Jerkbait Revelation Today

[Tom Rust]

Many of you probably have gone down this road ahead of me, but this came as something of a surprise today: Farmpond with 52 degrees and using a Stunna jerk with “traditional” jerk-jerk-pause cadence. Nothing forc30 minutes even though water was super clear. Then I decided to just do a slow  wind on my reel after the lure was halfway back to shore, like a crankbait retrieve and….Bam! 3 nice bass on 3 consecutive casts, and 2 more after a couple empty retrieves in between. So in 10 minutes just totally re-wrote how to work a jerk. First half of retrieval jerk-jerk-pause to pique their interest then making it look like the minnow is recovering and slowly swimming off, and they couldn’t handle that scenario. Anyone else do it like that????

[gunsinger]

Never have, but I suspect I will now. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

To me that indicates that you had long followers that weren't committing until they had their "eat or leave" moment upon your straight retrieve.    I have many a fish hit the jerkbait near the boat the moment I decided the cast was over and lifted the rod and started to reel quickly.     FFS sonar has taught us the upward lifting of the bait toward the surface triggers a feed response because the fish know the bait will be trapped by the surface.   

 

Many times you can get those fish to commit without the straight retrieve by changing something in the cadence.   Or you could have got those fish to eat the bait sooner with a straight retrieve the whole cast which I do fairly often.   

 

To me the half the fun of a jerkbait is getting that incredible slack line hit on a jerk/pause retrieve.    

 

Your theory is just as valid as mine, the Bass aren't gonna say 😁

[GreenPig]

I got get me a jerkbait.😁 I've caught some slow reeling but I've also caught them letting it slow sink for 25 seconds, Stunnas and Rapalas.

[Swamp Girl]

Well done, Tom!

[papajoe222]

It's always a kick when something like this happens. Glad you 'figured out' how they wanted it.

Something similar happened to me. I made a cast with a football jig and ended up with a bit of an over run.  It didn't take long to untangle. When I went to move the jig afterword, you guessed it, fish on.  That was the ticket for the day; let the jig sit for a while before moving it. Never would have thought of that on my own.

[Flippin4Biggins]

I think most of us have a revelation on this type of scenario.

 

one day I got super angry fishing it slow and so I started a cadence of pop pop pop pause pop pause pop pop that eventually made me angry bc I felt they should be where I was.  It went from pops to aggressive F-it F-it F-it repeatedly like 5-7 times In row before the pause and all fish that day would rip the rod out of my hand.

 

[Dwight Hottle]

Almost any retrieve can lead to success when using a jerk bait. I always incorporate a slow pull then pause then another slow pull when fishing with jerk baits. That slow pull has added a lot of extra bites for me. A straight retrieve will also trigger them. The more you fish & think about what is happening or not the better you get. 

[casts_by_fly]

10 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Almost any retrieve can lead to success when using a jerk bait. I always incorporate a slow pull then pause then another slow pull when fishing with jerk baits. That slow pull has added a lot of extra bites for me. A straight retrieve will also trigger them. The more you fish & think about what is happening or not the better you get. 

im finding the same thing the more I’m using them. I’ve come to the point where instead of swapping to a crankbait I’ll just treat the jerkbait light a crankbait at times when they don’t want it jerked. It means more time with a lure in the water and less second guessing. Just fish it and keep varying the retrieve until you find what they are eating. 

[BrianMDTX]

My inflatable is very low to the water, so it’s not a simple task to fish a jerkbait in the traditional manner. I mostly cast it, then crank the reel two or three times, wait, and repeat. 
 

tbh, I used to fish a lot in the 70s but didn’t get back to it until four years ago. Back then, I do not recall seeing these lures being fished like jerkbaits are today. 

[Born 2 fish]

Try a slow pull pause and repeat.😃

[Pat Brown]

Jerkbaits are so cool.  So so many nuances to triggering strikes within this category.

 

I'd say they're my favorite treble hook/reaction bait category by far and the one I'd keep if limited to only one.

[rangerjockey]

Sounds like time for wakebait or a squarebill also.

[scmlfty]

19 hours ago, Tom Rust said:

Many of you probably have gone down this road ahead of me, but this came as something of a surprise today: Farmpond with 52 degrees and using a Stunna jerk with “traditional” jerk-jerk-pause cadence. Nothing forc30 minutes even though water was super clear. Then I decided to just do a slow  wind on my reel after the lure was halfway back to shore, like a crankbait retrieve and….Bam! 3 nice bass on 3 consecutive casts, and 2 more after a couple empty retrieves in between. So in 10 minutes just totally re-wrote how to work a jerk. First half of retrieval jerk-jerk-pause to pique their interest then making it look like the minnow is recovering and slowly swimming off, and they couldn’t handle that scenario. Anyone else do it like that????

I have read somewhere that in Japan, they reel in jerkbait a lot more often than here.

[FishTank]

22 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

To me that indicates that you had long followers that weren't committing until they had their "eat or leave" moment upon your straight retrieve.    I have many a fish hit the jerkbait near the boat the moment I decided the cast was over and lifted the rod and started to reel quickly.     FFS sonar has taught us the upward lifting of the bait toward the surface triggers a feed response because the fish know the bait will be trapped by the surface.   

 

Many times you can get those fish to commit without the straight retrieve by changing something in the cadence.   Or you could have got those fish to eat the bait sooner with a straight retrieve the whole cast which I do fairly often.   

 

To me the half the fun of a jerkbait is getting that incredible slack line hit on a jerk/pause retrieve.    

 

Your theory is just as valid as mine, the Bass aren't gonna say 😁

 

There are three jerkbaits from Megabass that offer an odd kind of retrieve,  the 110 R, the 110 High Float and the LBO. The 110 R has an odd upward dart and weird action on straight retrieve. The 110 High Float you real and pause. The 110 LBO has a rolling action. For me the regular 110 is still where it's at.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

1 hour ago, FishTank said:

 

There are three jerkbaits from Megabass that offer an odd kind of retrieve,  the 110 R, the 110 High Float and the LBO. The 110 R has an odd upward dart and weird action on straight retrieve. The 110 High Float you real and pause. The 110 LBO has a rolling action. For me the regular 110 is still where it's at.

Dying to get the new 110 RS.     I would have already killed them with this bait in shallow flats schooling on bait prespawn.    I have to take a 110 and jerk it upwards, but amazingly it works awesome in 1-3fow without fouling the hooks.   

Still though the RS is going to be the deal whenever it comes out.

 

 

[FishTank]

7 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Dying to get the new 110 RS.     I would have already killed them with this bait in shallow flats schooling on bait prespawn.    I have to take a 110 and jerk it upwards, but amazingly it works awesome in 1-3fow without fouling the hooks.   

Still though the RS is going to be the deal whenever it comes out.

 

 

 

That's another one on my list. I have a few of the Great Hunting 110's on order. We will see how they differ when they come in. 

 

If you are looking for a slow floating jerkbait, take a look at the Nishine 115's. They have a few different models. I got one last year but have only used it a few times. It's a weird one but it allows you to adjust how the bait sinks or floats with the weights that are included with it.  They also have a shallow version (0-1 foot) which I have been wanting to try. 

[BlakeMolone]

with the smaller jerkbaits like the pointer 65 I love to switch between twitching it and cranking it in. Do a few twitches, burn it, pause it, twitch it, burn it etc.

[MIbassyaker]

Heh, first time I fished minnow-shaped plugs, I would just straight reel them in all the time and catch fish...floating, suspending, sinking, whatever. I didn't know some of them were meant to be jerked, or that they were even called "jerkbaits" until much later.

[Functional]

Same, until I came to this site I always fished Rapalas kind of like crank baits. Always had great success that way.