I have a new favorite moving bait: the swim jig. For years my favorite has been a spinnerbait but over the past few a swim jig has out fished it 10-1 for me. Don't get me wrong I still love a spinnerbait but I just have supreme confidence with a swim jig.

I always have one or 2 swim jigs tied on. Easily a top 5 bait for me. Now you can have fun experimenting with different trailers. Paddletail-style is obviously great, but craw-style work great as well. 

What's your preferred retrieve method for a swim-jig?  And working around what type of cover?

2 minutes ago, DaubsNU1 said:

What's your preferred retrieve method for a swim-jig?  And working around what type of cover?

instead of a steady retrieve, i like to mix in pauses and sporadic hops all the way back to the boat/bank

18 minutes ago, DaubsNU1 said:

What's your preferred retrieve method for a swim-jig?  And working around what type of cover?

Working it mostly around rock and some wood mixed in. Most of the time its a fairly straight retrieve with a pause or pop of the rod tip thrown in every once in a while...I try to bounce it off cover like I would a square bill and that does the trick.

 

23 minutes ago, NorthernBasser said:

I always have one or 2 swim jigs tied on. Easily a top 5 bait for me. Now you can have fun experimenting with different trailers. Paddletail-style is obviously great, but craw-style work great as well. 

I've fished them several years and have tried half a dozen different trailers. I've settled on 2: 90%of the time a vertical menace grub...the rest of the time a zoom ultra vibe speed craw. I'm not a big paddle tail guy.

@DitchPanda, when I was up by you a swim jig was my favorite bait in the IGL region. Ripping them out of grass was always my fallback when I couldn’t catch fish on anything else. 
 

Vertical rigged menace was my favorite as well. I haven’t thrown them as much where I’m at now but probably need to change that. 

Hoping to see your luck, I do really well on spinnerbaits including my PB smallie, but can't crack the code on swim jigs. One trailer I really like though is the old yum woolie bully rigged sideways. At least when they were available they were very cheap. I will work with them some more this year again though to see if I can get a consitent bite.

To me a swim jig is like an adjustable wrench in versatility in fitting different requirements, but a spinnerbait is more like a hammer...

35 minutes ago, Deleted account said:

To me a swim jig is like an adjustable wrench in versatility in fitting different requirements, but a spinnerbait is more like a hammer...

That's a good way to put it...the versatility is unmatched in my opinion. Also I feel a big part of its appeal is the subtlety...its kind of the finesse worm of moving baits..draws strikes even from spooky wary fish.

Swim jig did me right this spring.

 

But man, spinnerbait and swim jig, they’re both pretty great ?.

 

 

18 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

That's a good way to put it...the versatility is unmatched in my opinion. Also I feel a big part of its appeal is the subtlety...its kind of the finesse worm of moving baits..draws strikes even from spooky wary fish.

Yup, if you have a swim jig in two weights, two or three colors with 3 or 4 trailers, you can catch fish most anywhere.

I'm a sucker for trying new stuff. I think I like these. The blade is small enough it's more like an underspin-level of accent. Fishes like a swimjig.