What is this lure?

[Luke Barnes]

So I'm 99% sure it's a jerkbait. I found it one day so no idea on the brand. It floats, when I steady reel it dives maybe 5 feet. When I work it like a jerk bait I have to jerk the fire out of it to get it to dive then it quickly floats back to the surface. Any help???

[Fishes in trees]

I've seen those around - can't place the brand right now.  Apparently it is a smaller jerk bait that floats.  Given the angle of the lip, it ain't going to dive real fast or very deep.  Several quick jerks is probably as deep as that bait is going to get.  If you're getting 5 feet out of that lure, that's pretty good IMO, given the angle of the lip.  If you want it to dive and stay down, not rise as fast or at all, start experimenting with suspend dots and suspend strips.  These are sticky little pieces of lead tape that you place on the bait to affect diving, how fast it rises (if at all) and it attitude when it is suspending.  In olden times, before suspend dots became readily available guys experimented with wrapping different gauges of wire around the shaft of the treble hook.  You can also melt some solder into the inner gap of the treble hook to create a weighted treble.  At the golf club store, you can get weighted lead tape that you can cut and shape and affix to the belly of the bait.  There are lots of different ways to weight a jerk bait or a crank bait for that matter.

 

I think that wiggle warts work better with one suspend dot centered on the keel of the bait, between the lip and the first hook hanger.  With most baits, that area is a good place to start your weighting experiments.

[Luke Barnes]

I just found out about suspend strips and dots yesterday on you tube. Never heard or thought of something like that. I may pick up a pack and experiment. 

[galyonj]

I don't know the brand, but your OP is a pretty accurate description of a floating jerkbait. There are generally three different flavors of hard jerkbait – floating, suspending, and sinking. They all do pretty much what it says on the tin.

[TnRiver46]

I’m guessing Cotten cordell floating jerkbait. That or Ozark trail brand 

[Bluebasser86]

16 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’m guessing Cotten cordell floating jerkbait. That or Ozark trail brand 

Agreed, one of the bargain baits from Walmart off the bottom shelf boxes.

[Luke Barnes]

Gotcha. I found it on the bank of a reservoir so had no idea.

 

I honestly dont like it because it floats and I have to jerk it so hard to get it to dive and do its thing. I'm going to try suspend strips I think. 

 

This is my only hard jerkbait so trying to work with what I have. 

[JediAmoeba]

4 hours ago, Luke Barnes said:

Gotcha. I found it on the bank of a reservoir so had no idea.

 

I honestly dont like it because it floats and I have to jerk it so hard to get it to dive and do its thing. I'm going to try suspend strips I think. 

 

This is my only hard jerkbait so trying to work with what I have. 

You are better off buying a suspending jerkbait than buying suspend strips.  You will invest about the same amount of money and getting it to suspend will take a lot of tinkering.

[moguy1973]

Looks like a Bass Pro XPS bargain bin jerkbait.  Maybe an older one because I'm not seeing that color on their current website.

[Munkin]

On 11/15/2019 at 2:53 PM, TnRiver46 said:

Ozark trail brand 

Or Blaze?

 

Allen

[TnRiver46]

10 hours ago, Luke Barnes said:

Gotcha. I found it on the bank of a reservoir so had no idea.

 

I honestly dont like it because it floats and I have to jerk it so hard to get it to dive and do its thing. I'm going to try suspend strips I think. 

 

This is my only hard jerkbait so trying to work with what I have. 

Floating jerkbaits are very common a catch a lot of fish, they are supposed to behave that way 

[galyonj]

14 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Floating jerkbaits are very common a catch a lot of fish, they are supposed to behave that way 

Especially if it's got a big knocker in it for sound, working that right will call them up to you.

[Luke Barnes]

2 hours ago, galyonj said:

Especially if it's got a big knocker in it for sound, working that right will call them up to you.

Ok so maybe not the best fall jerkbait, but when they are shallower it can be good? I think instead of throwing it on my medium rod I'll throw it on the MH to get some more pulling power on the jerks to get it to dive more. 

 

Would you all work this fast or slow? Like barely any pause or still a decent pause between pops?

[galyonj]

2 hours ago, Luke Barnes said:

Ok so maybe not the best fall jerkbait, but when they are shallower it can be good? I think instead of throwing it on my medium rod I'll throw it on the MH to get some more pulling power on the jerks to get it to dive more. 

 

Would you all work this fast or slow? Like barely any pause or still a decent pause between pops?

This is just me, mind, but I prefer to throw jerkbaits and walking baits on a MH rod rather than a medium. Either will do just fine, and it's good to experiment to see what you like the feel and response of better.

 

With regard to the retrieve speed, you're probably better off using the temperature of the water as a guidepost here. Anything moving or twitching real fast in cold water is gonna stick out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way.

[Luke Barnes]

18 hours ago, galyonj said:

This is just me, mind, but I prefer to throw jerkbaits and walking baits on a MH rod rather than a medium. Either will do just fine, and it's good to experiment to see what you like the feel and response of better.

 

With regard to the retrieve speed, you're probably better off using the temperature of the water as a guidepost here. Anything moving or twitching real fast in cold water is gonna stick out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way.

I was thinking that, and that's why I didnt think it would be good for cold water. Once I stop popping it, it will float to the surface and didnt think they would want any topwater or close to the top of the water this time of year. 

 

I saw at BPS they had some cheap $2.50 jerkbaits but didnt say it they were floating, suspending, or sinking. 

[galyonj]

19 minutes ago, Luke Barnes said:

I was thinking that, and that's why I didnt think it would be good for cold water. Once I stop popping it, it will float to the surface and didnt think they would want any topwater or close to the top of the water this time of year. 

 

I saw at BPS they had some cheap $2.50 jerkbaits but didnt say it they were floating, suspending, or sinking. 

You instincts are mostly correct, but you can still get hit at the top of the water column in cold water. Fish are weird, dude. 

Think of it this way: Under normal, non-spawn circumstances, they wanna be either where easy food is, where they've got easy access to a temperature they find more comfortable, right?

 

Now consider that most baitfish don't tolerate cold water well at all – we'll generally see shad die-offs when the water temp dips into the 30s.

 

These two points are part of the reason that jerkbaits work so well in the late fall/early winter. Bass are ambush predators, and they're hella lazy, so they're all about the possibility of snatching up a dying baitfish.

 

Just about all the lakes where I'm at in East Tennessee are TVA reservoirs, so there's miles of riprap banks and shallows that creep ever-closer to the main channel as TVA drops the water level for winter.
 

So at my home lake(s), what I'd do with a jerkbait like that is I'd find some shallow riprap, because that's where the warmest water's gonna be, which means that there's still some algae there, so that's where the shad's gonna be, which is pretty close to where the bass are gonna be.

 

And I'd do my level best to give that jerkbait an oscar-winning death scene.

 

Edit: If you really just hate how fast it's rising, you can tune it up with bigger hooks or adding weight some other way. But it's a free lure so you're ahead of the game right now anyway.

[Luke Barnes]

6 minutes ago, galyonj said:

You instincts are mostly correct, but you can still get hit at the top of the water column in cold water. Fish are weird, dude. 

Think of it this way: Under normal, non-spawn circumstances, they wanna be either where easy food is, where they've got easy access to a temperature they find more comfortable, right?

 

Now consider that most baitfish don't tolerate cold water well at all – we'll generally see shad die-offs when the water temp dips into the 30s.

 

These two points are part of the reason that jerkbaits work so well in the late fall/early winter. Bass are ambush predators, and they're hella lazy, so they're all about the possibility of snatching up a dying baitfish.

 

Just about all the lakes where I'm at in East Tennessee are TVA reservoirs, so there's miles of riprap banks and shallows that creep ever-closer to the main channel as TVA drops the water level for winter.
 

So at my home lake(s), what I'd do with a jerkbait like that is I'd find some shallow riprap, because that's where the warmest water's gonna be, which means that there's still some algae there, so that's where the shad's gonna be, which is pretty close to where the bass are gonna be.

 

And I'd do my level best to give that jerkbait an oscar-winning death scene.

 

Edit: If you really just hate how fast it's rising, you can tune it up with bigger hooks or adding weight some other way. But it's a free lure so you're ahead of the game right now anyway.

Very informative. Thank you!! I mainly fish ponds but do hit a few lakes occasionally with riprap on them. I've heard rock holds heat longer than anything else in the water so that makes sense. Worth a try!

[galyonj]

1 minute ago, Luke Barnes said:

Very informative. Thank you!! I mainly fish ponds but do hit a few lakes occasionally with riprap on them. I've heard rock holds heat longer than anything else in the water so that makes sense. Worth a try!

Totally does. In the absence of rocky structure, just look for a drop off. And this is a relative thing – if 10' is the deepest you got in a given body of water, that's deep enough to count for the purposes of this exercise.

[Choporoz]

Those can be very deadly.  I have a few similar from BPS.  But, I don't think of them as jerk baits.  They are fished with a slow, steady retrieve.  Pause, if you want, but they will float up quickly and that's ok.  The ones I have don't dive more than a couple feet, but display a pretty dramatic wobble.  I don't fish them over deep water unless bass are routinely busting on baitfish.  I find they're best over submergent weeds anytime, and across shallow coves in spring and fall.

You can play with suspend-strips, but they might kill the action.  Try it as a swimming, floating minnow and buy yourself a suspending jerk bait.

You may just find it to be deadly in your waters.  If so, plan on changing out the hooks with better ones of the same size.

[WRB]

Before suspending jerk bait came along we used floating shallow diving Rapala Minnow and Smithwick Rogue. 

All you need to do is start your recieve to get the floating lure to dive under water then start your jerk bait retrieve. Suspend dots are made by Storm lures, before those became available we used ceiling fan lead stick on strips or wrapped solder around the treble hook shank to get the floating lures to suspend.

Tom

[Luke Barnes]

5 hours ago, Choporoz said:

Those can be very deadly.  I have a few similar from BPS.  But, I don't think of them as jerk baits.  They are fished with a slow, steady retrieve.  Pause, if you want, but they will float up quickly and that's ok.  The ones I have don't dive more than a couple feet, but display a pretty dramatic wobble.  I don't fish them over deep water unless bass are routinely busting on baitfish.  I find they're best over submergent weeds anytime, and across shallow coves in spring and fall.

You can play with suspend-strips, but they might kill the action.  Try it as a swimming, floating minnow and buy yourself a suspending jerk bait.

You may just find it to be deadly in your waters.  If so, plan on changing out the hooks with better ones of the same size.

I've seen the BPS "minnows" so those aren't jerkbaits? Just a slender crankbait basically?