— Submitted photo Here’s a Tikka Mino. It was designed with ice fishing in mind, but has become favored by many open water anglers.

It wasn’t that long ago that anglers thought of some lures as open water baits and other lures as ice fishing baits. Those anglers realized that jigs could be used under the ice as effectively as they could in open water, but also understood that crankbaits and spinnerbaits and such were going to be exclusive to open water fishing. At some point, and I’m thinking mid-1980’s, we realized that some lures that were designed for ice fishing also have open water applications. In fact, they can be just as and sometimes even more productive than traditional open water baits. Let’s take a look at some of those offerings.

One particular example stands out in my mind regarding using ice fishing baits in open water. We were on Rainy Lake on the Minnesota/Ontario border. We used to spend a lot of time on Rainy fishing with outdoor writers and fishing tackle buyers and manufacturers. Walleyes and crappies were our primary targets. We were on the water from shortly after sunrise to shortly before sundown. We did a lot of fishing and experimenting.

On one particular early evening, a trio of boats piloted by Gary Roach, Randy Amenrud, and myself were working an area of Red Gut Bay. Crappies were the goal. It was late summer and the crappies were down about 30 feet. We could see them on our flasher sonar units. This was before LCG sonar and the like had become popular. We were using eighth ounce jigs tipped with minnows. Action was okay. It’s times like this that can create change in how we fish. When you know that you’re on or near fish but you can’t get them to bite, try another presentation.

The previous year, a new spoon had been introduced to the ice fishing world. It was made by a small company, I can’t remember the name of the company or the spoon, but it was a departure from traditional ice spoons. It had a single hook that was stationary. It was very plain in appearance, but it had been productive for crappies through the ice. One of the members of our three boat group had some of these spoons and figured “what the heck?” He tied one on, attached a small minnow, and dropped it into the school of finicky crappies below the boat. Within seconds he had a fish on. Then another. That’s when that angler got popular. He shared the spoons with his boat partners, then with the guys in one of the other boats. Everyone using the spoons caught fish: The stubborn guys in the other boat wouldn’t try the spoons and they caught a few fish, but nowhere near as many as the spoon-anglers.

The next day we tried a larger version of that spoon for walleyes. We would find the walleyes, then hover directly above them. The ice fishing spoons caught open water walleyes very well.

A current lure designed for ice fishing but that has been making strong headway into open water is the Tikka Mino. Again, this bait was designed for fishing under the ice. Send it to the bottom. When it gets there, give it a lift with your rod tip. When it falls back toward the bottom, it glides back down: It doesn’t fall straight up and down like a jig would. The Tikka Mino has become a “must-have” bait for many ice anglers, but it has also become an important part of open water angler’s arsenals also.

The most successful anglers are often the curious ones: They are willing to try different things in their efforts to catch more fish. If you want to catch more fish, don’t limit your efforts to traditional methods. Try different, maybe even out-of-the-ordinary techniques and, every now and then, you’ll find an even better way of getting fish to bite.