Entry 134-1
Denny Brauer’s Five Best Winter Patterns
The Jig in the Wintertime
Editor's Note: Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, who's won just about every bass-fishing title there is, fishes in all kinds of weather and under many varied water conditions. This week he'll tell you how to catch bass in the winter.
Brauer: Obviously, the jig is the best standby wintertime pattern for me to fish the Lake of the Ozarks where I live. I like to fish deep, rocky banks, and we catch most of our fish in coves or in along creek channel bends. The ends of bluffs are also a good place to fish the jig during the winter months. This time of the year, I'll be fishing 12- to 17-pound-test line. I like a 1/2-ounce jig, usually fishing a dark-colored jig. If the water's clear, I'll be fishing natural colors like browns, watermelon or green pumpkin. Another good color that I like a lot is the chameleon craw color. I'll be fishing the Denny Brauer Chunk on the back of these jigs because I know it's the best jig trailer on the market. Over the years, I've been frustrated with jig trailers.
Up until Strike King came out with the Chunk, all jig trailers had some negative and positive properties. The oldest jig trailer on the market was a pork trailer, which was soft. It also swam well in cold water and wouldn't stiffen-up in cold water like plastic did. But the negative property of a pork trailer was occasionally one of the tails of the 
trailer would slip up over the hook. Then when you would set the hook, you would hook your own pork frog and lose the fish.
When you're tournament fishing, you can't afford to lose even one bass. This is one of the reasons I didn't like the pork trailer. I knew that three or four times during the year of tournament fishing, that pork trailer was going to cost me some fish. And, if I lost two or three fish, that could equal $4,000 or $5,000 of prize money. Too, in the summertime, you had to be concerned about the pork trailer drying out, and it also was hard to work with. Even though pork had some good qualities, it also had some negative qualities.
When you look at plastic trailers, they've improved over the years and become a little more pliable in cold water. But the problem with plastic is if you catch one fish, the plastic trailer will tear off, and then you'll have to stop fishing and put on another trailer. When Strike King developed the 3X material, we learned that it was actually softer than pork and could keep that soft, supple swimming action - even in cold water. The other advantage that fishermen gained with 3X was that it didn't tear like plastic would. So, what we gained with the new Strike King Chunk was all the soft subtle moves of pork with none of the negative properties of pork. We also gained 
the advantages of 3X that wouldn't tear up like other plastic. Even if a bass balled up a jig in its mouth, and the 3X tail was over the hook, you still could drive your hook through that 3X material much easier than you could through pork.
So in my opinion, we have the best properties of pork and the best properties of plastic in this new Strike King 3X Chunk trailer. That's the reason I can say unequivocally that when you're fishing a jig in the wintertime with a 3X trailer behind that jig, you have the best jig and trailer you can have.
