Summer lures fished vertically
Vertical fishing isn't only for gear made for winter. There's one condition: the lure has to work without horizontal flow — meaning it can't need reeling to show the fish anything.
A lipless hardbait fits with almost no caveats
A lipless hardbait, hung by the back, sinks on its own and has its own action on the drop. It's basically a ready-made ice lure built for summer: fished vertically it works the same way as a jigging minnow, just with less sideways travel.
Casting spoon
A casting spoon doesn't need forward motion either: the blade glides on free fall the same way a jigging spoon does, just wider and lighter. It goes down the hole with no changes needed — it's the closest thing in a summer tackle box to a jigging spoon.
Soft plastic on a jig head
A heavy head pulls the lure down, and a paddle tail kicks from the drop alone. A soft plastic on a dropper rig works too, but that needs a longer pause: the lure settles slower than the weight does.
What from the summer box doesn't work
A floating or suspending hardbait with a lip: fished vertically it either hangs there or floats up, because the lip only works with forward motion. A sinking one behaves differently — on the drop it creates its own flow and moves sideways — but there's nothing to steer that with. A spinner doesn't work at all: with no retrieve, the blade doesn't turn.
Why a lipless hardbait rattles
Most models have a chamber with beads inside that speaks up on every jerk; quiet models with no beads exist too. Under the ice the signal travels straight down the water column instead of sideways, and the difference between loud and quiet is more noticeable than it is on a retrieve. How the chamber itself is built is covered in the card on rattles and the sound chamber.
Size and the hole
Summer lures are bigger and heavier than winter lures built for the same job, and they don't always fit down an already-drilled hole — especially ones with two trebles or a wide body. On an active predator that's no problem; on passive fish they lose to an ice jig.
The hooks are built for different fish
The trebles on a summer lure are thicker and bigger than winter ones: they're built for a hard rod sweep at range, not a short strike on a metre of line. On small fish it shows — the fish just doesn't hook up, and the lure needs swapping out rather than a tempo change.
Should you build a separate box for them?
You don't: you take what's already there and put it next to the jigging minnows. A lipless hardbait and a casting spoon work the same from a boat in summer and down a hole in winter — the presentation changes, not the lure. The point is that on unfamiliar water they answer whether there's an active predator here faster than small winter lures do.