Entry 120-4
Chad Brauer on Jig Fishing
Swim Your Jig
Editor's Note: Chad Brauer of Osage Beach, Missouri, cut his teeth on jig fishing. If there's one bait he prefers to catch a bass on, it's a jig. This week, he'll tell us five techniques for catching bass on a jig.
Brauer: There's no place you can't swim a jig successfully. You can swim a jig:
- out in open water over a point,
- through, under and around a boathouse,
- by the side of or over the top of vegetation and
- beside, over the top of and through logs and stumps.
When I'm using a swimming-jig tactic, I'll usually be fishing a fairly light jig - for instance, a 1/4- or a 3/8-ounce. To keep the jig up, I'll use a 3X Denny Brauer Chunk because this chunk is very buoyant and helps the jig to ride higher in the water. One of the easiest ways to learn to fish the jig is to pretend that the jig is a spinner bait and fish the jig the same way you will a spinner bait. I like to swim the jig using a pumping motion to make the jig look like a wounded baitfish that's swimming up off the bottom. I try to keep the jig in the same strike zone where I normally will fish a spinner bait. I think the jig gives the bass a little something different to look at instead of the spinner bait.
If you're fishing a spot that looks like you should fish a spinner bait there, instead of casting a spinner bait, which is the lure every other angler has probably cast when he's gone by that same place, pick up your jig, and cast it through that area. If the bass is accustomed to seeing a spinner bait and not taking it, then when he spots the jig, he may take it. When I'm fishing the jig, I like to fish a white jig in clear water. However, in stained water, I'll usually fish a Texas craw color or possibly a black-and-blue jig.
Next: Deep-Water Jigging
Contents:
- Part 1: Docking Your Jig
- Part 2: Jigging the Grass
- Part 3: Jigging on Rocky Points
- Part 4: Swim Your Jig
- Part 5: Deep-Water Jigging
