What is better, hopping a jig along the bottom, or dragging a jig along the bottom?

Yes

There are so many ways to retrieve a jig, I could write for an hour.  Yes, I would venture to say many anglers just use one or the other of those. If I'm casting, which I believe is what you're asking about, I'll start out dragging it to get an idea of the bottom composition. Then, I'll switch to a drag, hop retrieve. I may add a pause if things are slow.  In the summer, I'll stroke a jig more often than dragging it, adding a couple of short hops prior to stroking it again.  As I said, there are a lot of ways to retrieve a jig.

They will tell you.

Gertrude won’t eat a jig - she only eats lipless second Sunday of every month at 4 am on that little grass edge by the parking lot and only when mercury is in retrograde.

 

Sally likes a jig but she just wants to move it not eat it.  She eats worms.  But only fat worms that are swimming SLOWLY 3 inches from the top of her favorite brush pile that sits on the eastern point of the submerged hump 1/4 mile out in the middle of the lake off the boat ramp and only 2 days before a new moon.

 

etc etc etc

 

every fish/day is different - you have to learn to efficiently say “that’s not it!”

 

Others may disagree - when you have the right bait and retrieve dialed in you get bit everywhere all the time - when you don’t - you don’t.

 

We are wrong and get lucky a lot more often than we are right so if you are serious - switch a lot til you start getting a lot of bites and then dial around that presentation to get bites to be fish.

35 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

every fish/day is different - you have to learn to efficiently say “that’s not it!”

 

Others may disagree - when you have the right bait and retrieve dialed in you get bit everywhere all the time - when you don’t - you don’t.

I like it Pat. Couldn’t have said it better!

 

I’ve literally started out with likely what was working at the end of the last trip and nada. That’s when the mind starts winding…”hmm, just don’t want the green flake today? It’s darker sky, maybe they want a little touch of orange with their crawfish instead of just dull, natural brown?”. Imo, if you feel good and are just not getting bit…switch up until you hook up.
 

It can be an honestly simple thing. Last week I was smallie fishing and throwing a green craw bitsy with a 3” gp finesse trailer. Nothing in my first spot. Before I just wrote off the jig or the spot being “off today”, I put a 3” gp chigger craw on and first cast 17” bass. After that, the chigger hooked the majority of my fish that day and all, but one of the big ones(hula got inhaled ).
 

If I wouldn’t have been disciplined and open in my thinking, I could’ve possibly messed up my day by being lazy, complacent or stubborn. I mean, how can a smallmouth bass turn down pumpkin brown/light brown and a small, subtle 3” trailer for a completely nice looking, very natural bait? Because it wasn’t what they wanted in that moment, that day, etc. I’m gonna get annoying around here with this constantly(probably already am lol), but be confident and stay HUNGRY! 

11 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

Yes

 

To expand on this a bit more, if I'm fishing a jig to a non-target (aka I'm not throwing it at grass pockets or laydowns) then I'll normally start with a swimming retrieve to cover some water and see how active the fish are.  The as needed I'll slow down a little bit to a regular hopping motion.  Then down to a dragging motion.  Dragging is less useful for me in a lot of my lakes because they have a scum covering on the bottom that if you try to drag through it you'll just foul the head.  So a hop normally pulls the jig up out of it.  This scum is also why I normally fish a texas rig more than a jig.

I hop them most of the time, just likr a Texas rigged worm.

Yes. All of it till it gets bit. Don’t make it that hard make it instinct. 

There is time and place for both.  Experiment.  

try both..... drag it until you feel a little resistance on the bottom then "hop it" free....   

If the bottom is weedy then I hop the bait. If the bottom is fairly clean then I drag it. 
Most of the time mix up the retrieve. 

On 8/18/2025 at 11:05 PM, Bazoo said:

What is better, hopping a jig along the bottom, or dragging a jig along the bottom?

Pitching it into cover.

Today it was dragging it to rocks, getting hung then snapping it up and letting it slide back down.  My version of the Jewell Pee Wee bass whacker 3/16 oz with a Yamamoto gp/red twin tail grub.