Fish Rejecting Jig Question

[LrgmouthShad]

Hey ya’ll,

 

Question for you. Do you think that if a fish grabs a jig but there is no tension in the line (i.e it fell on a slack line and there is still slack in the line), it can still feel the weight of the jig and realize it is unnatural? I think I may have a misunderstanding regarding fish rejecting jigs. I’ve read several of @WRB’s posts regarding huge Florida-strain largemouth rejecting jigs in the blink of an eye, but what if there is no tension? Just looking for some expert advice from you all on this one. I unfortunately can’t ask the largemouth. We haven’t been on talking terms recently

[Jig Man]

It may be reaction time.  I read a study once where reaction time was discussed.  It stated that a human’s reaction time is 3/4 of a second while a bass’s is 1/25 of a second.  If this is the case it is a wonder we ever catch one.

[Deleted account]

43 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

  It stated that a human’s reaction time is 3/4 of a second.

If that was the case hockey scores would look like basketball ones...

[813basstard]

You ain’t fishing enough my man…just like a woman, don’t let rejection affect the next cast!

[LrgmouthShad]

4 minutes ago, 813basstard said:

You ain’t fishing enough my man…just like a woman, don’t let rejection affect the next cast!

You’re right, I ain’t ever fishing enough.
 

To clarify this was a hypothetical question. But that is not at all to say I haven’t ever missed a jig strike. I believe I have missed a couple monsters that I can remember, and those are only the ones that I could tell…

[WRB]

Some strikes go undetected. A good video to watch bass rejecting lures is Glenn * Big Mouth Forever. There is a sequence where Homer Circle is retrieving diving crank baits with treble hooks and big bass completely engulf the lure and reject it without Homer detecting the strike. 

If this video doesn’t enlighten you nothing will!

Tom

* Glen  Lau

[Catt]

A jig imitates a crawfish correct?

Yes I believes they do

A crawfish has a hard shell does it not?

Yes they in fact have a hard shell

Why would a bass spit what it preceives to be a crawfish because it feels somthing hard?

 

When the bass "crushes" the jig to kill it; it feels the hardness of a shell, the softness of the skirt, & the firmness of the trailer just like a crawfish. 

 

As for the weight, how much do ya think a 4-6" crawfish weighs?

[Tatsu Dave]

Catt ya just got a way with words...........WRB it was Glen Lau

[the reel ess]

It's my experience that, if you can get a bass to take the jig, they'll hold it a while. A good bit of the time that's how I recognize the strike. The jig's just moving off in an odd direction. I either get that type of bite or the bass tries to yank the jig away from me.

[LrgmouthShad]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

A jig imitates a crawfish correct?

Yes I believes they do

A crawfish has a hard shell does it not?

Yes they in fact have a hard shell

Why would a bass spit what it preceives to be a crawfish because it feels somthing hard?

 

When the bass "crushes" the jig to kill it; it feels the hardness of a shell, the softness of the skirt, & the firmness of the trailer just like a crawfish. 

 

As for the weight, how much do ya think a 4-6" crawfish weighs?

Thanks for response Catt. So it is primarily line tension that the fish feel. I was reading something that Hackney once said. He said when he flips a jig, after throwing slack for a vertical descent, he slowly reels in the slack so as to not quickly put tension that the fish can feel. That prompted my question. I thought Hackney’s method was clever.

[T-Billy]

Pays to be a line watcher. A couple weeks ago I was fishing a T rigged beaver along a laydown. I pulled it over a limb and let it fall on semi slack line. The bait fell for about one second and stopped. I didn't feel anything, the line didn't jump, but I knew it stopped falling too soon. I catch at least one off this tree more often than not so, I didn't even bother feeling for it. I just swung. A 4 1/4 pound LM had gently grabbed it on the fall. 

 

This is one of the things I like best about braid. The lack of stretch enables me to drive the hook home with a shorter swing. If I'm being diligent about my rods position as I should be, keeping the tip no higher than 10 o'clock, I don't have to reel down as I would with mono or flouro. The quicker hookset gives them far less time to spit the bait. Some days this isn't that big a deal. Some days, when they're being finicky, it's huge.

[Sam]

OK, so now let me get this straight. You live in a beautiful state with a bunch of great universities, cute coeds, great bar-b-q, and you go to school in New York? That could be a clue for us to include in our reaction to your query.

 

In his book, Knowing Bass, The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish, Dr. Keith Jones, retired director of research at Berkley, penned the following on page 52: Recently, Dr. John Caprio and his LSU Colleagues measured the nervous response of a bass to a variety of amino acids. Several were found to stimulate the gustatory and olfactory systems.

 

The amino acids L-arginine and L-lysine were especially potent.  Others substances that bass can smell and taste include sugars, salts, alcohols, acids, bitter substances like quinine, and many environmental pollutants.  Bass exhibit sensitivity to all four of the basic taste sensations (sweet, salty, sour, and bitter) common to humans.

 

On page 72, there is a chart illustrating the time a bass will hold onto a crankbait with and without scent:

Adding Scent to Crankbaits

Without Scent  21 strikes

With Scent  44 strikes

 

Average Lure Retention Time in Seconds

Without Scent  .390 Seconds (Less than 4/10ths of a second)

With Scent  .9 Seconds (Almost one full second)

 

This is why we miss so many strikes. The bass knows the lure is there; he uses his lateral line to find out what direction the vibrations are coming; he then sets his eyes on the lure; and he attacks it either viscously or very softly.

 

The bass will decide if the crankbait is food or not, and if not, spit it out before you may even know he took it in his mouth. 

 

The chart of page 74 reads: Bass are not always the aggressive feeders they are made out to be.  Attacks on slow-moving soft plastics often come as a series of short pecks with quick release times.  As revealed in the probability distributions, less than 20% of the strikes on unscented worms result in a bass holding the worm longer than 8 seconds.  Only 30% of the strikes lasted longer than four seconds, and half ended in less than a second and a half. Adding an attractive scent to the soft plastic does not fully reverse this trend, as some bass continue to only peck at the worm regardless of the scent.  However, scent does increase the probability that the bass will hang on longer.  More than half the strikes on a scented worm were held for close to six seconds.

 

So your problem may be solved by putting scents on your baits and keeping a finger on your line at all times when possible and also by watching your line closely. You have to be fast with your hookset.

 

And as Hank Parker has always told us, "it doesn't cost anything to set the hook."

 

Good luck and give some scent a try and let us know if your hook-up ratio improves.

 

 

15 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Pays to be a line watcher. A couple weeks ago I was fishing a T rigged beaver along a laydown. I pulled it over a limb and let it fall on semi slack line. The bait fell for about one second and stopped. I didn't feel anything, the line didn't jump, but I knew it stopped falling too soon. I catch at least one off this tree more often than not so, I didn't even bother feeling for it. I just swung. A 4 1/4 pound LM had gently grabbed it on the fall. 

 

This is one of the things I like best about braid. The lack of stretch enables me to drive the hook home with a shorter swing. If I'm being diligent about my rods position as I should be, keeping the tip no higher than 10 o'clock, I don't have to reel down as I would with mono or flouro. The quicker hookset gives them far less time to spit the bait. Some days this isn't that big a deal. Some days, when they're being finicky, it's huge.

Same thing happened to me. 

 

She just inhaled the Zoom trick work as it fell. I knew there were no stumps around the area, so I hauled back and set the hook.  Less than a minute later I was unhooking a six pound lady.

[Jig Man]

3 hours ago, WRB said:

Some strikes go undetected. A good video to watch bass rejecting lures is Glenn Larew’s Big Mouth Forever. There is a sequence where Homer Circle is retrieving diving crank baits with treble hooks and big bass completely engulf the lure and reject it without Homer detecting the strike. 

If this video doesn’t enlighten you nothing will!

Tom

Tom I think that was Glenn Lau wasn’t it?  Larew was Gene and owned the Shadrack Resort at Cape Fair on Table Rock lake.

[WRB]

46 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

Tom I think that was Glenn Lau wasn’t it?  Larew was Gene and owned the Shadrack Resort at Cape Fair on Table Rock lake.

Getting old?

[Rich12]

If your pitching a jig, you have to watch your line from the time the jig hits the water until you reel it  back to the rod tip.   If your not watching with 100 percent attention, you have missed so many big fish you would cry.   Stare at your line if you got a jig one.  If you wont, sell your stuff and go bowling. Your missing probably 2/3 of the hits you get on a Jig. 

Key indicators.

1. "sink" rate of your line slows, tear her head off

2. Line stops before it should, tear her head off

3. Ever so slight almost imperceptible "twitch" where your line enters water, tear her head off.

4. Jig feels mushy, tear her head off

5. Jig "disappears" and you feel nothing, really tear her head off.

 

Thats Jig pitching.  Failure to do these things has most likely cost you a PB you never knew was there.

 

 

[Koz]

Some fish don't dig the jig - the prefer a good hula instead ?

 

[Tatsu Dave]

Not hijacking but everyone should take the time to watch the video that Tom suggested concerning bass rejecting all types of lures while the fisherman is unaware. Amazing to see them in action on the bed and feeding on prey and lures. It will alter your preception, it did mine. Watching them get hooked was interesting as well. Good Thread.

[Catt]

3 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

I was reading something that Hackney once said. He said when he flips a jig, after throwing slack for a vertical descent, he slowly reels in the slack so as to not quickly put tension that the fish can feel.

 

Feeling a worm/jig bite requires keeping a certain amount of tension on your line while at the same time keeping a certain amount of slackness in your line. To the average angler this makes no sense at all but the worm/jig angler it makes total sense. 

 

Those bumps, thumps, tics, & taps are easy to detect, so are the ones where ya see line movement.

It's the ones where the bass inhales your jig without any tell-tale signs or movement & proceeds to sit there until you apply to much pressure at which time they spit it.

Keeping a certain amount of tension while keeping a certain amount to slackness will "clue" you in on two bites.

If you jig/t-rig is sitting still & your line gets tighter or your line gets slacker odds are you've had a bass pick up your lure!

 

@Sam That's why I don't wait on anything!

 

When in doubt, drop the rod, reel the slack, and set the hook.

[LrgmouthShad]

4 hours ago, Sam said:

OK, so now let me get this straight. You live in a beautiful state with a bunch of great universities, cute coeds, great bar-b-q, and you go to school in New York?

I do love NC. And thank you for your comment. Very informative and I appreciate the time you put into writing it

1 hour ago, Catt said:

Feeling a worm/jig bite requires keeping a certain amount of tension on your line while at the same time keeping a certain amount of slackness in your line

Great advice as always, thank ya

[papajoe222]

A fish may reject a jig for reasons other than it feeling line tension.  I've seen video of a bass inhaling a live craw only to immediately spit it out and inhale it from a different angle.  Normally, a bass will inhale its prey head first, but in the case of a craw, that puts its soft mouth parts and gills in peril. If you've ever felt a double tap when fishing a jig one of three things has happened. Either a fish has hit and rejected your offering, the above has happened, or the fish has attempted to crush the 'craw' then spit it out and sucked it back in before swallowing. The last takes some time and if you're feeling that, your strike detection needs work.

[WRB]

Between 1967 to 1973 I fish for FLMB in the San Diego lakes joining the Pisces bass club in 1969.

The FLMB we different then Northern LMB and difficult to catch on traditional bass lures. I learned to use live bait like crawdads nose hooked weightless. Free lining a nose hooked crawdad was every effective. You know when a bass is near the live crawdad because it starts kicking to get way just before the bass engulfs it. When a bass strikes a crawdad it doesn’t reject it, just moves off with it and a easy hook set.

Bass know the difference between a jig and a live crawdad.

Does Bass always reject a jig...no sometimes they eat it and move off with it or just sit there and continue crunching it, we catch those bass nearly every time. My educated guess is about 50% of the initial jig strikes we miss completely. Much higher rejection rate then soft plastic worms that in time bass will swallow it’s so life like to them.

Tom

[Sphynx]

7 hours ago, Catt said:

As for the weight, how much do ya think a 4-6" crawfish weighs?

Before or after it gets it's invitation to a Cajun Spa?

[Catt]

5 hours ago, Sam said:

The chart of page 74 reads: Bass are not always the aggressive feeders they are made out to be.

 

The precentage of activity feeding bass we catch is extremely low. 

 

Every bass is different, every bite is different. 

 

22 minutes ago, WRB said:

My educated guess is about 50% of the initial jig strikes we miss completely.

 

Don't know if I would go with 50% but 30-35% easily.

 

Like Denny Brauer said when asked what a jig bite felt like, he answered, I don't know but I know what it doesn't feel like.

 

I don't just watch line or feel for tension or feel a tap. I know what that jig feels like when it hits sandy bottom or is drug across a sandy bottom. The same with clay bottoms, shell beds, gravel, brush, timber, ect

 

If I don't feel that I set hook asap!

[slonezp]

17 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

The precentage of activity feeding bass we catch is extremely low. 

 

Every bass is different, every bite is different. 

 

 

Don't know if I would go with 50% but 30-35% easily.

 

Like Denny Brauer said when asked what a jig bite felt like, he answered, I don't know but I know what it doesn't feel like.

 

I don't just watch line or feel for tension or feel a tap. I know what that jig feels like when it hits sandy bottom or is drug across a sandy bottom. The same with clay bottoms, shell beds, gravel, brush, timber, ect

 

If I don't feel that I set hook asap!

You're showing your age Catt. Denny Brauer hasn't been relevant in years. He "jumped the shark" when he did his tv show "Schooled with Denny Brauer". Before that he was a good fisherman. 

[WRB]

I based the 50% number on experience teaching skilled tournament bass anglers how to jig fish. The only reason a skilled bass angler would want me to teach them was my success catching giant bass on jigs...they wanted to know the technique. My success is simply increased strike detection along with decades of knowing where and when to fish jigs.

Tom