Bass Won't Take My Jig

[fishingkidPA]

I bought 2 jigs a couple months ago, black and blue, and a green pumpkin one both 3/8 oz. I put on a matching color zoom chunk trailer ( should i not use a trailer?). When ever i fish this think at my lake i just don't get anything, then i put on a baby craw or trick worm and nail them. Could it be that maybe i should downsize my jig? i think strike king makes a bitsy jig like a finesse jig. maybe the bass are intimidated by it. haha

has anyone else fished somewhere where they just cant get a bite on a jig?

[kLuo]

absolutely, this has happened to me many times before. sometimes, the bass just want a smaller profile. another thing you can try is to just texas rig a craw without the jig in order to provide a smaller profile.

[Avalonjohn44]

I know how you feel and feel your pain. I cannot get a nibble on a jig of any size. I tried to commit to a jig last year, and fished about a dozen times with nothing but a jig. Twelve wasted trips. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[fishingkidPA]

yea im not sure either... everyone says fish the jig if you want quality and decent numbers lol, havent got either. oh well i'll keep at it i guess.

[murphy_31047]

I recommend using a little bit heavier jig and retrieve it very slowly and when you feel a little resistance pull the rod back to see if its a fish or structure on the bottom. If it feels weird set the hook. I did this and after about ten casts I got used to what the bottom feels like and hooked 10 bass over 2#. Be very slow in your retrieve that is key to learning. Once you get the hang of it, you can change it up. I would say about 8 of those ten bass I didn't feel bite I just set the hook when it felt weird and then the line started running. Bring a few extra jigs with you, cause you'll probably get excited and set the hook on a few log lunkers. Best advice I can give from personal experience. Good luck

[Flangler]

The only jig I have caught anything on is a Strike King swim jig, in the blue gill color. I added a Zoom lizard rear end as a trailer. Although I caught less fish they were bigger. Other than that time fishing with a jig, I haven't caught anything else.

[Hamby]

I fish a jig very often. I rarely catch a fish under 12 inches on one though. If you're not catching many quality fish, then that's probably why you can't catch one on a jig. A jig is definitely NOT about numbers though.

[Evans]

I know everyone of us has heard how to fish a jig 100x and when you first start fishing it, it is a very difficult lure to gain confidence in. There are so many different ways to fish it and all the different colors etc. I have caught hundreds of fish on a jig but there are days that even I lose confidence in it. Just like murphy posted in here and many others have said, fish it SLOW. Sometimes they will bite it if you hop it, but I just like to slowly crawl it most of the time. If I'm flipping it into cover, I like to let it soak for about 30 seconds before I even move it. Then I will just barely move it once and let it soak a little more, then start slowly crawling it back. I absolutely love pitching into trees with a rattleback jig and 20lb fluoro! Just keep it in the water and you will eventually get some bites.

I also started catching a lot more when I started paying more attention to what a crawfish looks like. Here's a link of one in my area:

http://www.crusta10.de/templates/index.php?sideid=galerie&showpicture=1154&galerie_id=280&lang_id=2&showid=154&katid=2

I started using a Green pumpkin jig with same color of trailer and took one of the spike it markers and accented the jig with some orange. It works pretty good around here in march-may.

Charlie Hartley, during 2008 Classic, said that most people's biggest mistake with a jig is not keeping it on the bottom. Not sure if this is an issue, but make sure it's always on the bottom(except for swim jigs etc.). A jig bite feels a lot different than other bites too. Sometimes I never feel them bite, it just feels heavy or "mushy". I've found that most of the time when I feel the bite, it's usually too late. One last word of advice, if you can't find the jig you want, make it. Plenty of jig heads, skirts, and other components you can buy on the net and make your own jigs. It has helped my jig fishing tremendously being able to make the color of skirts that I want and not relying on factory jigs. Best of luck to ya and tight lines!

[Crestliner2008]

I like to fish a R.I. Beaver on a 1/4 oz. football head jig (plain, no skirt). Had a great deal of success with this combo last season. But this season, I just wasn't getting bit. So, I downsized to the Smallie Beaver on the same kind of jig, but 1/8 oz.. That lit things up, big time!

Also, I don't use the weedguard heads. I use the open hook model and rig the beavers as if I were fishing a shakey worm, Texas rigged, more or less. Give it a try.

[RoLo]

It's my opinion that one of the biggest problems with 'jigs' is semantics.

I've been on the boards for a long while, but the definition of a 'jig' is just as muddy today

as it was in 2005. Ask yourself this one simple question: "What Is A Jig?"

The 'jig' per se is not the lure, but is a "weighting system" in which the sinker & hook are unitized.

With that in mind, there are Weedless jigs, Non-weedless jigs, Skirted jigs, Uskirted jigs, Bucktail jigs,

Marabou jigs, Bullet-head jigs, Football jigs, Arky jigs, Ball-head jigs....ad nauseam.

Fully 90% of the jigs I personally use are "unskirted" and have "no weedguard", yet they are nonetheless 'jigs'.

Unfortunately, our sport has no name for jigs with a "Z-bend shank", but I refer to them as "T-Rig Jigs".

The jig may be rigged with any soft-plastic the angler desires, which in fact represents the 'lure'.

Roger

[fishingkidPA]

very true rolo! i never thought of a t-rig as a jig but a t-rig is my go to, so is a shakey head.

[philsoreel]

Slow down and then slow down some more. When you start feeling like you are going too slow, slow down some more.

[fishingkidPA]

@philsoreel thats what i try to go by

[philsoreel]

Sometimes a smaller jig like a bitsy will work better than a bigger profile. Same principles as other baits in that regard. I'm sitting here telling you to slow way down but there are also times when a fast snapping retrieve will get their attention better. Just don't give up on it. They are very versatile lures. I never fish one straight out of the package. I put my preferred trailer on and trim it up to make sure the trailer's action isn't hindered. Youtube trimming a jig.

[BrianinMD]

One thing to keep in mind with jigs is watch your line closely, a lot of bites you will never feel but a slight twitch of the line, movement to the side, or it stopped sinking to soon to be on bottom are all indications of a strike that is easily miss. If any of this happens or the mushy feeling mentioned earlier happens set the hook, and set it like you mean it. Hook sets are free, there will be a lot of strikes to no fish but over time you learn the what was a good bite.

[1nstinct]

Same thing happened to be i have a lot of 3/8 jigs and cant get a bite on them to save my life, but fish the same waters with a 1/4 or 3/16(strike king bitsy jig) and i can always get a fish, go to dick and pick up some i just did 2 days ago(picked up about 15 jigs)

[piscicidal]

I bought 2 jigs a couple months ago, black and blue, and a green pumpkin one both 3/8 oz. I put on a matching color zoom chunk trailer ( should i not use a trailer?). When ever i fish this think at my lake i just don't get anything, then i put on a baby craw or trick worm and nail them. Could it be that maybe i should downsize my jig? i think strike king makes a bitsy jig like a finesse jig. maybe the bass are intimidated by it. haha

has anyone else fished somewhere where they just cant get a bite on a jig?

Sure, you should try downsizing...and upsizing!

One thing I've noticed jig fishing is that the fall rate is very important. My baseline jig setup is a 3/8head with a medium bulk trailer (i.e. sweet beaver). If I am fishing an area that I know has good fish and I'm not getting bit with this baseline setup, I will usually upsize the weight of the jig (or downsize the size of the skirt) to get a faster fall rate. If the fish are not actively feeding, sometimes they will grab the faster falling jig as a reaction bite (I've had good luck this way during cold fronts). If that doesn't work, I'll try and slow the fall rate by downsizing the jig or increasing the drag/bulk of the trailer (i.e. rage chunk...the swimming legs create a lot of drag, which slow the fall rate of the jig).

[fwurlitzer]

One thing to keep in mind with jigs is watch your line closely, a lot of bites you will never feel but a slight twitch of the line, movement to the side, or it stopped sinking to soon to be on bottom are all indications of a strike that is easily miss. If any of this happens or the mushy feeling mentioned earlier happens set the hook, and set it like you mean it. Hook sets are free, there will be a lot of strikes to no fish but over time you learn the what was a good bite.

THIS!! ^^ I was recently in the same boat (not literally) as the OP until i started watching my line. Sometimes i will let a couple feet of slack line sit on top of the water after it sinks. If there's no ticks in the line on the fall or when its sitting on the bottom i'll reel in the slack and jig it. I've become a constant line watcher ever since i started fishing jigs. Good Luck!

[Bassin18]

Try to make your jig look more like a baitfish, I'm not saying there aren't times where it's better off looking like a crawfish, but use a swimbait as a trailer and swim it sometimes and just see what happens

[brushhoggin]

Bass are not intimidated. Have you seen some of the alien creature baits on TW? lol. Philsoreel is close to home. Have you ever watched a crawfish move about in the water? Also do you know how far your jig moves along the bottom when you pull your rod tip a certain distance? It's all about mimicking a crawfish. They crawl, scuttle and dart around. So use your rod tip to move your jig in those same ways, giving it a good pop of the wrist every now and again but not too often, just to excite any bass that could be in the vicinity. If I'm casting long distance, its taken me at least 10 minutes before to reel in a jig if i don't get bit.

[Catt]

Rate Of Fall: the speed at which your jig falls through the water column

ROF is affected by the weight of the lead head, the skirt density, & the size of the trailer used.

One thing you will always hear is “use the lightest weight you can get away with”; this is absolutely not true for every condition. You want to use the ROF that triggers a “reaction strike”, yea but Catt jigs are not “reaction baits’. Ya they are, all lures are, bass sees lure - bass reacts!

The most common mistake I see my students make is not feeling the bite & then they automatically assume the jig aint working when in fact its operator error.

The most difficult part of jig fishing is feeling the bite, many will tell you it aint like the bite you get with a Texas Rig but it is so get that notion out of your head. But like a Texas Rig those bumps, thumps, tics, & taps are the easy ones to detect it’s the ones where the bass inhales your jig without any tell- tale sign or line movement. I say now is the time to bring forth all the expertise on feeling subtle bites stored away in your brain from Texas rigs, Wacky rigs, Drop shots and so on.

You will also hear "bass don't hold a jig long", don't be surprised when a 2 lb bass inhales your 1 oz jig without any tell-tale line movement and proceeds to sit there until you apply to much pressure at which time they spit it.

The art of feeling a worm/jig bite is a fine combination of watching your line and feeling for unnatural sensations of what your lure shouldn’t feel like. Sometimes you will feel that classic “Tap”, sometimes you’ll only see line movement, sometimes your line will simply go slack, but sometimes there will only be a feeling of heaviness that is almost like your line will not move. The bites where the bass moves after inhaling your lure are the easy ones to feel because there is line movement, the bites where the bass simply inhales your lure and just sits there are the hardest to 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.

Maintain contact with your lure at all times, allow the lure to free-fall unrestricted, but without letting slack form in the line; follow your lures down with your rod tip.

Pay close attention to the depth you're fishing, any sudden change in the amount of line you're using could mean you’ve been bit. For instance, if you're fishing 6 feet of water and the lure suddenly stops at the 3 depth, it's possible a bass has taken the lure. If you're fishing 3 feet of water and 6 feet of line sinks chances are good a bass is traveling with the lure. This is extremely true on the initial drop and no line movement maybe noticed.

[fishnabarrel]

• @ fishinkid

• your from pennsylvania right? im just west of pgh and the only time im able to catch fish on a jig is when i know there are bigger fish lurking around. when i started throwing jigs i couldnt get a bite on any size any or any color. when i finally got a bite it ended up being a 19 incher. after that i only throw a jig when i know a big fish is around and im still not a jig expert like some of these guys on here but for sure jig fishing has its ups and downs just stick with it and it'll work

[Vinny Chase]

I bought 2 jigs a couple months ago, black and blue, and a green pumpkin one both 3/8 oz. I put on a matching color zoom chunk trailer ( should i not use a trailer?). When ever i fish this think at my lake i just don't get anything, then i put on a baby craw or trick worm and nail them. Could it be that maybe i should downsize my jig? i think strike king makes a bitsy jig like a finesse jig. maybe the bass are intimidated by it. haha

has anyone else fished somewhere where they just cant get a bite on a jig?

Size can definitely play a role in whether you get bit or not. In fact I generally start with small and then depending on the bite I will size up. I would try downsizing, with either a bitsy bug (I love their size options) or a NorthStar finesse jig.