jig and immediately get slammed by another fish, be it a pike or a burbot. This action went on deep into the night. I tried several other jigs within feet of where Ayr was literally pounding fish after fish but was not getting a bite. At this point I unashamedly asked if I could try his rod to see if it was the angler or it was the jig.
He let me try and within seconds I hit a fish. After landing that, I charged up the jig, sent it back down and immediately got picked up by another. This non-stop action continued until the bright moon hung high in the night sky and all the stars were out.
A similar thing happened at Cold Lake this past weekend, but instead of reduced light from the setting sun, it was because of the depth we were fishing. After some fishing with little to no results, Ayr put on a glow jig with a minnow, dropped it down and immediately got hit by a laker. On what was considered a tough day, he got several bites using the glow jig.
After seeing the undeniable effectiveness of the glow, I have to admit that I've made my pilgrimage to the Fishin' Hole and picked up several glow jigs to call my own. Now its time to head out and do a little more field research.
