Your nose and ears tingle, steam marks your every breath and frost — if not ice — glistens the deck. This is wintertime fishing and one of your best choices for tempting fish in the chill is a jig.
Whether that’s imitating a tasty crawfish or a calorie-packing bream, the jig consistently delivers quality winter bites. Pro Jason Christie, a big fan of the lead-head fish-getter, offers a handful of pointers:
Size: Favoring a Booyah football jig for moderate clarity, Christie wants the lightest jig he can throw and still maintain perfect contact with the bottom. For fishing the bank down to 25 feet, he’ll use a 3/8-ounce jig in calm conditions, while windy days might call for a 5/8- or a 1/2-ounce.
“A lot of the bites you’re going to get that time of the year are going to be super soft,” he said. “It’s just going to feel like you hit a leaf or something — really mushy. I want to keep my line tight so I can really feel that bite.”
Tackle: Christie likes the football head, as opposed to a traditional flipping jig because he’s typically using lighter line — often down to 10-pound fluorocarbon — and the football head’s lighter hook requires less force on the hook set.
“In the wintertime, the water’s typically clearer, but also I’ll have on gloves and a big jacket, so you can feel the bite a lot better with lighter line,” he said. “Also, I’m using a crisper, more sensitive rod than I would for flipping and I want to get that hook in the fish’s mouth. I don’t feel like I can penetrate a flipping hook with 10- to 12-pound line and a medium rod.”
Colors: Christie estimates that 99 percent of the wintertime jig bites are based on crawfish impersonations. That means a lot of green pumpkins and browns, but he may go with a black/blue in low light of early morning or overcast days, or in dirtier water.
Trailers: Christie’s winter default is minimal motion, as lethargic fish generally ignore stuff that might require a little chase. But equally important is fall rate, a dynamic largely influenced by trailer mass. Summarily, more plastic means more water drag and a slower descent. Less drag; faster fall.
“It doesn’t take a lot of change to make a big difference,” Christie said. “For example, I like a Yum Craw Pappy trailer, but if everything is really slow, I’ll switch to a YUM Christie Critter and that gives you more plastic and makes that jig fall a little slower. If I want a really slow fall, I’ll use a YUM Craw Chunk, which has a wider body and more plastic than the Craw Pappy.
“But, if you want it to fall faster, say you’re fishing in current, you don’t want a big trailer making your jig to fall super slowly because you’re not ever going to hit the bottom.”
Other fall-rate tidbits: The more appendages a trailer has, the more drag it creates and the slower it falls. Christie also knows he can increase his jig’s fall rate by removing skirt strands.
Action: Swap the hop common to warm season jigging in favor of a slow, bottom hug, says Christie. Make your jig crawl across every rock and limb and then tumble naturally on the back side.
Mighty mites
Pro Stephen Browning also likes a football jig for winter bass, but when he knows he’s around fish and the full-size bait’s getting snubbed, a ball head shaky head jig with a 4- to 7-inch finesse worm offers a less obtrusive presentation that often seals the deal. Definitely a productive option for the winter game plan, but that’s not the only use for finesse jigs.
Pro David Walker recently helped Z-Man design its new Cross Eyes series sporting a funky ocular look reminiscent of his many years of hand making his jig. Z-Man’s lineup includes a flipping model with a 4/0 hook and a finesse version with a 2/0. While the latter can certainly play the downsized follow-up role, Walker prefers using it for more of an active role for covering water and finding fish that aren’t pinned to obvious flipping cover.
“Generally, in the winter time, I’m fishing a lot cleaner, colder water, so I’m going to be doing a lot more casting with that finesse style jig,” Walker said. “I’m going to fish that more like a worm; just casting it and working it back.
“I fish a lot of bluffs, the tail end of a bluff, or steep banks; not so much the heavy cover where I’d use the flipping jig. If I’m trying to catch fish in 15-25 feet, I’m going to need to stay back and make that cast and work that jig down the structure.”
Here, along with standing timber where he’ll cast into open lanes and let the jig fall like a pendulum, Walker said the attraction is convenient temperature moderation.
“Vertical cover is something I look for in the wintertime,” he said. “My theory is that the fish just move up and down that cover as the day goes on; as opposed to making longer trips in and out of a pocket.”
Like Christie, Walker varies his trailer choice based on what he’s trying to accomplish, but he generally avoids the more active types and downsizes with particularly clear water. One of his favorites is the 4-inch Z-Man Punch CrawZ, a good crawfish imitator with subtle movement.
Walker also likes the Z-Man T.R.D. (of Ned Rig fame) when he wants to speed up the fall rate and fish the jig a little faster. On the other extreme, a Z-Man Bat WingZ — chunk style trailer with bigger pinchers — creates a slower, gliding fall.
Other winter wonders
Round out your winter jig arsenal with these options.
Keep ‘em in suspense: Can’t overlook the Damiki rig. Jacob Wheeler topped a Cherokee Lake Elite event largely by working a VMC Moon Eye jig with a small fluke style bait just above suspended fish — a good bet now through early spring.
Mopping up: Casey Ashley suggests pitching a mop jig against a stump or rock where those shapely skirt strands slowly unfurl with a “Hello, sailor” kinda vibe.
