Darters Pound Jumbo Perch
Hot New Hardbait Not Just For Walleyes

By Dan Johnson

Even as glowing reports of big walleye catches on the Lindy Darter pour in from across the Ice Belt, the brand-new rattling hardbait is quickly proving itself for other quarry as well, including sag-bellied jumbo perch.

Case in point: In mid-December, I joined veteran fishing guides Jon Thelen (pictured above) and Mike Christensen on Minnesota’s famed Mille Lacs Lake for a perch expedition. We targeted deep midlake structures after driving out of Hunter Winfield's Resort on Isle Bay.

After searching a variety of depths, we hit jumbo gold in 25 to 30 feet of water off the edge of a large flat. Our sonar screens lit up as hungry fish rose to greet our descending baits. Not surprisingly, a variety of Lindy ice lures took perch, including the Rattl’n Flyer Spoon and Techni-Glo Frostee Jigging Spoon, but I also wanted to give the new Slick Jig and Darter a fair shake for perch. Both were a hit.

Slick Jigs tipped with whole minnows produced solid hits. Slicks produce a range of motions depending on how much action you impart with the rodtip, and where you position the knot on the line tie. Thelen cinched the knot all the way back and pounded the jighead on bottom. “It looks like a feeding minnow, and the perch are racing down to hammer it,” he said, based on observations using his underwater camera.

There were all sizes of perch to be had, and bigger baits yielded the largest fish. I tied on a 1 1/3-inch bluegill pattern Lindy Darter, and was quickly met with interest from the fish community below. Interestingly, while I used a classic lift-drop jigging cadence to maximize the bait’s darting and swimming action, we also took our jumbos on Darters using a side-to-side shaking presentation, moving the rodtip a foot or so left and right, with only very subtle lifts.

At the end of the day, our catch proved the power of Lindy’s new Darters and Slick Jigs as multi-species weapons worthy of any ice angler’s arsenal. Christensen also showed off his Rattl'n Flyer dropper rig, but that's another story. For a video of that setup, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPxCjkaNM-0