Kenny Yi

I'm gonna add to my original list and say: subsurface treble hook lures. Any lure that I've caught fish on trebles has not survived to today, the rest in the box are untouched.

Swim jig is great for pressured fishing. When everyone else is making noise with chatters and spinners, the swim jig provides that subtle presentation

Senko/stickbait... Ned rig... I know it's pretty sacrilegious to never use those two baits, but I just never enjoy fishing with them.

Yessir, got me to 3rd (in the money) and lunker prize of the coangler division!

Last Saturday (4/10/2021), I was fishing my first ever tournament in Lake Anna VA for FOBA as a co-angler. Was fishing shallow and skipped the Buckeye Ballin Out jig under a huge laydown (seen below), felt one single thump, the line got heavy, and blistered him. The weight was 6 pounds 3 ounces! This was the first fish in my tournament career.

The hook definitely isn't finesse but I like to use the Buckeye Ballin Out jig by GMAN, which has the trimmed skirt. Pair it with a Rage Bug for slower fall and flat body for skipping. It skips great, which I would expect if GMAN is in the name.

swim jig or finesse jig

I don't really use stick baits much, but when I do, it's usually a Strike King Shim-e stick or a Yamasenko. My local ponds can be pretty muddy so a black and blue tends to work. If I ever fish clearer water, that's when the green comes out.

yes my thinking is that the big bass believes the jig (imitating a craw or baitfish) is trying to escape, making them either hold it more or do stun bites.

I tend to feel the initial thump (that jumps the line and my focus), then look at the line (to see if there's a tiny wake from movement). If I see that line moving, I reel down and blister it.

Was watching a bunch of YT vids recently. I found that they seem kinda contradictory. Some videos show that bass will pick up a jig, maybe do a couple adjustment bites, then spit the bait (within a couple seconds). Greg Hackney's experience is that bass tend to hold onto the bait for much longer than that (his example was that when he prefishes a spot and gets a real good bite, he doesn't want to catch that fish so he waits for it to let go, but it takes quite a bit of time). I've always used Hackney's tips for jig fishing (with great success), but I do wonder how many times a fish has grabbed my bait and spit it quickly. I can recount some moments where I may have waited too long on a bite and lost the fish completely. Is it dependent on the individual fish? Are y'all setting the hook as soon as you feel anything or do you wait, like me, to see the line moving?

Recently, I've been looking into chunk trailers, due to the cold muddy water of the spring. I hear of the "old-school" method of putting an old cut-up stickbait on the hook to prevent the chunk from being pushed towards the back of the hook and potentially blocking the hookpoint. That makes sense... boom done! Well, I didn't use a stickbait (I rarely fish stickbaits, I know it's sacrilegious), I used a cut up portion of a RI Sweet Beaver, cut off the tails, cut the beaver down the seam then across to make equal quarters. This had the perfect size for my jig hook and also has the ribbed body that I'm sure add something... This was a great way to use all of my old, torn Sweet Beavers that I use for T-rigs. Maybe I'll find a use for the tails as well.

Now THAT Ive never seen before ?

I've done that while jig fishing, had a fish hit it on the fall after the cast and schwacked it... ?

Y'all ever just miss a rod guide with your line?

my guess is a heron, the cut looks knife-like with no serrations, a long-beaked bird

I have an old Plano box that I swear is alive and always tricks me like that

Whenever that happens for me, it'll take 10-20 turns of the reel handle before I realize my line has completely covered one side of the spool

Y'all ever just forget to put an important piece of tackle on a rig, finish rigging the setup, then realize you forgot it and strip the whole thing and start over? This happens to me when I do Texas rigs, mainly while snelling a flipping hook. Since I'm so focused on the snelling portion of the process, I occasionally find out, after finishing the snell, that I had forgotten to put on the bullet sinker or bobber stoppers XD.

Santone Lures Chris McCall Swim Jig with a matching Rage Menace trailer always gets me amped to use it the next day. Black/blue 5/16 with a black/blue flake menace has killed so far this pre-spawn! But that's not just it! Pair that with a black mhf rod, some 30 lb powerpro, and a Shimano SLX... combos like that just look and feel right!

Swim jig and T-rig, soon a topwater frog will join them!

Similar for me, 1/4 swim jig (white or bluegill) with a Rage Tail Menace Grub in matching color was my favorite.

I appreciate all the responses. ? Spinnerbait is also a confidence bait for me, but I've found that I don't prioritize its use anymore. I do agree that my confidence in those baits helps with my success. Me too, spinnerbait fits in there as well. That tends to be my routine as well, start with a swim jig and work from there.

I always have a swim jig tied on. It's a confidence bait for me in shallow water and I appreciate its versatility and ease-of-use, but it makes me wonder why I don't see/hear much about it. I always seem to find videos and topics about chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, and cranks when browsing, but not the swim jig. To me, a swim jig is great because it's weedless, comes in all the best colors, can use many trailers (for subtle and aggressive actions), and has a skirt for a nice profile. When I need a lot of "thump" for swimming, I use a rage craw trailer. Subtlety comes from a keitech style swimbait. The best trailer for me is the rage menace. I successfully fish swim jigs in water with around 1-2 feet clarity at best (typical Virginia water), where most people would primarily use spinners and chatters (which I also use). To me the only thing a swim jig doesn't have is the flash of spinnerbaits or the incredible vibration of chatterbaits. But, I haven't had a situation where the swim jig was outperformed, day-by-day-week-by-week, due to lacking those features. There is always the occasional "chatterbait day" but the swim jig always follows the next. Just wondering if anyone has experienced some situations in shallow water where a swim jig just doesn't produce or is tough to work with. Or maybe it doesn't work in different parts of the country.

+1. For the few fish that I caught with trebles, it was so frustrating to unhook. The fish chokes the bait, you unhook one, then hook the back one near the gills, unhook that one, then the belly hook catches the lip, unhook that one, then the tail hook catches the tongue... just not worth my time on the bank