Five Fabulous Fall Baits for Bass: Jigs

The power of the jig. 

By Luigi De Rose

Largemouth and smallmouth will eat
the jig equally well. Keep the jig on bottom close to
the bass will help you score. 

Football jigs, a close cousin to flipping jigs, were designed specifically for bouncing along deep, rocky bottoms. The major difference is its chubby football shaped head with the line tie at 90 to 60 degrees. This designed won’t wedge between boulders and is surprising good in thin vegetation. Most football jigs are heavy, 1/2oz to 1oz, ideal for staying on bottom. Strikes typically occur at the end of long casts so solid hooksets can be a challenge. Make sure it has an ultra sharp hook and thinned weed guard, if it has one at all.  

Football jigs are best worked around deep grasslines, bluff banks, bars, points or saddle areas between islands. Surprisingly, this technique is a quick and easy way to check expansive areas. It vacuuming up aggressive biters yet enticing fickle ones too. Work  footballs more like a crankbait or Carolina rig than a traditional jig. Dragging it with sweeping rod pulls or crawl it under a leisurely retrieve. Stick to a twin tail grub or frog chuck trailer. Olive, melon, pumpkin, peanut butter and jam, or craw colours are best.

Finesse & mini jigs

Finesse or mini jigs are a junior version of a flipping jig. These bite sized jigs are ideal in a multitude of fishing conditions. Ultra shallow, clear water, heavy fishing pressure, cold fronts or cold water are all ideal mini jig situations.

In high stakes tournaments in Ontario, the success of mini jigs have secretly flowed through the ranks of the elite. Big weights and top finishes speak volumes. Many anglers have literally turned their tournament career around solely on the success of mini jigs. Once an after though, these jigs are much underestimated. Much of it does have roots in scientific research. Immature crayfish evacuate the shallows to escape scores of predators. Bass living along deeper structure are accustom to feeding on smaller crayfish making a tinier jig an ideal snack. 

Compact sizes don’t always translate to dainty weights. A few companies pour finesse jigs up to 1/2oz and with strong hooks, but they’re a rare find. Skilled manufacturers shrewdly manipulated the lead head to remain minuscule yet heavy. Others have switched to tungsten, a pricy non-toxic lead alternative. Regardless, mini jigs can transform a day from hoe-hum to amazing.

Jigs are core bass tackle. Throw them more often and fine tune which type of jig will suit the fishing conditions your in will almost guarantee success. 

Skip Johnson wins 2014 Kentucky Lake Walmart FLW Tour Event!

by Curtis Niedermier
FLW Press Release

Sometimes simple strategies are the best strategies. And they don’t get much simpler than the game plan put together by Michigan pro Skip Johnson on Kentucky Lake for the sixth and final stop of the 2014 Walmart FLW Tour season.

His strategy: Don’t move.

Johnson spent all four days of competition on one hole on Kentucky Lake’s southern end. He landed more than 22 pounds each day Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, a string of lost fish cost Johnson, and he brought in just 19-12.

But Johnson rallied on Sunday. All day long he hammered away, catching more than 75 fish and culling up to the day’s best limit of 24 pounds.

The four-day, 88-pound, 10-ounce performance earned Johnson his first career Tour victory and a check for $100,000.

The triangle

“The key was to stay – don’t leave,” Johnson says about his performance on the final day of the event, which was presented by Evinrude and hosted by Henry County Alliance. “I parked right there and ran my little triangle again.”

The triangle describes the shape of a row of more than a dozen waypoints that Johnson dropped along a creek channel that snakes from a shallow flat out to the main shipping channel.

“It was a winding creek channel with old oxbows and humps in the oxbows,” he explains. “They were on the edge of the ledges dropping into the channel.”

The edges where he caught his fish were rocky and topped out in 10 to 12 feet of water. They dropped off into about 15.

Each day, Johnson worked in and out along the creek channel – once even following it all the way up onto the flat, just to see if any bass had moved in shallow.

Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson's Lives Out Every Angler's Dream

FLW Pro angler relives his monster bass and new found secrets from Pickwick Tournament

By Luigi De Rose

Shimano pro Gussy is all smiles
with this monster.
(Photo: FLW)

It’s been just over a week but Jeff “Gussy” Gustafson’s knees are still knocking. The second year FLW pro took the lead at the Walmart FLW Tour Pickwick Lake tournament at Florence, Alabama in grand fashion.   Not only was this his first opportunity to lead a national tournament, he anchored his limit with his personal best largemouth bass, a 10-12 monster. By the end of the tournament, Gussy slipped to 17^th by netting 52-08 for the tournament. The drama of that first day will be vividly replayed in his mind and heart forever.

IBASSIN got a change to chat with the Shimano and G. Loomis pro as he re-lives that magical day.

DAY 1

“Day 1 was amazing but I didn’t start off exactly like I wanted.” Recalls Jeff. “ I was boat number 165 which was almost next to last to leave.” Knowing the post-spawn bass would be schooled in community holes, Jeff knew he wouldn’t have any privacy.  Gustafson was mentally prepared to fish in a crowd but knew it wasn’t what he wished to do.

Racing down the lake, he just passed spot after spot because they were already crowded. He finally stopped to fish at one of his spots that wasn’t crowded. This first spot yielded four keepers with ease but then the fishing slowed. After some dead time, he relocated to another shell bed. 

3 Bass Jigs You Must Know: Finesse and Mini Jigs

Finesse & mini jigs can be magic
By Luigi De Rose

Spinning or casting gear is ideal
for mini jigs.

Finesse or mini jigs are a junior version of a flipping jig. These bite sized jigs are ideal in a multitude of fishing conditions. Ultra shallow, clear water, heavy fishing pressure, cold fronts or cold water are all ideal mini jig situations.

In high stakes tournaments in Ontario, the success of mini jigs have secretly flowed through the ranks of the elite. Big weights and top finishes speak volumes. Many anglers have literally turned their tournament career around solely on the success of mini jigs. Once an after though, these jigs are much underestimated. Much of it does have roots in scientific research. Immature crayfish evacuate the shallows to escape scores of predators. Bass living along deeper structure are accustom to feeding on smaller crayfish making a tinier jig an ideal snack.

Compact sizes don’t always translate to dainty weights. A few companies pour finesse jigs up to 1/2oz and with strong hooks, but they’re a rare find. Skilled manufacturers shrewdly manipulated the lead head to remain minuscule yet heavy. Others have switched to tungsten, a pricy non-toxic lead alternative. Regardless, mini jigs can transform a day from hoe-hum to amazing.

Jigs are core bass tackle. Throw them more often and fine tune which type of jig will suit the fishing conditions your in will almost guarantee success.

3 Bass Jigs You Must Know: Football Jigs

Football jigs are more versatile than most think.
By Luigi De Rose

 

Working rocky points of islands is ideal
football jig water.
 

Football jigs, a close cousin to flipping jigs, were designed specifically for bouncing along deep, rocky bottoms. The major difference is its chubby football shaped head with the line tie at 90 to 60 degrees. This designed won’t wedge between boulders and is surprising good in thin vegetation. Most football jigs are heavy, 1/2oz to 1oz, ideal for staying on bottom. Strikes typically occur at the end of long casts so solid hooksets can be a challenge. Make sure it has an ultra sharp hook and thinned weed guard, if it has one at all. 

Football jigs are best worked around deep grasslines, bluff banks, bars, points or saddle areas between islands. Surprisingly, this technique is a quick and easy way to check expansive areas. It vacuuming up aggressive biters yet enticing fickle ones too. Work  footballs more like a crankbait or Carolina rig than a traditional jig. Dragging it with sweeping rod pulls or crawl it under a leisurely retrieve. Stick to a twin tail grub or frog chuck trailer. Olive, melon, pumpkin, peanut butter and jam, or craw colours are best.