Baconstrip

Jig and jighead are different terms to me. Even this site defines a jig as: A leadhead poured around a hook and featuring a skirt of rubber, plastic, or hair. http://www.bassresource.com/fishing_lures/bass_fishing.html#def67 Without the skirt, you are fishing a jighead, which is really nothing more than a hook with a sinker welded on. The OP was asking would I call that a jig...and my answer is no. But if the OP doesn't have confidence in a jig, and doesn't want to invest the time to gain it, then it doesn't really matter what it's called because he won't be using it anyway.

Grub fishing is not jig fishing IMHO. Jigs are contact baits, grubs are typically fished like plastics on a semi-slack line, where you spend most of your time watching the line instead of feeling for bites. Grubs are also typically a smallmouth bait, whereas jigs are the bane of largemouth.

I get them snagged on cover more than anything else. I think if they bump anything they flip upside down and the hook drags the bottom. I never lose spinnerbaits like these things. And if I try to dislodge them, the blade breaks free of the jighead and the whole thing comes apart. Original chatterbaits are crap.

Try a jig. Water might be too cold for anything else. If it's hot and shallow, try a popper. I live in Indiana and thus far, I have had ZERO noticeable success with soft plastics. I am fishing jigs almost exclusively at this point, and I am killing the other guys in my boat with them.

I tend to stay away from anything with "bonanza" in the name.

Can you switch them? I'd much prefer the front hook to be on, and, to be honest, I remove the back hooks from all my cranks anyway.

Spinners and jigs. I live in southern Indiana, so I get the full range of seasons here. Those are the 2 that work year round for me.

I do both, but lately, I've been wading with spinning gear more than anything.

That's part of the problem though, the fish inhales it. I've lost count on the number of fish I have gut-hooked on senkos. I really hate killing fish. I would rather get skunked than catch 3 whoppers and accidentally kill 1 on a gut-hook.

I have a question for guides too. How did you get your job?

3/8 oz black/blue jig with a zoom superchunk trailer.

Gonna sound wierd, but my IPod was the best piece of tackle I ever bought. Instead of concentrating on my presentation and overdoing it, thinking about how I haven't caught anything in the last couple days, or burning my bait back to the boat out of frustration, I just sit and enjoy the music and my environment while fishing. Usually, that is enough to inadvertently slow down my presentation enough to produce strikes.

I agree, I have had the most success with pop-r type baits.

Anyone else's lakes have that thin layer of ooze on top of the water, sort of looks like toxic waste. I love this time a year. Cleaning my reel and lures for a couple hours after every time I go out....*sigh*

Ditto. I'm beginning to wonder if color isn't more about what the fisherman wants to see than the bass. Turns out, we are probably more like our wives than we had previously believed. ;D

Try using a 12-18" cajun line leader. If the fish still aren't biting, it may be because you are using the wrong lure for the water temperature. I can tell you, the water is freezing here in Indiana and the fish are barely active. They bite on 3/16 jigs with extremely small trailers and not much else.

I used to be a department lead at a Dick's when I was doing my undergrad, and the problem is not the store, but your unrealistic expectations. At the end of my tenure at Dick's, I was doing some of the hiring, and we started our Lodge employees off at 7 dollars an hour. SEVEN. And you guys expect avid fisherman versed in multiple species and multiple styles for 7 bucks an hour? And even if I looked on the application and saw, unbelievably, that they did, in fact, fish tournament bass, spend their summers fly fishing on the Blackfoot River, and spend winters ice fishing in Michigan, he would still be grossly underqualified to work in my department by your standards for you see.... ...with all that fishing knowledge, he probably couldn't tell me the difference between a sabot and rifled deer slug, he couldn't tell me the benefits of a split limb design on a compound bow, or which paintball gun is truly electric and which merely benefits from a response trigger design, which kayak is good for rough waters and which is for recreational lake use, which camping stove can be adapted to the full-sized propane tanks and which can only use the smaller, hiker-sized tanks, how to fit a camper for a external frame pack, how to boresight a rifle, which speed boat tubes can withstand high speeds and which will pop under heavy wake, which airsoft guns are springloaded and what the benefits of springloaded action are over CO2 design....etc. When I hired people, by your standards, they needed to know ALL of this, because if they didn't, some guy on a soft-air web-forum would be complaining that he was grossly unqualified just as you guys are. The point is, if you want advice, but you don't want to pay for it. You want the cheap prices that Walmart and Dick's offer, but you also want the advice of a dedicated tackle shop. Unrealistic expectations. Even if you say you don't shop at Dick's, your next door neighbor does and his next door neighbor probably does too, and so forth. This is what the general public wants. They want to walk in, pick up what they need for cheap, and walk out. Dick's is simply filling that need. If you want advice, that is what these forums are for. That is what expensive, dedicated tackle shops are for. If Dick's were to hire more qualified people, they would have to pay them more, which means raising prices, which means the brunt of their customers walk out the door and go shop at Walmart. If I would've hired guys who knew everything that you "needed" him to know, plus all the stuff every other sportsman in every other outdoor sport "needed" him to know, I would have to pay him $50 dollars an hour, but the company only budgeted me $7. See the problem here? The benefit of places like BPS is that their employess are put in one department. If you know boats, you sell boats and thats it. If you know fly fishing, you work in their fly shop. No such luck at a place like Dick's. You have to know a little about everything, and most of the time, you are simply overwhelmed by mid-expert level questions on your amateur level knowledge base. Combine that with high turnover rates because as the employee puts in time, they become better, and command a higher pay that I could simply not give them, Dick's becomes what it is...a warehouse sports store. And for not being able to find someone to lead you to the aisle? You try monitoring 7 different departments under the guise of it being one "lodge" department, and see how well you can respond to customer service calls when it gets busy, especially when you are alone. Again, service costs money, it ends in higher prices. You get what you pay for...as the saying goes. And to put the rumor to death finally. Dick's lodge managers cannot order anything besides guns and SOME compound bows (both special orders requiring 50% payment up front). If you want them to start carrying a specific lure, write corporate a request, because the lodge manager cannot help you. He has ZERO control over what goes on his shelves...none...nada...zip... The stuff shows up on a truck, and the employees put it out. Corporate makes all the decisions. I normally am just a reader of these forums for general opinions and advice, but this topic I could not ignore. I'm sorry, just so many of you are more ignorant than you really know.