There seems to be a debate these days about the advantages tungsten ice jigs give anglers. Some feel that the fast rate of drop through the water column is prone to spooking fish, while others use the extra weight to keep their lines straight. The latter group are the tightliners who study tendencies and tell tale signs of fish activity.
What tungsten gives you is a small but heavy jig which means quite a few things to the angler offering the presentation. Take a jig made of lead and one of similar size made of tungsten, and you fish heavier than the same profile of a lead based jig. Here lies the tungsten advantage. Anglers can telegraph movement to the jig through less aggressive motion created by the wrist and rod. The jig will react quicker than it’s lead counterpart. This subtle motion created and transferred to the jig is often more productive and easier to create than those made with lead jigs.
For those who counter with the rate of descent factor, simply downsize the jig made of tungsten. Mated with the proper test line, the smaller jigs will still give the angler the advantage of a “tight” line. You gain your slower rate of drop through the water column, but the key is you still get to fish heavy.
Tungsten also allows you to punch through weedbeds to get to where the fish are. Where a smaller lead jig has a tendency to get hung up on the tall growth, a tungsten jig with the faster rate of fall has a better chance of getting down to where you need to be. Because of the speed built up, it tends to bounce or slide off of the foliage.