Jig Fishing (201?) and FTB

[FishnMtlHd]

Greetings all,

 

I've read a lot about "feeling the bottom" with your bait, especially with jigs or t-rigs, and I'm wondering exactly how this helps you catch fish or why it's so important? If you determine the bottom is hard or soft, then what? What do you do with this info? I've also read some anglers say they can determine more than this, such as weeds, rocks, logs, brush piles, or other structure such as medieval ships (JK) yet they never say exactly HOW they do this. More often than not, I'm finding the bottom is a mystery or perhaps I'm not paying enough attention or thinking about it enough. I suppose I can tell soft/muddy vs. hard/rocky and I understand weeds due to snagging but at the end of the day, if you're not getting bites no matter where you are, regardless of what you feel with your bait, shouldn't you just move to a new spot or ditch the bottom and fish the water column?  

[A-Jay]

There's as many ways to fish a jig / T-rigged plastic

as there are threads on this site that cover how to do it. 

@FishnMtlHd your posts asks "several' questions", the answers to which can be pretty extensive.

You might benefit from breaking it down and digesting one element at a time. 

There are some very accomplished jig fisherman on this forum, and you'll no doubt get some feed back from them here.

I may be average at best but I'll drop 3 quick hitters to get you started and then I'd encourage you to check out the info in the thread linked below.

 

1. It really pays to know 'exactly' what your bait 'feels' like as it falls to the bottom and again once it's sitting on the bottom.  Knowing how much tension it takes to lift & or move it can help you understand what the bottom composition might be like as well as improving your strike detection.

So that's something you can work on every cast.  Fishing the same rig & bait/trailer can help with this. For starters, fishing in shallow clear water where you can actually watch your bait while you 'feel your bait' can help as well.

 

2. All things being equal, Tungsten sinkers offer more 'sensitivity' than lead.  Meaning for most bassheads, it's easier to feel what a baits doing when using tungsten.  However it's a little pricey.  Most of the best jig anglers I know do not use tungsten jigs, again cost play a role but what's really happening is they don't need it.  Years of experience has honed their skills to where lead works just fine. 

 

3. Jigs / T-Rigged Plastics are generally not considered 'search baits'.  They are both at their highest power when presented into some fairly dense cover and fished mostly pretty slow.  That sort of means we're throwing them into places we have a decent idea that there's at least one bass in there.  If after a few throws, there's no bites, we more to the next piece of cover and that process continues over and over.  So it's not something we're going to cover water with.  Instead, we're looking to 'pluck' a bass out of these spots. 

Good Luck

 

And now there's this . . . 

https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/12403-jig-fishing-questions/?do=findComment&comment=145782

A-Jay

 

[roadwarrior]

4 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

And now there's this . . . 

https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/12403-jig-fishing-questions/?do=findComment&comment=145782

A-Jay

Perhaps our #1 post of all time.

 

[FishnMtlHd]

I spose I should've simplified and not even mentioned Jigs, certainly not added them to my post title as they're merely related to my main inquiry or the crux of my post which is Feeling the Bottom. Simplified, whatever you feel, great, but how does feeling whatever (on the bottom) help you catch more or better fish?

[WRB]

A-Jay explanation is spot on.

I don’t like the expression feel the bottom preferring keeping in contact with your lure of all types including bottom bumping lures like jigs and T-rigs.

Strike detection requires time on the water bass fishing, it’s a skill developed over trail and error.

We are not all safe crackers that can feel the slightest movements with out finger tip but improve with practice.

I only have been jig fishing about 7 decades and can’t tell you the feel difference between mud and clay but my finger tips can.

We have 6 senses; sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch and motion. All come into play when bass fishing. It’s our sense of touch that comes into play predominately when jig fishing. We also use sight to determine if debris has fouled the lure and smell to make sure unwanted odors are on the lure.

I watch my line closely when jig fishing for movements that tell me the jig has stopped or is moving before it stopped.

Touch tells me if the jig has changed weight with added pressure or ticks indicating something is trying to eat the jig trailer. My finger tips feeling the line tell me what’s going on underwater. You can feel the line going over a branch or through aquatic vegetation, bumping into rocks or some other hard structure element. Keeping focused and in touch with your lure will improve your strike detection because you eliminate the feedback of everything that isn’t a strike. When in doubt set the hook.

Tom

 

[RipzLipz]

In addition to the above, knowing what it feels like to drag through certain substrates (bottom composition) might add a piece to the puzzle in determining what is holding fish that outing. For example, if you know the difference between what a gravel bottom versus a soft or mud bottom feels like, this can assist in eliminating potentially unproductive areas more quickly. Bass can hold in certain areas that transition from one substrate into another. Being able to feel the change in composition might locate & put fish in the boat.

 

Shell beds are popular areas to try & fish because in some bodies of water, they can hold boatloads of bass. Some anglers can tell the difference between gravel & shell beds just by dragging their jigs/weights through them.

 

I am of the opinion that part of fishing is an angler trying to paint a more complete picture of what’s going on around them, especially below the surface of the water. The more complete the picture, the higher chance of success an angler might be able to achieve. Stack as many of the odds in your favor & positive things are bound to happen.

[PhishLI]

The majority of my local fishing is at no-boats lakes. My leg-up is wading, but I really can't see much more than someone stuck on the bank as I really can't get out too far. Pad fields are obvious in where they begin and end, but weed beds aren't at 40'-150' out. I use jigs as a tool to find where they begin and end, and the lanes in between them. When the fish aren't eating up, or directly in the weeds, or when I can't get them to bite there, I like to run the open lanes of those weed bed edges and the gaps I've found. They're perfect ambush points, and just like running baits right on the edge of lily pad fields, I often find fish there waiting in ambush. Not necessarily with a jig either, but sometimes.

[fin]

3 hours ago, FishnMtlHd said:

if you're not getting bites no matter where you are, regardless of what you feel with your bait, shouldn't you just move to a new spot or ditch the bottom and fish the water column?  

 

1 hour ago, FishnMtlHd said:

Simplified, whatever you feel, great, but how does feeling whatever (on the bottom) help you catch more or better fish?

 

There is a value in being able to see the bottom in your mind through your lure, but like you say, if you don’t catch anything, the value is moot.

 

You can see your lure on the top of the water, and you can feel it on the bottom, and everything in between is mostly a mystery. I think the value there should be obvious. It’s like feeling your way through a dark room. If you can’t feel the wall, you don’t know where you are.

 

Just because you don’t catch a fish the first time you fish along the bottom doesn’t mean that that you didn’t learn something of value, even if you can’t see it or appreciate it. It takes a long time. The way some people describe their skill sounds like bull, but that’s due more to the fact that they’re trying to describe vibrations through words. It’s not something that’s easy to describe.

 

There was a time when if I felt my crankbait bump into something on the bottom, I would then avoid casting to that area because I didn’t want to get hung up and lose my lure. Eventually I learned to try to find things to bump into on the bottom, because that’s where the fish usually are.  I enjoy fishing crankbaits a lot more now because of it. I still suck at jigs. I'm like you - I can tell the difference between mud and rocks and grass, but that's about it.

 

Also, obviously if you don't have a sensitive rod, it's almost impossible to feel anything.

[softwateronly]

All great stuff above. My little add is that I use the feel of bottom cover to induce a strike. Many times I believe fish are right on top of the jig or worm and when you can successfully pop your bait free at speed but without much distance, the bass attack the fleeing prey. 
 

scott

[Choporoz]

I fish a lot of water with wood.... when I am dragging the bottom and hit wood, my eyes light up.  I am very focused trying to visualize whether it is a brush pile, a log, standing timber, underwater laydown, etc.  Even a small branch can have bass oriented to it.  Same with rocks in some areas.  Focusing on the bottom contact is also critical around drop offs and ledges... it is easy to launch off a ledge and miss the money spots close to the wall if you aren't careful and paying attention when you come to the edge.  When I hit a pad stem or I hang slightly on a weed, I pause and carefully work around through or over.  Deflections of all sorts can trigger strikes.

[Bird]

A caveman answer.......I do best with jigs around wood on a slow retrieve, bumping everything.

[Tennessee Boy]

A lot of good information has already been posted.  I’ll add that when you detect a change in bottom composition you should follow the edge between the two bottom types.  Edges are always a good place to find fish.  In the modern world,  it’s much easier to find these edges with electronics than by dragging a lure.

[WRB]

What you see above the water is almost always continued below the water. Be observant!

Tom

[GRiver]

WOW!!

information overload 

[Catt]

Back before we had high tech electronics, dragging a Jig-n-Craw or Carolina Rig was how we determined bottom composition.

 

As @Tennessee Boy mentioned bottom composition changes are breaklines. It also indicates where vegetation will stop growing, again another breakline. 

[LogFinder]

Everyone here is giving good information. The thing about feeling the bottom is you have to view it as data collection. So say you are sitting on the top of a hump and throwing deep. As you drag back up the hump you are feeling for changes. So if you make a 40yd cast and about half way back something starts to feel different then suddenly the line goes tick. Well now you have data to run on. You know what direction you were throwing it and can estimate how far the fish are from the top of the hump. You know if when you drag the jig and it just feels soft, boring, and mushy you have sand or silt. If it’s rapid tap taps across the bottom you have gravel or shell. If it’s kind of chunky and sharp feeling it’s larger rocks, a little more dull but still chunky then wood. So as the data comes in you have to imagine what it may look like. As you start catching more you start to develope a pattern. Now use that data to fish around the rest of the hump. 

[RAM3139]

Others here have a lot more experience here with bottom fishing jigs and t-rigs in cover, but I'll add in my simplified thought on the matter.

 

When you are learning this type of fishing, the hardest thing is determining what is bottom/cover vs what is fish.  The more you can pay attention to the subtle differences in feel between various bottom compositions and cover, the better you will be able recognize when something is "off" and that means a fish.

 

[Munkin]

While I know how to tell the bottom makeup by dragging a bait I just can't explain it? After 20-30 years of fishing a jig you just "know" what the jig feels like.

 

The best advise I can give is just fish the bait and get used to what it feels like coming across the bottom. You will learn what the normal feel is of the bait" i.e. not catching a fish" so when something abnormal happens set the hook. Only thing that still messes me up is hooking fishing line broke off in the water which always feels like a fish.

 

Allen

[FishnMtlHd]

Thanks all, phenomenal info and answers my inquiry perfectly. 2 of my 6 rods now have jigs.