Breaking Down the Bass Jig

gather round to share their near misses that anyone who threw a jig sticks their chest out as they describe the harrowing details, even if they didn’t land in check range! But why is this? I attribute the testosterone boost of throwing a jig to the mental toughness it takes to fish slowly and the destructive hook sets you get to lay to a bass. Add in the ability to land above average bass and its quite easy to see why so many anglers are drawn to the legendary lure known as the jig.

But what is a jig? I mean, there are so many options out there that say bass jig on the package so where do you even begin?

Well for starters a bass jig is any lead head lure with a hook and a plastic keeper. Typically, they sport a fine silicone skirt in various colors and a weed guard protruding from the head to keep the lure from snagging cover. The jig can have several different head designs, but I like to classify them all in a few categories like football, casting, flipping, finesse, and swimming.

Basically, all a jig needs to do is slip through the desired cover you are fishing efficiently and show off the plastic it is carrying. Jigs get bit the most when they are subtle and lifelike.

To be the most efficient we are going to break down the cover often fished and choose which heads to use in that type of cover.

Rock

Rock is one of the most prevalent forms of cover on any body of water, and they hold bass all year long due to the heat retaining abilities and the prevalent shad typically nearby. When fishing a bass jig around this type of cover you want something that won’t get lodged inside and break off, rather something that can seamlessly move right over the top of them. I choose two heads for this situation a football head, which is just like you could imagine in your head and a finesse head like a War Eagle Heavy Finesse jig. These two types of heads have the right shape to hop around rocks because they have a larger width and surface area. For these heads choose a small craw plastic trailer such as a YUM Christie Craw that has a subtle action because you will be dragging slowly.

Wood

Wood cover is also a huge easy button moment for a bass jig. This type of cover can be anything from lay down trees near the bank, standing timber, or deep brush piles. For this type of cover, you want to lean into something with a casting or flipping head because it is built in a way to come over snaggy cover without turning over and jabbing the hook into it. For deep brush I like to lean on a heavier jig like the War Eagle Jui Jig Su that weighs in around ¾ oz, but for shallower wood a War Eagle 3/8 oz. Flipping Jig or BOOYAH Bankroll jig works great to slip in and out of the trees. They are built in such a way to slide right through tree branches without snagging. When choosing a trailer for these types lean towards an aggressive action like the Gene Larew Hammer Craw because you want bass to be able to easily find the jig in dirty water and heavy wood cover.

Grass

Grass is the primary cover most people think of when fishing most jigs. This can be any type of emergent or submergent vegetation such as bank grass, hydrilla, milfoil, reeds, or anything that seems to fit the topic! This type of cover is dominated by the swim jig, like the BOOYAH Swim N Jig. A swim jig is perfect for grass because it can be swam over and through the cover to entice bites. Swim jig heads are built in a way to resemble a bullet point, so they swim fast and don’t pick up much debris. The other type of jig that works the best with grass is a standard flipping style head. These work best when flipped in the holes in vegetation and hopped around to resemble a crawfish. I like a BOOYAH BOO jig and its banana shaped head to flip around grass that can easily slip in and out as well as swim easily over the top of grass. For a swim jig or flipping jig in grass try aggressive trailers like the YUM Craw Chunk or YUM Spine craw to bolster larger bites.

These types of cover give you the general answers to what jigs to fish in the types of cover that are surely prevalent on your body of water. The best tips I can give other than which types to fish is to set the hook as hard as possible with any feeling that resembles a bite, because hooksets are free!

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