The short rods were basically all anybody used in open water for splake, whities, browns, bows, you name it up on Georgian Bay back in the 80s. Mind you, most were custom tied rods and slightly longer than your average ice rod. And yes, jigged vertically, most often with roe. It was my favourite fishing of the year!!! And that was when I was spending lots of days in the various rivers and streams chasing steelhead. As much as it was a blast to tie into a chromer on the long rods, it was just fabulous jigging the short rods for good numbers of often good sized fish.
My biggest whitie weighed 12.49 lb on a grocer store butcher scale. I had weighed it with my spring scale in the boat and it was showing about 14 pounds, which was close to Terry Frook's record of 14.6 as I recall, so we hauled up the anchor and drove to a grocery store to weigh in my "potential" Ontario record. Well, it was a full two pounds under the record.................and we did eat it.................and never even took a picture of it!
Good memories, and thanks Brian for that trip down memory lane! Doug