EYEBALLIN!
One of the best fish baits are parts of other fish. It is common to use belly strips, small fish, or fins to tip an ice angler’s sharp hooks.
One of the best baits is an eyeball from a fish that you have already caught. Eyeballs are amazingly tough. I remember dissecting Cow Eyeballs in my Biology classes. Even the sharpest razor knives had trouble cutting into them.
There are many ice jigs and lures that display eyeballs. A jig head with an eyeball image painted on seems to work better. My guess is that a fish, looking at another fish, eyeballing them, is curious, and eventually attacks, after a stare off. Whatever the reason is, eyeballs work great.
I first used eyeballs while fishing on Canyon Ferry Lake. Back then the daily limit for yellow perch was fifty per angler. You could and still can use up to 6 rods per Iceman.
We were doing well but a nearby Old Iceman was doing better. I walked over and struck up a conversation. Icemen are friendly, helpful, and generous with information. He told me that he was “Eyeballin.”
His jigs were all tipped with an eyeball from previously caught perch. “There is a trick to removing an eyeball intact from a fish’s socket.” He then pulled out a 30-06 cartridge. At the end of the fired shell was a metal loop, the size of a perch’s eyeball socket.
He showed me how to shove the wire loop into the socket and push the eyeball out intact. It takes a sharp hook to penetrate the eyeball. You also want to shove the hook out both sides, so you have an exposed hook to catch a fish.
The Old Iceman gave me a handful of eyeballs to use. The bite was on and we soon “eyed” our limits.
To make an eyeball remover, take an empty rifle shell and place a stiff wire into the shell. I bend an “L shape” at the bottom of the wire and about a third of an inch sized loop at the top. You can now fill the brass shell with epoxy or use melted lead. The shell is just the holder for the wire loop and looks cool. You could certainly change the eyeball puller, but I made mine like the Old Iceman told me.
Seeing is believing!
Montana Grant
