Detroit river jigs

[Fish whip guy]

I have a question for you serious river rats. When i fish the river, i use Northland whistlers & reg. ball head jigs w/plastic & minnows. Do you use Northland fireballs? Without plastics would the presentation be less visable in the murky water? I only make it to the river a couple of times a year & so i need your opinion.

[Tom (Mich)]

I'll use Fireballs with stingers very early in the season when I'm tipping with minnows. Once the water hits high 40's, I switch to an all plastic presentation, which the Fireball doesn't handle well. I typically fish the deeper, upper stretches of the river, so the Whistlers have a bit too much drag for me.

[Lundluvr]

I experimented a little bit with Fireballs last year. I caught a few fish. I think they are best when the water is clear. When it muddied up a little, plastic and minnow combos were better. Definetly worth a try though.

[Gomez]

Ditto's on early season fireballs,only no whistlers, just a twister tail without the tail, add shiner, no stinger, seems (stinger) to catch everthing elese but fish, it's similar to fuzzy grub without the fuzz that's my early season set up,after that,it's all plastic, played around with the Rattel jigs, for dirty water seemed to work, but when the water gets dirty, Eye switch to the Handlineing with Rapala's,hope this helps you, FISH ON !!! Gomez

[FJH1]

Can't comment on the Detroit River, however, on the Illinois River (which is usually REALLY murky) we use the Fire-Ball almost all of the time (1/8 and 1/4 ounce). We find that the Bubblegum color is usually really hot. We rarely use stingers, however, most people do use them. We usually just use a large fat head. We find that by going to a lighter jig we can avoid stingers, when the fish makes an attempt to suck in the jig, they usually bury it in their mouth because it's pretty light.

Best Regards,

FJH

[ebijack]

if your going to use live bait the northland jigs are fine, if you only use plastics you need a longer hook or you'll miss alot of fish. the walleye don't tend to take the plastics as deep as live bait. i use long shank hooks, with a 3in plastic on the long shank hook, you can see in the plastic were the walleye bite (teeth marks) on average 1 1/2 inches behind the jig head which is to far back on the northland jigs for them to get the hook far enough into their mouth. hope that helps
river rat

[Fish whip guy]

Just wanted to say a big thank you to all you guys for your advice. It was very helpful. This was my first post on the board. If you ever have any rod building questions, give me a holler. I have been Building them for about three years. Hope to see ya on the river!