Do You Remember Your First Jig Fish???

[Brian Needham]

I am always amazed at the people that don't fish a jig or don't understand it. Its not they don't understand, more never had the chance to really fish a jig cause of type of water, style of fishing, ect ect.

 

As Jon's story above, I was lucky enough to be in the boat when he caught his first of many jig fish. I remember him saying he never caught a jig fish, I remember thinking, might even said it "what the hell do you fish with then?" but I did promise him a jig fish, and I am glad he got it.

It's a memory I will never forget, as I knew once a man feels that jig bite he is ruined and never wants to throw anything but.

 

My first jig fish: at the golf course. I had just started fishing.....literally less than a month. I been catching good fish 3# +/- and a friend of mine told me to get a football jig... I had no clue. Off to Wal-Mart I go and get a few 3/8 booya black and blue football jigs and paca craws. back to the golf course and boom 4 pounder.

 

My First jig fish from a boat: after fishing for about 2 months I bought a boat, went to a local lake (Horseshoe) and casted out between 2 stick up in an open bay......I felt a tick and questioned it, reeled in slack but kept reeling in slack........its there I said! the fish was swimming toward me ! Set the hook into a nice 2 1/4#er...........thought I was Bill Dance.......... my boat, my spot, my first jig fish all on my own HOOKED FOR LIFE ON THE JIG.

 

I then called my friend that told me to buy the jig and fished with him(lives 2 hours from me), got my head kicked in but LEARNED AND LEARNED just from watching him work the jig.....adjusted to my own style and called myself a "jig guy"

 

best thing about fishing the jig is helping someone learn or introduce someone to the jig....jig produces nothing but SMILES!

[travis23]

I was in a small creek in some thick cover.  I remember climbing this very steep drop off and holding onto branches to get my self to the spot.  I was really really paying attention to my presentation when I felt a light bump, and bam, small creek bass, but a light bulb came on and I figured the jig out.  I, like most, love this style of fishing now!!

[WRB]

I do remember; it was in '55 at Big Bear lake on a black hair jig called a Doll fly, no trailer, under a boat dock.

My older brother worked at the boat landing, today called a marina. A box of Doll Flies came in a shipment of crappie jigs. I was curios about a big crappie jig and tried it around the dock, catching several bass. The jig was about a 3/8 oz size, black deer hair tied with red wrap and yellow painted eyes. I used Dool flies until discovering football head around '61 and started making my own hair jig with pork rind trailers and never stopped.

Tom

[Montanaro]

Couple years ago actually...never used them really before then as I was young and didn't understand how to use them.

 

Well I was floating down the south branch of potomac when I got up to a long slow section with a large tree blown over in the middle.  I cast past the tree a little ways and dragged the brown 3/8oz with craw trailer until I got beside the tree and felt resistance on the bottom (a limb?  a rock?)....then I shook the rod tip back and forth to simulate a crawdad digging in...after a couple seconds of shakes...I felt tap tap tap

 

Pulled a 3.5 pound smallie off that tree.  I practically had a woody.

[pbizzle]

Yes, because it was only a few months ago. It was on a Strike King Bleeding Bait 1/4 Bitsy Bug in black/blue with a 3.25" black and blue Yum Crawbug. I won't ever forget it because it was also my first keeper fish in a tournament as well as my first fish on my first real baitcasting combo. I still own the jig. It's the bigger one I'm holding in my profile picture.

[Reptile360]

Nope, still trying to find him.

[mnbassman23]

I was 15 and caught it on a 1/2oz Stanley jig. Bought it at a local shop when my buddies and I did our yearly camping/fishing trip to my parents lake lot. They looked at me like I was nuts for buying this skirted thing. Last day of the trip we had a big fish tournament and the winner won some reading material that no one pays attention to read, if you get my drift. Last hour of the day I pulled out the jig and casted it to a 10ft cabbage bed on my underpowered spinning rod with 10lb mono. Felt solid weight, set the hook, and couldn't tell if I was stuck in the weeds or had a fish. Turned out to be a 20" largie that won me big fish and a magazine full of good pictures. Life was good.  

[KritterGitter]

Practicing skipping jigs at the local park a few weeks back hooked into a big ol snakehead... First and only jig fish so far.

[Matthew Veillion]

First jig fish was on a strike king Greg hackney jig in Texas craw with a rage tail watermelon red craw trailer. Been trying all day and my partner in the front missed a fish on a crank and I pitched by the same tree and soon as I let it touch bottom I hopped it once then he took off and I ripped the hookset and caught him. Only a 1 pounder but a big accomplishment that got me hooked.

[Triton9918]

I remember because yesterday I caught my first. It weighed 3lb 4 oz on a black and blue jig

[Creekcrappie]

Nope but definitely with a topwater

[The Rooster]

I was fishing a lake around here that is notorious for not producing fish. It's called Greenbo lake, in Greenup county, KY, but locals call it the Dead Sea. Oh, it has big bass in it, double digit sizes even, but the water is ultra clear so they're hard to catch. Add to this that it was cold. It was November of 2011, so I expected another skunking when we went. My Brother-in-law wanted to go out so we went and since I expected nothing from this lake, as usual, I decided this would be a good time to try learning some jigging techniques to pass the time.

I tied on a dirty Sanchez colored D&L Tackle 1/2 oz. football head jig with a green pumpkin Netbait baby paca craw trailer. I had been casting to the shoreline from the boat, same as him, but in a moment of frustration I just turned and casted out to open water just as far as I could and let that jig sink to the bottom in about 20' of water. I had no idea what to do with no prior jigging experience. I just knew I had bought a few jigs to try to learn them but never had tried them before. I just started slowly dragging it like I would a T-rigged worm.

The next thing I felt was sort of a prickly feeling through the rod, like you might feel if you were to press the teeth of a comb with your thumb and let them spring loose one at a time. This, I can only assume, was the brush guard on the jig doing something similar inside the bass's mouth. It felt different to me so I figured when in doubt set the hook. Well, now I'm in a fight with my first ever jig fish, and it's a keeper bass, on a cold November day on a lake notorious for skunk days! WHOOHOO is the only thing I can think at the moment! I landed the fish, released it, made another cast to open water as near to the same spot as I could, and had the same experience all over again. Two keeper bass, back to back, from the Dead Sea, on jigs! I'm hooked harder than those bass were at this point. They were only a pound each but to me they were huge since this lake sucks so bad otherwise, and catching them on a jig from these waters my first time using one just solidified how good a jig can be to me.

We fished for another couple of hours, and I felt that same prickly feeling again several more times as we moved from cove to cove, and managed to land one more keeper too, making my total for the day 3 keeper bass from totally unproductive waters otherwise. I'm so happy by now that I can't think, and I finally snapped off the jig from frayed line on a hard cast. Lost it deep in the woods, but I had another, and have since bought about 6 more of those same ones as well as many others in different sizes and colors.

Since then I have went back to that spot and found there is a stump about 20 feet down and just as far out that these fish must have been holding near to. There's nothing else around it at all that I can see. I'm fairly certain this is where I found those bass and just made a random lucky cast to open water that day and happened to put a jig near to that stump. I'm sure glad it worked that way because I did not have any confidence in that bait and might never have tried it long enough to gain any. Now I am absolutely never without a jig tied on always, and also have found that bass hit it the same way in waters I normally fish. I just feel for the prickly feeling and set the hook.

[SirSnookalot]

Don't remember my first but I remember my last, was this morning. 30" snook on 1/2 oz hot lips bucktail jig. 

[CDobber]

Have yet to find much success with them yet, though I did break my 3 month long skunk on a 3 1/2" chartreuse/pepper tube nose pinned with a metal arrowhead jig, even if it was only an 11".

 

The more memorable one was 2 summers ago fishing for one of the first times on our new boat with my 9 year old son and Dad.  My son had on a 1/2 oz gumball, absolutely no trailer, no skirt or anything in a lake that had completely drained in a breach just 3 summers prior, so the lake had only been recently restocked.  He caught a decent sized crappie on that setup.  Now that I have some semblance of what a jig is, and what it should be used for, it makes me laugh to think that he caught anything with it that day.