swimming a jig

[Chris]

One of the things i like to do this time of the year is swimming a jig. I mainly do it in stained to clear water but have caught fish in stained to muddy water also. Am i the only one using this killer way to catch fish? I find that i catch many big fish doing this. Its also great for suspending fish. Have you tried this way of jig fishing? If so what has worked for you?

[JT Bagwell]

Chris,

I think there are hundreds of Bass anglers out there that are swimming jigs on a regular basis. Whether or not they are telling anyone is a different story.

I am very basic when I swim a jig. It is almost always white (to immitate a shad) but sometimes I use a Chartruese dye like Spike-It on the trailer. My trailers are 5" Yamamoto grubs.

The majority of the time I fish them just like I would a crankbait.

That's what works for me.

As a matter of fact, I just won a tournament a month and a half ago swimming a white jig with a 5" Yamamoto grub for a trailer (no Spike-It that day).

JT Bagwell

[bquittem]

i also swim jigs in the fall. i usually swim them along rip rap or steep banks. i also almost always use white, and i use a white super chunk plastic trailer, im not a big fan of pork. i use a rise and fall method and somtimes a faster jerking methods depends on the mood of the fish i guess.

[Chris]

When i read an article years ago about swimming a jig i never gave much thought to it. Then i read another and started thinking that it might be a great way to go behind someone fishing a spinnerbait and pick off fish. So i made my own jig just for swimming. My thing was i didn't like the position of the line tie. So this is what i came up with. I took either 1/4 oz or as light as 1/8 BPS xps weedless grub head and put a northland limber-legs holographic skirt on it. I then add either a white zoom swim chunk to it or a white bitsy tube. When i use the tube i cut off the head then push it over the collar of the skirt. All i do is reel it like a crankbait. This is a big fish bait that works great on flats or counting it down in deeper water. I made my own because i felt that if i took a normal jig and swam it the skirt would not have much life to it. With this jig the head swims with the nose pointing down and the skirt has great action to it. The trailer helps make the bait have even more action. This bait swims like its alive. Like a shad! The hook is light wire so even on a long cast you can still get a hook in the fish.

[Bassin101]

Chris & JT,  

I'm going to try this because it sounds like it will have a great fall rate.  I caught my biggest bass

4 1/2 lbs on a split tail grub on a yellow 1/2 oz jighead in the middle of the lake.  Have you ever thrown it towards shore and hopped it deeper?  Any luck?

[Chris]

I don't use this jig i spoke of to fish on the bottom because it will grab everything on the bottom and get hung up. If im going to use a jig like a jig, i use something else. Your not limited to just this jig i have used a strikeking pro model jig that was 3/8 oz  and swim it and caught big fish doing it.

Weight=depth

[Chris]

bquittem:" im not a big fan of pork". I wish there was more people like you that don't like or use pork. lol it just means more fish for me which is good. So please people boycott pork. Pork is bad plastic is good!(side note: To those who use pork like myself we know why its better don't we)lol

[Glenn]

Ease up Chris.  Everybody has their favorite, or preferred baits/methods.  Just as you, they're entitled.  You love pork?  That's great!  Talk about it's qualities and why you use it.  But don't knock those that don't.

[JT Bagwell]

lol The Bass Patrol is running radar in stealth mode.

[bquittem]

i dont care about what u say for only pork on your jigs. i have used both, i think pork is better for certion situations. like water temp dictates whether i use pork or plastic. i use zoom super chunks, or 3.5 inch craw bugs. i catch more fish with these trailers than any other. i think pork is more of a hassel, so maybe i didnt give it a fair shot, but with my expierence im better with plastic. i use a few diferent sprays to add scents. if u have any definate reasons for only using pork id like to hear them, i dont think that only pork is possible, but neither is only plastic.

[Chris]

Ok lol...The great thing about plastic is that you can match your skirt more often than pork. The new trailers that are out have salt and garlic in them. Salt was one of the main factors of why people used pork. Pork also has more life to it than plastic and is more flexable in colder water than plastic. plastic tends to be stiffer in cold water. Pork feels more like something alive because its a natural material. The fat on the pork acts like an oil slick much like spray scents. Pork also lasts longer than plastic trailers.(even cyberflex ones)Pork also holds scents longer than plastic. Pork floats and you can counter balance your jig better than plastic. Pork comes in some of the same styles as plastic (look on uncle josh webpage). I use both and feel there is a place for both. To say that you never use pork your missing out on one of the best trailers you could use. It is a proven fish catcher. Many soft plastic now have pork in them for that reason...pork catches fish!

[bquittem]

thanks for the info

i usually get my fishing tackle at the gander mountian near my house, they dont offer the large selection that uncle josh has to offer. the phantom craw is looks exactly like the plastic trailers i like. Ill have to get some of those and try them out, they look great.

[kajun]

Hey Chris,

  I'm just started jig fishing with pork within the last year or so.  I like everything about it except when i'm done fishing and I try to get the darn thing off my jig.  Any suggestions?  That might be a stupid question but i'm just a rookie so take it easy on me.

[Chris]

I don't think there is a stupid question. You can turn the pork backwards and work it off or just twist it while pulling and the pork will twist off. Uncle Josh came out with a jig that has a safty clip on it for the pork that might be an option if the pork is getting on your nerves. With this jig you can put on or take off the pork easier than a regular jig.

[Chris]

Back to swimming a jig another thing that i do is add a swivel and spinnerbait blade to the hook. I put a rubber stopper over the split ring of the swivel to help keep it on the hook. The bait acts like a roadrunner.

[Maineiac]

Hey Kajun, they make neat little plastic thing-a-ma-bobs that you slide down over the hook and the pig slips right off. Wouldn't fish pork anymore without one. Chris for swimming do you use pork like the crawfrog or kicker frog to get more action or do you tend to go with the standard pork chunks?

The last few years I have also used more of the twin tail grubs such as the Yamamoto or Chompers ones. Both work pretty well and impart a good deal of action but I find the Yammy ones get torn up rather easily especially by those pesky small smallmouths.

The 5" Kalins grubs work great for a trailer as well. Has anyone played with the larger Berkley Power grubs as a trailer? I've been curious as to how they might work.

[Nick]

Monsoor really opened up some eyes last year on the FLW trail with his swimmin jigs. He has won tons of $ on the Mississippi R. swimmin his jigs usually around weedbeds in warm weather. You can probably find a picture of his style jig and colors that he used successfully in the FLW archives in the LA swamps and deeper in a much colder Beaver Lake.

We swim lots of shad colored (white) ones often in the late summer and fall around docks at Lake of the Ozarks, but I've never won a tournament doing it. I Keep on wishing!

[earthworm77]

Deadly, deadly method! I am a big time jig guy and I swim it a ton, especially when bass are very active in the summer.

[Chris]

I use zoom swim chunk, pork #11,tubes, and the kicking pork frog. I use white mostly but have done well with black in dark water. Its not just a summer bait i have done great from the beginning of fall all the way till the lake freezes. You just gotta slow down with it.

[PishPosh]

Sorry its off topic but...

How do you keep a grub from sliding down the hook?

Just bought my first jig today (first EVER) and i've been looking at it and i just can't figure out how i would be able to keep the trailer from sliding down.

again its off topic and im sorry.  A quick answer will help lots!  Thanks!

[reellittlephish]

PishPosh,

Reccomend you get some Pro's'soft bait glue.  Put a little on the hookshank and slide the into place.  link to Pro's:

http://www.prosoftbaitglue.com/index.html

otherwise crazy glue gell in a pinch.

[Chris]

Also you can take a lighter and heat the shank then push it on the grub

[D.Taylor]

Does any one use the pork eel when swimming a jig?

For you guys who use pork i have found super pork to be the best on the market. It is thinner, comes off the hook easier and offers great action in the water. When i got ahold of these they make colors you used to not find.

Check them out you will be impressed

[L.D.]

Swimming a jig reminds me of when Mister twister came out with their grubs. Black-White-Purple that was it.(really ageing myself now).We almost always swam them in the river and they worked great! Kind of got away from them somewhat when the tube jig came along. However Mainers suggestion of putting a worm up inside of a tube sounds like a good idea. It would have action when you swim it like a minnow, or act like a crayfish on the bottom. I will try this on the old girls next spring.

[Maineiac]

LD if it makes you feel any better I remember when the only soft plastic available was those Nick Creame worms back in the 50's. I remember dad just loved those ole rigged ones and caught a ton of fish on them. I tended to try and find ways to fish the unrigged ones and threw a bunch of purple and black back when......

Yeah that jig and tube thing is a little intriguing. Hey Mainer Palermo isn't that far away maybe we could hook up in the spring and you could show me the trick. What do you know about Lake St. George? Seeing as how it's almost in your backyard and seeing as how I have a tourney on their this next year and can't say I have ever really figured the lake out.

Where does one find this super pork stuff? Is it real pork? I fished years ago with pork eels on black hair jigs. Haven't done it for years not sure why as it caught fish. But I almost never swam the rig. What I did do was fish pork eels off a Shannon Twin spin and I did swim them. Man that was effective at times. Don't know why I haven't used them for some time either but it popped into mind after reading the post on the flicker blades with the jig. I bet I still have some of those Shannons in storage, somewhere, I think. Hmmmmmm weather is pretty bad, got the snow shoveled, may have to do a little digging in the ole tackle closet this afternoon. The 7 year old grandson that fishes tourneys with me is here and loves to get into that closet. Mother can get a little alarmed when I go on a major walk down memory lane through that closet

but hey she gets into it too.

There seems to be enough appreciation of pork fat on here to make Emeril happy. I think one of the things that made V&M plastics so good was the pork fat in them.