Ok, every year I have started the season by picking one lure and trying to learn to fish it better. This year it's the jig, anyone have any tips? Anyone prefer one brand to the next, color, size, etc.
I have a pretty good selection of pumpkin, black/blue, and junebug jigs. I usually use a yum chunk/craw on them. any tips would be appreciated.
jig is kinda generic! lots of types of jigs to learn... swimmin jigs, flipping jigs, finnesse jigs, yadda yadda yadda
i like fishing deeper water with finesse jigs personally... i like a round-ball head like a stacey king or eakins finesse jig or a boo-yah bug if i'm out of those. Favorite color is either green pumpkin or PB&J. I usually apply a matching twin tail grub for a trailer. I have started using them in place of where i would throw a hula grub....
for flippin i like a heavy (3/4 - 1oz) black/blue or green pumpkin jig w/ a zoom craw trailer.
I fish a lot of Strike King jigs w/ Zoom tailers, check out the Zoom Swimming Chunk and the Critter Craw. I also like the some of the Yum and Strike King 3x trailers. I picked up some Netbait Paca trailers this winter, I am looking forward to trying them out. One thing I learned from Denny Brauer this winter was to not over power your jigs. Meaning if you are fishing small jig, like a SK Bitsy jig, then don't use the broom handle rod with 65 lb braid.
I also like to fish my jigs on braid or fluoro for the good feel and hook sets.
Don't be affraid to swim it, snap it, drag it, hop it, yoyo it, or anything else you can think of. You can fish them any way you want. I would suggest the way that catches the most fish on that particular day. :)
Cy
Best advice i can give you for learning to fish and catch with jigs is start small. This is what threw me off in the past. I always bought big, heavy jigs because that is what i always seen the pros using on TV. Seems like they were always throwing 1/2 oz jigs. But when i tied one on, it felt way too foreign. I wasnt used to throwing some that heavy and working it across the bottom. I threw 1/2 oz rattle traps and 1/2 oz spinnerbaits, but they have a way different feel. I had never thrown anything over 1/4 oz while dragging the bottom. So here i am, excited to start using a jig, and withing 20 minutes i was ready to put it down and start trying something else. Start with 1/4 oz.
Also, trim the skirt down to create a smaller profile. Most jigs come with way too much skirt. Keep in mind the size of the crawdads in our area. Once in a while you might find a big ol 4 or 5 incher, but the majority of them are small, 3" or less. You want to keep your jig roughly the same size as the crawfish that most of the fish are used to feeding on. A bigger jig might get you a bigger bite, but i promise you it will get you a lot less bites. And that is not what you want when you are learning and building confidence in a new bait. To trim the jig, let the skirt hang natural parallel to the hook. Take one hand and grip the skirt to bunch it together. Locate the bottom of the bend of the hook and cut perpendicular about 1/16" - 1/18" below the band of the hook. You can also trim some of the strands off if you have a high strand count skirt. Some of the companies are using 60 strand skirts these days, that is a lot in my opinion for our mostly clear water up here. You can also trim the strands up towards the collar to give it a more finesse look. If yyou trim the strands around the collar about 1/4"-3/8 " above the collar it will make them flare upward. gives it a nice look and can make it actually look like the tail of a crawfish.
Use smaller trailers as well. There are 2 ways to rig a trailer like a super chunk jr. You can pop the hook through the head of the bait and let it dangle off the hook, or you can thread the trailer up the hook like you would rig a worm without texas rigging it. The first way will give your bait a longer profile. The second will make it a lot more compact and shorter. Plus, threading the trailer on the hook rather than just sticking it through the middle will give you a lot more control over the action of the trailer when you are shaking it or crawling it. And it gives it a more natural look when it is falling. I know a lot of guys who will just pop the trailer on, similar to how you would rig a Uncle Josh pork chunk with the pre cut hole. It doesnt mean its wrong, but i promise you that i get a lot more bites threading the trailer on than they do hooking it through the middle. And i truly believe it is because i am better representing the size of the forage.
Color is important, too. There are a ton of colors to choose from when buying jigs. You dont have to get crazy. Keep it basic, especially in the beginning. Blacks, Browns, and Greens. Thats it. Hard to beat a black, or a black and blue jig with a green pumpkin or black trailer. In clearer water, you can go to a brown or green, or a combination of the two. Keep your color selection basic for now. Black works everywhere!
Choose your set up wisely. If you are more comfortable throwing light lures on spinning gear, by all means, use spinning gear. But i would honestly suggest using a Medium Heavy action rod. When i started using jigs again, i was way under powered and lost a lot of fish, including an absolute giant. A lot of jigs use bigger, thicker hooks and you need extra backbone to bury that hook. Heavier rod, trust me.
Line is very important too. I really like flouro carbon line for a couple reasons. One, its low stretch which makes it that much more sensitive and will increase your hook ups. Two, it is more abrasion resistant than mono or copolymer and thats important when your thowing any lure that spends most of its time crawling across the bottom of a lake. Three, because it is 'virtually' invisble under water, i feel i can get away with using heavier line without sacrificing bites. Flouro can be tricky to use on spinning gear tho. You really have to watch your self when ever you open the bail. It has very low memory so it want to shoot off the spool and straighten back out. If you are using spinning gear, just keep one finger across the spool when you open the bail and try to keep as much slack out of the line as possible until it gets broken in a little.
When you start fishing a jig, try to use it in areas where you have caught them on tubes, or texas rigged plastics. these are obviously high percentage areas for fish to hit a lure making its way across the bottom of the lake. If they will bite a tube, they will bite a jig. Start off by presenting it the same way as you would a tube. Cast it out, let it hit bottom ( pay attention as it sinks as a lot of hits will occur on the fall ) then start working it back slowing across the bottom. Crawl it for a while, pause it every once in a while and give a few subtle shakes. You dont want to move the bait along when you shake it, you just want it to shake in place. then continue crawling it along the bottom. If you come across a rock, or piece of wood, dont pull it over right away. use the structure to keep your lure in place while you shake your jig up against it. if there isnt a fish right there, the noise from your jig bangin off the structure will attract them if they are in the area. after a few seconds, if you havent got hit, slowly crawl the jig over the structure and be ready to set the hook. If nothing, cast and repeat. be thorough and work through areas slowly. try to cover as much as possible.
If you are fishing around a lot of weeds, try to find paths in the weeds to work your jig though. it will make it a lot easier on you. plus, the fish will stage along these paths to ambush prey. these are high percentage areas for jigs as well. Plus, you dont want to pull a jig through thick weeds all day, it works your arm and wrist too much. Find the open areas alongside heavy weeds. And if you see small holes in the weeds, pitch the sucker in there and hold on. I like fishing jigs in sparse weeds better then i do heavy weeds, but you will catch a lot of fish in heavy weeds. You just have to work harder to get them into the boat.
Start small, make some adjustments to your jig before hitting the water. Have the right gear, fish high percentage areas. Dont give up. You will catch fish on jigs!
My favorite are:
Strike King Bitsy Bug and Bitsy Flip in black, black/blue, brown/orange, watermelon
Tourney jigs Bear hair crawler in Blk/blue, Blk/pumkin, Brown/orange
Terminator ( cant find the finesse anymore ) Black neon, pumpkin, Black blue
Chomper Football jig in Blk/Blue, PB&j
I will be checking out the Exodus baits jig this year, looks like a winner.
Favorite trailers:
Zoom Super Chunk jr in black, green pump, watermelon seed, black blue fleck, castaic choice
Conquistador tackle small chunk in *this guys has some amazing colors, you have to check them out for youself.
Yamomoto twin tail grub trimmed way down. Grn pump, black, watemelon, cinnamon, smoke
McCarter himself :-\'
Wow, that was quite a course on jig fishing. Way to go! We'll have to have you come out sometime and do a seminar on jig fishing for EBA. You da man. BTW - I have always been sceptical about jig fishing in our clear water up here until I went out on Kent with McCarter and watched him show me how it's done. Uh, yeah...now I'll always have a jig tied on.
;D ;D ;D MY BOAT RULES!!!! ;D ;D ;D (Just a little fun for BF)
I love fishing jigs. Pork. If I could give only one tip, it would be pork. It comes in all sizes and colors and you can catch fish all week on the same piece. They say that fish hold onto salt soaked plastics just like they do pork. Seems like a no brainer to me. Pork - the original jig trailer!
;D ;D ;D vote BASS FISHERMAN for Govenor!!! ;D ;D ;D
i am in the same boat as you with the whole jig thing. what im planning to do is to take a only a rod so i dont give my self a chance to switch do a bait that i have confidance in.
McCarter hit on the biggest problem most northern/natural lake anglers struggle with jig fishing. Too heavy of a weight. Our inland lake bottoms are usually covered in a few inches of muck, decaying leaves/weeds etc and 1/2oz + jigs get buried in the junk and fouled up. Same issue with carolina rigging when I was a kid and wanted to try it. I bought 3/4 and 1oz weights like they write about in Bassmaster Mag and they buried in the muck so deep I couldn't even pull it free without jerking the bait 10 feet. Not much hope if feeling a bite!
I use a lot of the bitsy jigs and 1/8oz is my favorite size for deep weed edge fishing. Super chunk jr trailers work well for me too. I'll use 1/4oz to 3/8oz for pitching in shallow water, but typically opt for a flipping tube over the jig.
Wow McCarter! thanks for all the info guys!
BTW, rattle or no rattle?
I agree with a lot of the comments above. I fish a lot of finesse jigs on spinning tackle and 10 lb fluorocarbon. And I started making all of my own jigs mainly because the hooks are too big on most off the shelf models, along with the weedguards being too full, and the skirts having too many strands. I typically use half the skirt material that you see on a traditional jig skirt, and just enough weedguard for the style hook that I'm using and the cover I intend to fish. That goes for finesse jigs and heavier "flipping" type jigs.
McCarter--if you like the terminator style finesse jig, come see me at the Wonderland Expo (Minn Kota/Humminbird booth) ;D
Hey Bryan dont be telling all of my new secrets. LOL