Ice fishing jigging apparatus and method

This invention relates to ice fishing equipment and more particularly to an automatic jigging apparatus and method. An ice fishing apparatus for automatically jigging a fishing line. The apparatus has two repeating states, an active state wherein said jigging occurs and an inactive state wherein jigging does not occur. In a preferred embodiment, three optional jigging rates are provided. The duration of the active state for each of the jigging rates is about 10.4 seconds and the duration of the inactive state is about 4.2 seconds. The apparatus is comprised of a housing, an arm pivotally mounted to the housing, an alarm, an electric motor drive unit for rotating the arm upwardly and downwardly to jiggle a fishing line, and an electronic control unit. The electronic control unit controls the periods of the active and inactive states, triggers the alarm, increases battery life and prevents damage to an electric motor. The electronic control unit is a CMOS dual monolithic timing IC circuit. An important feature of the invention is that the tension in the fishing line for activating the alarm system can be selectively preset within a given range. Another feature is that the performance of the apparatus is not affected by water.