How to catch fish on a jerkbait year round

[Takemetothebank]

While most people think of jerkbaits as a strictly cold water bait fished with a slow cadence this is not unlocking the true potential of this bait. Hard and soft jerkbaits are something I always have rigged everytime I go fishing. 
 

let’s start with the differences and application of hard vs soft jerkbaits listed below is how where and why I fish each and the subcategories that hard jerkbaits are best divided into. Imo 

 

 

soft jerkbaits 

 

Soft  jerk-baits excell in weeds and heavy coves they can be absolutely deadly under docks lay down and in super thick cover as you can texpose or in some baits even cover the hook point completely this is due to most hard jerks having 3 sets of trebles making them a nightmare in weeds and cover. The exception to this is deeper vegetation and shallow hard jerkbaits that allow you to fish 1-4 feet over the submerged vegetation but I almost always like a soft jerk-bait on those situations. Moving your soft bait quickly over the thick stuff and letting it shiny down into holes in the grass is absolutely deadly as well as skipping it under docks and cover and fishing them slow in the summertime. All in all soft jerkbaits are best utilized wherever you don’t want to lose your 15-25$ lure the cadences for these baits are not as important but the fall of shimmy when you kill it is these are almost never moved with the reel instead by snapping the slack in your line back and forth like a walk the dog style bait. they can also be a deadly follow up bait and can catch fish in similar situations to a wacky senko but offer a different shape and movement that can be deadly when everyone else has a wacky wig.

 

 

hard jerkbaits are best broken up into 2 categories twitch baits and rip baits 

 

rip baits and example is the Kvd jerkbait if you look at the body and it’s wide and thick the bait takes more energy from your rod to move these baits are best when you are tying to drawl a fish attention through a flash most of the time they will have a roll when they twitch and put off a crazy flash into the water these baits are killer on sunny days year round but need to be worked very aggressively to be effective i generally go to a 1-2-3 pause 1-2 and they speed of the snaps and pauses will vary depending on water temp

 

twitch baits are arguably the best all around jerkbait my favorites are the rapalla shadow rap berkley Stunna witch can work as a rip or a twitch bait and the notorious megabass vision 110 comming in at whopping 25$ per lure but well worth the investment. The lure I carry and throw 90% of the time is the Stunna because it is so versatile and I love the slow sink action. In the winter this is Uber important as you want your bait to shimmy down to the fish. In cold water i favour the vision as it has a less aggressive action. Spring- fall you will be surprised how hard fish will hit a jerkbait especially on either side of the spawn or around the shad spawn. I use the same 1-2-3 pause 1-2 cadence but I only every fish a slack line unlike the rip baits that don’t do much fished on slack the twitch bait catagory is also deadly for casting at fish chasing shad and is more effective at catching feeding fish than almost any other lure. Whenever I see gosh bust I instantly stop and grab a jerk-bait rod. Try hard jerkbait a above any submerged cover fish will swim up 5-10 feet in clear water to smoke these things I promise. My rule of thumb is I want my bait to be fished about 5 feet over the structure. 
 

Rod reel and line 

 

for a rod I like a 6’10 medium fast action 

I swap between mono and fluorocarbon I fish mono when the water temps get over 55 fluro under 55 the reason is that with a fast action rod when are actively feeding they will hammer you bait and it becomes less important for your bait to sink down to them like during winter. and with a fast action rod the stretch in the mono helps to keep those tiny trebles pinned.

 

modifications you want your bait to sink head down in cold water and tail down in warm water this is a presence for me but you can upsize the back or front hooks to make this happen it is especially helpful if you would like to fish mono year round

 

 

 

 

[Takemetothebank]

If you guys have any questions or if I missed anything lmk I saw a 8 pg jerkbait thread and have some crazy days with them so I figured I would give my input 

[Bird]

55 minutes ago, Takemetothebank said:

If you guys have any questions or if I missed anything lmk I saw a 8 pg jerkbait thread and have some crazy days with them so I figured I would give my input 

Nice write-up, thanks.

Oh, I'm a fan of both ?

[Takemetothebank]

autocorrect makes fishing lingo a little difficult but I assume u guys get the gist