Cold Water Hair Jig Basics

[smalljaw67]

Hair jig season is just about here and I've been getting a lot of questions about what kind to use and where to use them so I decided to do a post on basics. In the picture, the jigs on the right hand side are for clear water, the top jig is a 3/32oz marabou jig, the 2 under it are both buck tail jigs with one having a weed guard and no trailer and the other with no weed guard and a rabbit strip trailer. The marabou jig will be worked by swimming it slowly or hopping it along the bottom, no trailer is used but on this one I have 2 feathers tied in to give it a little extra. The buck tail jig without the trailer is 1/8oz and can be used as it is or a small trailer can be added like a trout worm or tiny chunk, it can be used in a swimming type presentation, hopped or crawled along the bottom and even dead sticking works with it. The 1/8oz buck tail with the rabbit strip will be used as is, the rabbit strip will give this jig a little more action and it will bulk the profile up a bit, it can be used in the same manner as the other buck tail but I normally use it when the fish are a little more active so it is either swimming or hopping most of the time. The jigs on the left hand side are more for stained water, less than 2' of visibility is where they shine because of the added bulk. The top two jigs are 1/8oz football heads, the top one has buck tail tied in with deer belly hair tied over top  and there is a little more hair than in my clear water jigs. This jig is going to be crawled along the bottom slowly with a chunk style trailer, a 2" tiny Paca Chunk works great for this jig and it is going to fished primarily on hard bottom or rock covered areas. The other football head is going to be pretty much the same as the previous one, the difference is that it is tied with a heavy collar made of fine round rubber, and that is not only going to make the jig stand up, but it also provides a different profile, pretty much like a Sculpin so we will often slowly swim this along that bottom without a trailer and it works surprisingly well at times.  The last one of that side is what I call the creeper jig, it is 1/8oz round head with a rabbit hair body with some longer silicone strands in for some added action. This is one that is always going to have a trailer and it is always a chunk type trailer and it depends on the size of the jig but one of the ones we find that works well on this is the Ron Yurko finesse chunk by Venom Lures. This jig is crawled along the bottom or slow hopped and dead sticking also works well with this jig and this is what I'll use if the water is only slightly stained as the rabbit hair will offer more visible action but it won't have as large of a profile as the others making it a little harder to find in dirtier water. Now these are all small sizes meant to be using in water 10' deep and under, I usually only go as high as 1/4oz for the waters I use them in so if you need a faster fall or need to get deeper than you can adjust the weight but remember the appeal of these is they offer the fish a small, easy to catch food morsel that they don't need to spend any energy to get so you don't want them moving to quick. I tie a ton of different kind of jigs as well but these are what I learned to fish hair jigs with and they can be tweaked size and color wise to  match the conditions you face.  I hope this helps those of you who are curious about hair jig fishing in cold water, if you experience water that dips down below 40 degrees in the winter, it will benefit you to learn how to use these types of jigs as they are often the best lure to catch them on.

 

 

[Smokinal]

Do you make these for customers? I've always wanted to try hair jigs as we do fish into the 30's. If you need someone to try them in Maine waters, let me know. and thanks for the tips/info on them.

[A-Jay]

Good Info - Thanks for sharing it.

 

For me the whole key to fishing the hair is S L O W . . . and then S L O W E R . . . . and finally S L O W E S T .

 

It works for sure - but it's sort of like fishing in a Coma or with live bait.

 

 

A-Jay

[Team9nine]

Caught quite a few on hair jigs today even though our water temps are still well above "ideal." Slow works, obviously, but don't be afraid to try speeds somewhat above "coma" to keep 'em honest. Some days they'll surprise you.

 

-T9

[Will Wetline]

I particularly like the marabou with hackle and the buck tail with rabbit.

[Dwight Hottle]

Good post sir!

[QUAKEnSHAKE]

I was out yesterday with 1/2oz bucktail jig and got this smallie. Throw out into the turbulent water and when it got to calmer water bam got hit. I was targeting Pike, at first, retrieving rather quickly, but not suceessful so slowed down started dragging the bottom when caught SM

 

[WRB]

When I started using jigs back in the dark ages all we had were hair jigs and pork rind trailers. Back then we also had a closed season for fishing, trout started on a May1st, bass on June 1st, fishing closed November 1st. So we didn't know hair jigs were good in cold water because they were good all the time. Today I fish hair jigs year around and the nobody told the bass not to eat them.

Tom

[kickerfish1]

Nice post Smalljaw! Pictures and reading were good as usual.

[smalljaw67]

When I started using jigs back in the dark ages all we had were hair jigs and pork rind trailers. Back then we also had a closed season for fishing, trout started on a May1st, bass on June 1st, fishing closed November 1st. So we didn't know hair jigs were good in cold water because they were good all the time. Today I fish hair jigs year around and the nobody told the bass not to eat them.

Tom

 

I agree with you, they will eat them all season but one thing we've noticed in the waters we fish is that large silicone skirted jigs do better in the warmer months. When I discovered hair jigs in the late 80s, I used them all the time but we can never leave well enough alone so we would do side by side comparisons to see what was better when and where. We found that hair jigs work well in warm water just like cold but we caught more and larger fish on the silicone and we figured is the fish eating the bigger bait consistently when its metabolism is high. I love fishing hair but I keep it confined to cold water mostly because other baits come into play and seem to get better numbers of larger fish for us, and in the cold water, skirted jigs don't do well even though you can still get them to bite one, hair will work better so we use what gives us the best chance of getting more, and larger fish and for me, in my ,waters, it is silicone and rubber in warm water and hair in color water.

[WRB]

Vynl rubber skirts followed hair or feathered jig skirts, the hair jig period was over, vynl was final.

The only soft plastic trailers back in those days were high floatation (super float) soft plastic worm cut to 4" and split the tail about 3" used the vynl jig....the hot set up for the 70's.

Silicone and living rubber skirts came out during the 80's along with Mistertwister curl single and Double tail grubs that became the next hot jig trailer. Today there are more choices than anyone could use in a life time, lots of choices that catch bass.

Nothing that has come out in my life time (over 70 years) works better for big bass consistantly than hair jigs with pork trailer. Consider this; 50+ bass over 15 lbs caught on hair jigs with pork trailers, 0 over 15 lbs on any other type of jig during the same time period. Yes, I use 75% of my jig fishing time using hair jigs, so the odds favor hair jigs, but not 50 to 0. The reason may be hair with pork feels real to big bass and that gives me enough time to detect a strike that could be easily missed using other combinations, who knows.

I can tell you this I have lakes to myself using a very effective jig few bass ever see.

Good article, don't always think super slow, sometimes slow foreword movement with shaking is the trick. I do this this by shaking the reel handle for 10 to 15 seconds that transfers rod tip motion to the line and slight movement to the jig, turn the handle 1 to 2 times and repeat....slow but very effective cold water retrieve.

Tom

[scaleface]

WRB you just convinced me to try hair jigs again .   I have a few but very seldom  use them .    

[CJ]

Great post and some great looking jigs!!!

[Lendiesel22]

Nice post thanks

[travis23]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to explain the basics!

[bowhunter63]

Great post and thanks for sharing 

[Todd2]

I do this this by shaking the reel handle for 10 to 15 seconds that transfers rod tip motion to the line and slight movement to the jig, turn the handle 1 to 2 times and repeat....slow but very effective cold water retrieve.

Tom

Great post Smalljaw....Tom is your retrieve much different in warm water? Also, what size do you normally throw for deeper structure?

[WRB]

Great post Smalljaw....Tom is your retrieve much different in warm water? Also, what size do you normally throw for deeper structure?

I experiment constantly with rate of fall by changing trailer sizes and retreive speeds to determine what gets strikes. I only use 1 weight hair jig 7/16 oz and change line diameter 10 to 14 lb test and trailers from 2" to 4" to change rate of fall. Generally fishing from 3' to 30' depths using a similar retreive 1 to 3 reel turns with a few shakes making 75' to 120' length casts. In warmer water a little faster and slower in colder water. Knowing the approximate depth zone the bass are active in is critical.

Tom