I see where Wally 13 brought up the rapala ice fishing jig which has caused a bit of a buzz for open water walleye fishing. My buddy sent me several articles via snail mail on this as I seem to be behind the curve.

He swears by a Shiver Minnow made by Moonshine lures however instead of the rapala model.......I picked up several and like what I see in my canal in front of my house. I will be giving them a try this summer.

I have never caught a fish snap jigging so perhaps those of you who have might weigh in and give some advice.

Shiver minnow

Have never. Only traditional jigs etc. But I saw a ' new to me' Rap made like that in the store recently and it looked cool for vertical dropping.

I've only used the Rapala snap jigs through the ice. They work well, fish hit them when they sink down. I need to get the bigger ones for open water jigging. I could see these as a hot Walleye lure.

quote Savage Voyageur: "I've only used the Rapala snap jigs through the ice. They work well, "

Yup I used them on the Saginaw river ice fishing in Michigan and caught some very nice walleye. We would tip the end hooks with 1/2 shiner minnows. But this whole snap jigging in open water has been popular for a while now and is scoring some fairly impressive catches............. or so I have read.

In Fisherman / snap jigging

Please explain the 1/2 shiner minnow thing, thanks. I thought you don't need to use any bait with this lure.

quote Savage Voyageur: "Please explain the 1/2 shiner minnow thing, thanks. I thought you don't need to use any bait with this lure. "

I used to use them a lot ice fishing on Little Bay de Noc. I always put a chub head on the treble. I'm going to bring a couple to Kawnipi in June and see what happens. However, last year most of the eyes were in 6' or less.

I think this is definitely worth a try. I have not much experience with it
The closest is fishing the linksville Dam on Mississippi in sw Wisconsin. Caught some nice 4-5lb eyes using a sonar. Pretty much same approach. Was using a quick short snap followed up with a 3 ft.steady pull up.

If you're going to snap jig those things while drifting in a canoe in Quetico, those rocks are going to eat em up. Great lure, but I think that will be a very costly presentation for those waters.

quote thinblueline: "If you're going to snap jig those things while drifting in a canoe in Quetico, those rocks are going to eat em up. Great lure, but I think that will be a very costly presentation for those waters."

Think so? I'm not so sure........Not something I would want to cast from shore and expect to get back thats for sure but casting or drifting from a canoe I don't see see much of an issue, basically same as a jig. Besides if you do get hung just go get it.......most stuff is wedged and not really hung. Get behind it and snap it free. I suppose it would be safe to say, however, that if you are working a snap jig correctly you are probably getting it hung occasionally, I will grant you that TBL.

SV when we used to ice fish for walleyes with the Rapala jig we would break a shiner in half using thumb and forefinger and place on each end. I'm not really advocating that for the snap jig but I bet a leech on the back of the Shiver jig would be a pretty cool rig.

I have a short 6' loomis jig rod which I might just have to take on this summers trip just for this. First I will have to brush the dust off of it and get an eyelet fixed. I'm thinking 6lb test? I wonder what the pros use with this? Maybe straight 8 floro? Maybe even 10......its not like they get a good look at the thing.......its always moving and sort of quickly at that. .......snap, pause, dive.......snap, pause, dive

Just learned the technique last fall open water fishing. Very clean sand bottom, throw it out let it sink to the bottom then snap jig back. I boated seventeen walleye and a 39 inch northern in four days. Used both jigging raps and shiver minnows in glow colors. Personally did better with shiver minnows. I don't think it would work if the bottom was too rocky as you let the jig hit bottom then a short snap back, would think you would be snagged a lot.
Put my limit of five walleye on the ice today snap jigging a purple glow shiver minnow.

Alrighty then.......guys are telling me I'm going to lose my shiver jigs in the rocks.......Why can't a guy "snap" before it gets back to the bottom? But what do I know.......I have never fished this sort of rig before so maybe the naysayers are right. I was only going to bring a few........ maybe I should add a few more?

Mutz thanks for weighing in. Confidence baby! Sounds like they work pretty good and I like the hooks on the Shiver better than whats on the rapala. Did you add any meat? Did you tie directly?

I watched the last episode of the 39 hour fishing challenge that a few of us were following a while ago. The Ontario group was boating some huge walleyes using the same method. It looked like they were using a fairly long rod with a really soft tip. They were giving the jig a hard snap and the letting it down slowly on a tight line instead of free falling.

quote mastertangler: "Alrighty then.......guys are telling me I'm going to lose my shiver jigs in the rocks.......Why can't a guy "snap" before it gets back to the bottom? But what do I know.......I have never fished this sort of rig before so maybe the naysayers are right. I was only going to bring a few........ maybe I should add a few more?


Mutz thanks for weighing in. Confidence baby! Sounds like they work pretty good and I like the hooks on the Shiver better than whats on the rapala. Did you add any meat? Did you tie directly? "


The guy that taught me the technique said you had to bounce bottom to be most effective, but on the sand bottom you never loose a jig. I think it would be tough to know when to snap it without getting the rocks but staying very close to bottom. I probably won't try it in the rocks at eight to ten dollars a pop for the jigs, I'm afraid that would get expensive in a hurry.
We always tip with a minnow head through the ice, but not open water.
We always tie direct with jigs.

Adding bait will reduce the vibration and probably won't last long anyway as it would come off if you actually snap jig it. Super lines will allow you to feel the vibration on these baits much better and you can actually tell if any small leaf or grass is in the hooks. Super lines will also allow you to retrieve more snagged baits. Just load your rod tip and snap the line. I call it playing the banjo. You will loose some in the rocks but if you get fairly vertical over the snag most come out. Remember to use a snap if u use a blade bait as they will fray your line.

quote DeanL: "I watched the last episode of the 39 hour fishing challenge that a few of us were following a while ago. The Ontario group was boating some huge walleyes using the same method. It looked like they were using a fairly long rod with a really soft tip. They were giving the jig a hard snap and the letting it down slowly on a tight line instead of free falling."

Dean would it be hard to produce the link? I would like very much to observe that.......this sounds like my kind of fishing.

Are we talking vertical jigging here even on open water? When we were doing it on open water, we would cast out to your full distance allow the jig to hit bottom then snap jerk back (sand bottom never snagged). You knew as soon as you snap back that you have a fish, as they take as it settles back to bottom. We used fire line tied directly as the snap was guicker with no stretch.
Would be interesting to see the video.

Oh Crap.......I couldn't wait and dug around the last 2 episodes of 39 hours. Cool stuff......I could watch this show. Anyway at about the 3 minute mark they put a fatty on the board on a rapala jigging rap (bummer, now I have to get some of those ;-)

Looks like they are fishing braid? Fireline perhaps?

They make it look easy......they have their spots......... jigging raps probably make bad search tools but dang they sure look like they make good catch'em lures once your on them.
39 hours jigging rap

Ok this is nothing like the way we did it. The way we did it casting and snap jerking back I think the smooth bottom is needed. This could be done with any bottom, when we did it the guy kept telling me don't jig it snap it. He said hard, short snaps.

Blade baits actually make pretty good search baits for contoured structure. You can move up to 1mph depending on the depth your in.
I'd be afraid to put on one of those jigging raps in my local lake however, because of all the timber we have.

Jim I wonder if you couldn't remove the bottom treble on the Shiver jig and fish it in the timber? Keep one of those "slide down the line" de-snagger type weights to knock it loose if it did get hung. I would have to give it a shot with a few and see how they would do before I called it quits........nobody probably does that in your lake precisely because of that issue.......might work great and probably fairly snag resistant with that single back hook riding upward. Might be an awesome slab crappie lure too!

Cant wait to fish these on Lake St Clair........perfect bottom for this type of fishing. Where have I been? Oh yea, working night and day.

Mutz those guys had a fairly decent drift going from what I can tell. How about those electronics? Awesome use of technology........I feel like a kindergartner compared to what I seen those guys do. All I ever do is turn my depth finder on and thats about it!

Still wondering what kind of line. Pretty sure it was braid of some sort as you can hear it on the audio when they hook up and crank the reel. Sort of white which makes me think Fireline. I am going to have to educate myself on this style of fishing. I noticed they had a typical small bass style snap to the lure.......

"Oh I'll never leave Montana brother"
but thanks for the suggestion MT.

Hey you know the folks at Rose marine?
They gave me a great deal on a Lund Alaskan a few years ago.

quote AmarilloJim: ""Oh I'll never leave Montana brother"
but thanks for the suggestion MT.


Hey you know the folks at Rose marine?
They gave me a great deal on a Lund Alaskan a few years ago."

A great book Jim......I haven't watched the movie in many years.

Rose Marine? Been around a long time on the shores of Lake St Clair if memory serves correct. Never been there. We hung out at Lakeside Marine and put in near Metro Beach and up in the North Channel quite a bit.

Good results in open water for lake trout. They hit it on the way down, on the snap and on the way up.

I've had stellar results on walleyes and lakers with these. Yes the do hang up pretty easy in some types of bottom. These require extreme care when hand landing fish. Don't hook yourself!!