So i really have never tried to use a jig more than once geting discouraged because i never really got any success but i have been reading and i see that it takes a lot of practice become good with a jig, and it is a very versatile lure which can produce big bass, so I have decided to get to know this lure better, so i have a few questions for you guys out there that have some knowledge about jigs

First off what color do u suggest for clear and murky water?

-right now i own black/blue, white, and orange and brown

What do u feel are the best trailers to use for jigs, and should the color of the trailer be the same as the jig or very different?

What weight jigs do u use most often?

Where do you like to fish these lures?

rocky shores, trees, grassy area etc

How do u like(best way) to present jigs?

Thanks guys im still trying to learn everything i can about fishing so whatever you say will be appreciated

I'm wondering the same questions myself.  I hope someone with some experience will make a post.

One thing I always make sure of, is don't get on the lake without a green pumpkin jig and green pumpkin trailers. This color is a mainstay in most all water conditions and will get you bites if the fish are biting jigs, and that is most of the time. You can fish a jig in any and all water types and cover but you will often have to match your weight and style of jig to the structure type. Rocks-football or stand up jigs. Matted vegetation-heavy pointed head jig to punch thru top and use a trailer that won't lose its appendages too easily.  It's not absolutely necessary to match trailer with jig and with green pumpkin, I will often spike it chartreuse on claws. When deciding  on color to match day or water just think about dark with dark day or water and light to medium color on lighter or clearer water.  This does not hold true in all cases but only a basic guide. Greens and browns are hard to beat and black and blue is always worth having tied on as well. Vary your jig weight according to depth of water and line size or amount of wind to contend with. Super clear water and shallow go small and light. Stay in contact with the bottom as much as possible and short hop and or drag to start with. As you get more experience you will start to feel how the fish want you to present the bait in different situations then you will adjust accordingly. Sometime the fish want a rip up and let it fall and other times they want a constant slow swimming motion. As with most things, time and experience is the best teacher but learning the majic of jig fishing is well worth your time to experience it. Good fishin.

alrite i really like to fish jigs its probably more of my go to bait for flipin. in murky water i use a black/blue or this texas craw color by strikeking.in clear water use a natural color. i like to use the paca craw chunks as trailers or a pork, i think its important to match the jig color to the trailer color. the weight of the jig depends but i like a 3/8 the best. and for a presentation for flipin at least is to make a quite entery into the water and but the bait deep into the cover along the bank. for muddy water this is sure to work(at least for me it does.) well thats just my jig experience..hope this helps!!

This is saved on my computer....I spend all winter just saving these fishing techniques.I happen to have a jig one...ENJOY!  

The Jig

Fished By Joe S.

Representation,

First let's start with what a jig represents underwater, I believe the most

Popular use of it is to imitate a Crayfish but they also can imitate baitfish as well.

Jigs come in many different shapes, sizes and colors etc. The most popular crayfish imitators seem to be the good old skirted jig usually tipped with some sort of plastic or pork trailer.

Speaking of sizes, shapes, colors, I'm only going to really get into the skirted jig with a plastic or pork trailer as this is the bait I primarily use, and use it as a crayfish imitator only.

Sizes,

There is a very large size range available,

I mainly use 3 sizes of Jigs in my arsenal or depending on manufacturer the closest weight to these sizes 3/8 oz , ½ oz and ¾ oz.

I will mainly use a 3/8oz when fishing really shallow. The presentation has more time to be subtle because of the lighter weight than just crashing on the bottom in the shallow water.

1/2 oz. Jig

This is my go to, if there was only one jig weight allowed in my box, this would be it. I guess you could say the happy medium. I fish this 99 percent of the time from a regular bank down to 15 ft and anything in between.

The only time I go to a 3/4 oz. Is if I need to get through some thick weeds, the wind is really blowing or I am fishing deep but want to fish it faster than normal.

Colors,

I don't get crazy on colors when it comes to jigs. I have 3 colors that I have a ton of confidence in and those are Browns, Greens, and Black. It seems the jig has excepted rules on what colors for what conditions were faced with, green or brown, natural colors for clearer water and black or darker colors for murkier water or night time. I do follow that to a point but not because of the rule but because I have confidence in throwing those baits in those conditions. Ive caught fish in clear water with a black jig and fish in murky water and at night with a green jig so what's that tell us. Color is confidence in my book.

Trailers/Chunks

These come in many shapes and sizes, Most of them are made to represent the pincher end of the crayfish which are either threaded or simply hooked on to the jig.

I go rather simple in this area as far as selection.

I mainly use 3 colors in 2 sizes, Green, Brown and Black in 2 or 3 sizes I always match the color of the trailer with the jig, (just a confidence thing)

I will normally start off fishing with a 2 trailer in tournaments, I feel the smaller size may get me more bites in order to get my limit then I may upgrade trailer size to go after larger fish, but there is no rule here either, as I have caught fish over 6lbs. on 2 trailers and fish less than 12 on 3 trailers.

As far as the many styles and brands of trailers, my selection is simple I use my own, I feel they give me the best chances of catching fish and here is why.

When a bass hits a jig they will normally engulf the whole lure, Jig and trailer. It only takes a split second for that fish to reject the bait if it notices anything artificial about it. When I make my trailers I add a lot of crayfish oil to the plastic prior to cooking then once poured they go through a 2 stage salting process.

Once you get a fish to bite them they are hard pressed to let it go because there is so much taste for them.

Because there is so much craw oil in the plastic it makes the baits very soft which helps release the oils and salt when the bait is bitten. (Shameless Plug I know, but I didn't want to cut out a whole section so forgive the plug please)

The Bite!

I have been fishing a jig predominantly for the last few years and have probably experienced every type of bite possible, but then again maybe not, sometimes you don't feel anything at all, then sometimes they almost rip the rod out of your hand, and then you have everything in between, you must always be ready to set the hook.

It is a must to be a line watcher when fishing a jig because you may not always be in direct contact with the lure, and the little twitch in the line that you didn't see could have been a 10 fish or the fish of a lifetime.

One thing I really like to do is know the depth of the water I'm casting to, I feel this is very important, a ½ oz jig on 15lb mono sinks at about 1ft per second. So I know if I'm casting it into 12ft of water and the line stops sinking when I count to 6, something sucked it in, reel in any slack and set the hook.

This is where I believe salts and scents are very handy, normally when I'm fishing a jig I'm fishing some type of structure, rocks, wood, grass, etc. with the equipment on the market you can pretty much feel everything the lure bumps into, when first getting into jig fishing I might have questioned myself was that a fish or a rock, don't know for sure. But now using my own baits and good equipment as well as a lot of time fishing the jig, I have the confidence in them to know that when I feel that little bump, I can pause and wait a second or two to see if there is any activity or lack there of on the end of the line before ramming the hook into a nice bass, or a stump.

Equipment:

For fishing these type and size of jigs, I use a 7' Heavy action bait casting rod, I feel this is very important and will not use a Jig on anything lighter, for a few reasons, 1.) These jigs normally have stout hooks that require a decent amount of force to get good penetration. I don't want to take the chance of losing a big fish because my rod didn't have enough power to drive the hook home, 2.) You have the weed guard to deal with as well when setting the hook. 3.) A lot of times the bass will really clamp down on a jig to crush it making it harder to move the jig on the set to get a good hook set, I noticed this especially with small mouth bass. As for the brand of rod that is personal preference but I think you should get the best you can afford in this area for the added sensitivity.

For a reel, I prefer High speed reels 6.1:1 or 6.3:1 and a decent amount of line retrieval per handle turn. I like this because I can pick up any slack really fast as well as keep up with the fish if it is charging towards me. This is another brand preference issue, I prefer smaller profile reels so I can palm the reel and rest the line going into the reel on my pointer finger for extra sensitivity.

Line

I mainly use 15 lb test mono line for most jig fishing, I don't really go any lighter than that, I will go heavier for certain situations depending on a few factors, structure or cover that I'm fishing, or even the size of the fish I have a chance at catching will dictate the size.

In really clear water I will use fluorocarbon line for reduced visibility. And if I need to go above 20 lb mono for any reason I will switch to a braid for line diameter purposes. You can use any of the three all the time, these are just my preferences and how I utilize each for certain situations.

This is not intended to be a know all of Jig fishing document, these are the ways and equipment I personally like to use and have confidence in for the situations I face,(Notice the title) there are so many variables in fishing that could call for a different tactic from the lure type and size, to the tackle and line, it would be impossible to list them all.

grimlin i thats alot of good stuff....alot better then mine..

thanks all of u for your good responses i will think about all this next time i try out the jig

the best advice is to take just jigs to the lake, nothing but jigs and trailers and just fish them until you find what the fish want

Best advice I can give you on a jig is when you first start fishing them, make sure you are on a lake that has a good jig bite.  Join a club and get out with different members to see what they use.  That is cheaper than buying a bunch of stuff that doesn't work all that great.

I would buy some jigs with green in them and then get some that have different shades, like green and a small amt of purple, then green with a small amount of red or orange.  These different shades of purple, orange, red or whatever will simulate the crawfish during there seasonal changes.  So, the best advice is start of with a base color, green or brown or black and then throw in other colors with the skirts.  Then try to get trailers to match it.  After all this is done, I usually try to find a jig with an EWG hook and I personally like wire guards vs brush guards, but that's just me.  

Murky water break out the black blue, but I've found black and blue to be good really anytime so....  Clearer water go with greens/browns.  Also if you catch a good bass, put him in the live well to see if he spits up some crafish.  Look at the color of the crawfish it spits up and try to match that color.

watch low budget hookers video

the best advice is to take just jigs to the lake, nothing but jigs and trailers and just fish them until you find what the fish want

Great point,that is the only way to learn.

I recently got into flippin and pitchin a jig and I LOVE IT! I use Lunker Lure's triple rattleback (seemed to be a very popular choice, so I went with it). I bought black-blue, black-red, black-chartreuse, and texas craw (green-brown-char mix). Almost all bodies of water that I fish are murky/stained/muddy, so I'm partial to dark colors. For trailers, I use zoom super chunks in matching colors with my jigs.

Now, I have a question: What is your preferred method for presentation? I like to allow the bait to hit bottom, then I give the jig 2 short "snap-snaps" to make those rattles "talk". Then, it hits the bottom, and I give it 1 "snap" of the rod tip, to make that rattle "talk" again. Some friends of mine do a "soft lift" of the rod tip and all the bait to fall. Then another soft lift, and allow to fall, with only a few "snaps" every so often. I find this HARD to do from a patience standpoint. I like to "snap snap" my jig and make it dance. What do you guys do?

All of the above  

I fish a lot of rocky lakes here in California and Mostly use Football heads usually in blk/red or blk/blue with a crawdad trailer.Net Bait Paca craws or Yamamoto craws.I have also attach flapping hogs,Kreatures,Roboworm pitchin craws and have had success with all of these Trailers on my Jigs.I usually go with 3/8 of an ounce and down to 1/4 if the bite is slow or up 3/4 if it is really windy to keep a better eye on my line.The water never drops below 55 degrees here so I never use Pork trailers that have more action in colder water.Crawdads a plentiful here so I Imitate them by slowly crawling my Jig then I give it periodic pops of the bottom to Imitate a fleeing Crawdad.If your not fishing the jig around any structure your wasting your time .I also found that if I am not losing at least one jig per outing IM fishing the wrong spots.Be sure to buy plenty of jigs cause you will lose them in order to catch fish were the Jig is most productive.