Hi guys, love this thread. I have been making my own whitefish wireworm and other creations for a few years, Also have tried home made shrimp patterns, cased caddis patterns and many others. When I first started I was looking for that "magic bullet", a hook that worked no matter what the weather conditions, time of season, depth or moon phase. I soon learned that this hook just does not exist when fishing for whites!! I have had some that worked extremely well some days and never got a sniff the very next day on the same spot. Some hooks have been rejected not by one but by EVERY fish that looked at it, but some have been very good.
Here are a few of my samples. I can confirm with Zip that the striped patterns work well and also I have had some great success with the shrimp patterns I have tried. Another pattern to try to imitate is the multi-bead pattern just before the ice goes out. I try to imitate a string of burb eggs by laying my pattern on a sandy bottom and just leaving it there with only an occasional twitch. This has worked well at times.
I found a material called "stringy worm" from a fly tying supply store and have tied a few trial patterns (a few are in the pics). I have not yet tried them but hope to get a few opportunities this winter. Some of them are UV activated and glow in the dark.
I'm going to give Pigeon a good try this year, for many years it was my goto lake but gave up on it a while back. I see Snap has had some success over the past few years, just need to re-learn the lake. At one time all you needed was a 1/2 long inch piece of copper tube hung loosely over a treble hook to catch them! That was many years ago, I think they may be more discerning these days.
Have a good season everyone!!
