WRB-2.0

I am not an expert on sturgeon, they appear to be a fish that would not wear down too easily, unlike fast swimmers like big tuna or marlin that will fight until they die of heart failure. The rule of thumb being dead weight in the water is about 1/6 the live weight with fish that don't have a swim ladder. I have had both big tuna and marlin die and it takes far longer to get them up to the boat than live fish. Any 200 lb fish on 10 lb line, 1power rod is an incredible catch...congratulation Chris! Tom PS what is the line class WR for sturgeon?

Every lake has a color preference that changes seasonally, daily, hourly depending on factors we simply do not know, it's trail and error proces. Using lures the coloration of the prey the bass are feeding sometimes helps, but always. For example if you are fishing a dep diving crankbait, action can far outweigh color, however the right action combined with a color the bass prefer is the best combination. Bass are very fickle when it comes to colors. Take. Huddleston Drelux 8" rainbow trout swimbait that comes in light rainbow, dark rainbow,, Lasson rainbow, etc, etc, etc, the bass can be targeting the dark rainbow and you have the light rainbow and can't buy a strike, very frustrating and there isn't a simple answer. Tom

Basstrix Flash minnow and Fat Minnow, nose hooked or Roboworms in various sizes. Tom

If the stream was running at extreme high levels for several days a shhollow small lake could silt in entirely, however the upper end should be a delta area only a few inches deep, if the dam end has 3' of silt. Natural aging process of man made lakes, your just aged over night! Tom

Walleye are palegic predators with sharp teeth and have smaller mouth and gullet than a bass, preferring slender shaped baitfish. Bass are generally dermasil predators with a large mouth to engulf a wider variety of prey types. Bass are not a school fish wihen adult size, walleyes are school fish. Abundance of prey will bring these predators to the same feeding zones, walleyes prefer night, bass day light if the areas is off shore. Tom

Walleyes and smallmouth or largemouth bas are both predators that sometimes share the same feeding aras and prey. You can catch both species on the same lures; jigs, worms, jerk baits, crankbaits, spoons, nearly any lure that represents minnows, worms, aquatic creatures. Walleyes prefer slender baitfish verses wide body bait fish and avoid bluegills, crappie. My first experience with walleyes was at Lake of the Woods, Ontario Canada and caught a lot of walleyes on the my bass lures. The bass lure that walleyes liked the best was a ball head jig with a straight tail grub in motoroil with red flakes, today known as green pumpkin. I picked up a few walleye lures for that trip; Cicada jigging spoon that looked like a Silver Buddy and Rapala ice jigs that both worked very good for bass at home during the winter periods. Tom

Basically a Fat Ika. Tom

The plastisol soft plastic worms and grubs are made from are only slightly hygroscopic and shouldn't expand more than 20%. I have seen some soft plastics that have been in the water for years and they lost coloration, but haven't swollen to 3x their original size. There are some big salt water grubs on the market and striper size senko's. I know Josh Upton makes worms that are 18 to 24" long and about 1" in diameter, lots of home made stuff out there! Tom

My night bass fishing is limited due to the fact our small local trophy bass lakes were closed to fishing from 7:30 PM to 6:30 AM year around, no night fishing! This changed back in 1995 and the lakes were at the end of the boom period of big bass. The only way you could fish was during a charity tournament the first few years, then the tournaments expanded to about 6 events a year during the summer months; start time 8 PM to 1 AM. My first night tournament I caught 58 lbs for 5 bass, all on jigs, it was like fishing a private lake the bass were stupid and very aggressive! That all changed as the bass became educated to night fishing, but they are still more aggressive at night then the day time and tend to be up in 3' to 15' of water. May be I should have fished deeper to 35' and probably missed some big bass by fishing too shallow! Deeper bass are a lot more difficult to feel the strike for several reasons, mostly water pressure creating more line drag. The advantage at night is your senses are heightened and sense of feel is sharp because you can't see very well, a tick becomes a thump! I know for a fact that most bass anglers miss strikes from big bass often. I have taken out some very skilled bass tournament anglers to teach them how to fish a casting jig and watched nearly all of those anglers miss strikes. Tom

What you call cast/drag, I call horizontal jigging; casting a jig like you would a T-rigged plastic worm. The difference is a T-rigged plastic worm floats off the bottom slightly and the hook isn't molded onto the weight. When a bass strikes a T-rigged worm, the weight can slide away from the worm and a bass will hold onto the worm or swallow the worm given enough slack line. A jig different, the weight is molded onto the hook and covers about 1/3rd of the hook shank, so the weight goes into the basses mouth all the way back to the crunchers and the bass then clamps down onto the jig. The jig doesn't feel right and out it goes! The bigger the bass is, the quicker it is rejected. It doesn't matter if the bass is in Texas, California or anywhere else, the bigger the bass, the more difficult it is to get a hook set. What is different in California is our gin clear water and small size lakes in SoCal, Nor Cal the lakes are larger, the water off color and good cover, more like bass water across the country. I logged my first 100 DD bass in '73 and stopped fishing with live bait and bed fishing in '71, both personal choices and have strong commitment to fish lures for bass. I have been blessed to catch several FLMB over 15 lbs on jigs and 2 that exceed theTexas state record; 19.3 & 18.6, both on jigs. For me it has been very challenging to catch DD bass on jigs and have spent well over 40 years trying to detect the very suttle strikes. So we have very different experiences. I have had a few freight train strikes on jigs, 2 that I can recall. Most strikes are a light tick, some are nothing, like the jig line was cut off...you must stay focused! Tom PS; night bass fishing is very different, most jig strikes at night are aggressive and easy to detect!

Just because you meter "fish" doesn't always mean the meter marks are bass. Bass rest by moving off structure and suspend and they do this about 80% of the time, we call these bass inactive and not active feeding, unless you also metered baitfish near the bass. No bait, it is difficult to get these bass to react to lures. The first thing to do is determine if there is any baitfish in the area. The next thing is look for structure that is nearby and is about the same depth as the bass are holding. This is where those bass will go to feed when they become more active. A dart head, 1/8 oz should be about right for 20-25', with a baitfish color 5" curl tail finesse worm works. The A-rig is basically a school of dart heads. Others options; structure spoon or flutter spoon, swimbait, drop shot, spider jig w/twin tail grub, swimming jig like a Scrounger with soft jerk bait trailer. Work these lures through the "fish marks" or go look for fish near the structure at the right depth. Tom

Good write up Big-O. The bass I fish for rarely give you enough time to reel down, feel the fish and set the hook. if you did that you will miss 99% of the strikes on a jig that you are working along the bottom or fishing on the fall. This is the big difference between FLMB and NLMB strains; big Florida's can and do reject a traditional jig in the blink of an eye. My general rule is smaller bass are very easy to detect a strike, the bigger the bass the more difficult strike detection is. For this reason learning to jig fish is the most difficult lure to master....so we just agree to disagree on that point. To me the most important elements is becoming a good jig angler is using a jig with a premium sharp hook, that matches the line size you use and the jig head design/weight. A list of 10 common jigs; Arkie head Ball head Brush head Dart head Fish head Football head Standup head Snootie head Shaky head Scrounger head The Arkie head is what I refer to as a traditional jig with a fiber weed guard and the most common jig. There are some excellent custom jig head designs for specific applications, none can do everything well. A real eye opener to learn strike detection with a jig is to bed fish in clear water where you can watch a bass strike your jig! You will be amazed how quick a strike can occur and how little feedback you detect. This is a good training lesson, not that I am promoting bed fishing, that is something I avoid, but to see how fast strikes occur and what little time you have to get a hook set. Bed bass are not eating your jig, there are killing it, the same way they kill a live crawdad. Because big bass will reject a jig quickly, most anglers miss the strike a very high percentage of the time. This is why how you hold your rod and reel becomes critical. With a bait casting reel you should be feeling the line at all times when the jig is in the water. I run the line under the thumb and over the tip of my index finger. With this method you can feel the slightest line movement and improve your strike detection and catch more big bass. Today's bass anglers have the belief their rods are so sensitive they can feel anything that touches their lures. I have heard this statement for over 30 years now and no rod will ever be more sensitive than your finger tip. Tom

You are limited where you can bank fish and that limits how and what lures you can effectively use. You can use a T-rigged worm, but don't limit yourself to 1 size or 1 color, bass are just as finicky during the winter about color ansd size as any other time period. Swimbaits are another lure you can fish from shore and good cold water period choice. Fish points that drop off into deeper water and try to fish the lower 1/3rd of the lake where it should be deeper waters. The dam and adjacent area is usually a good place to start. Tom

The trick with live bait and circle hooks is letting the bass eat the shiner before you starting reeling and just keeping steady rod pressure; you don't set the hook! You can place the Circle hook through the bone next to the gill cover near the top of the back. With a standard octopus style hook like a Gamakatsu wide gap weedless finesse hook; you can nose hook the shiner and hook set like a traditional soft plastic. Hook size should be appropriate for the bait size. Tom

Are you fishing the Delta? From a boat or shore? Delta bass are going to be in the tullies so you choices are a jig or a punch rig. Anywhere else you should be fishing the wind blown shoreline with broken rock in areas where a surface mud line has developed. Again a jig is a good choice because it has little wind resistance and doesn't sail in the wind. Texas rigged worms would be good and deep diving crankbaits can be good if casting down wind from a boat. During the winter a structure spoon or heavier flutter spoon can be effective if shad are up in the mud lines. When you say windy in California you are talking about sustained wind over 25 mph, so be safe. Tom

It may be a surprise to some, but I don't fish jigs to catch bass in general. I fish jigs to catch big bass, if I'am fun fishing or just fishing to catch 2 to 4 lb bass, jigs are not my lure of choice. Nearly every other lure is usually better choice for average size bass. With that in mind the bass I am targeting are large adult size bass, hopefully the largest in the lake! The big bass prefer to eat high protein prey and Crawdads are high protein. Large baitfish are also high protein prey and that is where a swimbait or a giant worm comes into play. The jigs I am using represent Crawdads in color, profile and movement. Your best opportunity to get a strike is when a big bass first see's your jig when it swims down to the bottom at the end of your cast. When you cast and the lure hits the water any big bass within hearing distance is aware something hit the surface, even in deep water, and they are looking to see what it was. If the water is clear enough they can see a long distance. If the bass is active feeding it will react. If the bass isn't active it may not react. When you consider bass are only active about 10% of the time, the odds are small that a bass will react and go strike your jig. If you know big bass are in the area, keep visiting the spot every few hours and you may get lucky and put your jig near an active big bass. If you do everything right, detect the strike, you have a change at a bass of a lifetime! Jigs are without question the most difficult lure to learn how to fish consistantly, bass strike and reject a jig faster than any other lure, so you must concentrate all the time on every cast. The upside is jigs catch big bass! Tom

If it's not windy you watch the V the line is cutting through the water surface as a strike indicator during the initial drop. Braid floats well and you can watch the line move easier than FC. I almost always fish big worms when working up hill from shore and casting out into deep water, jigs are very difficult fish uphill. The small diameter of 15 lb super braid is difficult to cast with a bait casting reel, if you are making a long cast over 90', backlash is a $itch to pull out with cold fingers! You need a longer FC leader; about 7' with a 7' rod, the knot between the 1st guide and reel and the knot must go out through all the guides smoothly. I use 14 lb FC Shooter line because of knot strength issues and I hate to make long cast with braid, unless fishing heavy cover. I will 8 lb FluoroClear in water over 25' in the winter sometimes to get the jig to sink a little faster, less drag on smaller diameter line. Tom

The 3/4" piece of soft plastic finesse worm is used to keep the pork trailer up into the hook bend so ithe pork doesn't foul the jig hook point. The worm piece adds scent, some color, helps the skirt to flare out and very little buoyancy, but is an important component with the old jig & pig. What is important for any jig angler is knowing the fall rate of the jig they are fishing, so you instinctively know how deep it should be for each second it is falling down. If you don't concentrate on this factor, you will miss strikes, unless the bass is so hot it eats and runs off with it! Tom

Chris I am not trying to promote any product, just sharing over 50 years of jig fishing for bass experience. The jig trailer that has worked for me is now nearly obsolete; pork rind with no claws, 3" to 4" long, 1" wide, 1/8" thick with a split tail. No jig trailer on the market today or in the past works better to attract strikes from big bass; simple and very effective. The fall rate with a 7/16 to 1/2 oz, deer hair, living rubber or silicone skirt to depths of 25' has proven to be extremely effective and perfectly balanced using 10 to 14 lb FC or mono line. I haven't tried Bo's trick to add a 1/8 to 1/4 oz bullet weight to a smaller 1/4 or 3/8 oz jig, but believe it should work at times. I do down size trailers on some lakes like Castiac for example because Castiac bass prefer 11/2 to 2" trailers, where nearly every other lake in California the larger size trailers work better. Today's lures must look life like, be colorful and have a swimming appeal to be marketable or like the fish catching pork rind, will not sell. Keep in mind bass will not eat a dead crawdad or any prey, it must have some movement, even a slight movement provokes strikes like a Senko slowly falling with tiny movements can be deadly. Tom

What Bo is saying that a 1/4 oz jig fall slower than. 3/8 is absolutely a fact because the lead weight is 50% heavier and no skirt or trailer will slow down a jig that weighs more. The same is true for a 3/8 oz verses a 1/2 oz, that sighs 33% more, weight is the major factor; line size, trailer water resistance and skirt balk have minor affect, compared to weight. You should be detecting strikes before the jig hits bottom about 50% of the ime, if not you are probably missing those strikes! As a general rule expect the bass to strike a jig on the fall as it approaches 5' zone above the bottom to about 6" off the boom. In standing timber or dock pilings the bass can be anywhere along the tree or post. Rocky strucrue is similar to standing wood and can be anywhere holding next to the structure. The biggest mistake most jig anglers make is waiting until the jigs hits bottom to begin "fishing" the jig. Tom

The size of the waterway,depth and current all affect how fast the water changes. Depth and current(wind) are the biggest factors; deep water over 30' takes weeks to change temperature, wind will excelled ate the process. In general water over 30 stays close to 60-70 degrees during the warm water period and 50-60 degrees during cold periods. Under ground water is about 60 degrees. Surface temperature is a poor indicator of the water column temperature. Tom

1bead about the same diameter of,the bullet weight. You put the line into the pointed end of the weight, side the weight up the line, then slide the line through the bead and tie on the hook; weight-bead-hook. Tom

I rarely use a T-rig without a tempered glass faceted 7mm bead. Color is one of the colors in the soft plastic. When you select a glass bead use tempered gass faceted beads that have polished hole edges to prevent cutting you line or breaking when the weight or rocks hit the bead. I also prefer painted brass bullet weights, tungsten is also hard but more expensive and makes a nice clicking sound underwater similar to crawdads. Tom

I realize that supporting the sponsors on this site are important and the jigs and Strike King Rage Tail by site sponsors are good products, however they are not the only jigs and trailers to consider when jig fishing. Date this thread and those specific products may not exist, time has a way of changing how we look at specific brands. When you look at a jig trailer it represents a crawdad, bait fish or they are creatures. Single and double tails with or without appendage. Mister Twister was the first curl tail soft plastic and they offered curl tails in grubs and worms, some with multiple tail appendages that were good jig trailers 40 years ago! Reading this thread I was impressed with Catts post; short and to the point; keep in contact with your jig and know exactly what is going on at all times. Tom

You can swim a jig along the bottom! Letting a jig sit on the bottom rarely induces a bass to strike it when sitting still, movement is the key to making a jig look like real prey. When a jig is falling down through the water column it is actually swimming downward, verses being retrieved horizontally. The difference between swimming a jig horizontally through the water column and hopping it along the bottom is how fast it is moving. Tom