Jigging Fishing

One thing that a jig is not is a throw-it-out-and-reel-it-back-in kind of lure, one that can catch fish in spite of the abilities of the person using it. An angler has to put some work into making a jig catch fish and into being able to detect strikes. There is a knack to jigging. Good jig users have a feel for what is happening to their lure and they have a razor-sharp ability to detect and respond to strikes.

The key to jigging success is establishing contact with your lure, getting and keeping it where the fish are, and using the right rod to feel a strike. The greatest concerns are often how deep you need to fish a particular jig and how effective you are at doing that. Jigs excel at being on or close to the bottom, which is where the majority of jig-caught fish are found. They also are productive for covering the area between the bottom and upper levels via vertical presentations.

Covering bottom

When jigging along a steep shoreline, such as this ledge, retrieve the jig in short, slow hops to crawl the jig along and let it flutter to the next ledge below. Long sweeps of the rod bring the jig out and away (inset), missing some of the best cover.

When fishing on or close to the bottom, many anglers do not have success because they fail to reach and keep their jigs on the bottom. The simplest way to get a jig to reach the bottom is to open the bail of your spinning reel or depress the freespool mechanism on a baitcasting, spincasting, or conventional reel; let the lure fall freely until the line goes slack on the surface of the water and no more comes off the spool. If the water is calm and the boat still, you can readily detect when you’re on the bottom. If it is somewhat windy or if current is present, you have to watch the departing line carefully to detect the telltale slack and to differentiate between line that is leaving the spool because the lure has not reached bottom and line that is being pulled off by a drifting lure or boat. If you’re fishing from a boat, a depthfinder can help you determine when your lure has reached the bottom because you will have some idea of the local depth.

The lighter (and thinner) the line and the heavier the lure, the easier it is to reach the bottom. The stronger the line, the greater its diameter will be and the more resistance it will offer in the water. A quarter-ounce jig will fall more quickly on 8-pound line than it will on 14-pound line, for example. The advantage here (the magnitude of which depends on fishing conditions) is that you will more easily get your lure to the bottom and keep it on the bottom with 8-pound line than with 14-pound line.

A typical scenario for jigging the bottom is to let the jig fall freely until the line goes slack. Reel up slack and lift the jig off the bottom. Once you’re on the bottom, you need to maintain contact with it. Assuming that you have cast your jig some distance away, have let it settle to the bottom, and are now retrieving it toward yourself, you should keep it working in short hops along the bottom as long as the terrain and length of paid-out line enable you to do so. If you are in a boat and drifting, the jig will eventually start sweeping upward and away from you and the bottom as you drift, unless it is very heavy; so you need to pay out more line occasionally until the angle of your line has changed significantly and then reel in and drop the jig back down again.

Choosing the right weight lure to use is critical to most types of jigging. The ideal is to have a lure that gets to the bottom and stays there under normal conditions but that is not too large to intimidate the fish. Most anglers who fail to reach bottom don’t use the right retrieval technique or don’t compensate for wind or current; in addition, they may use too light a jig for getting down to the bottom under the conditions that they face.

Sometimes you need to swim a jig by pumping it slowly and reeling, never actually letting it hop along the bottom. Other times you may need to slowly drag it. When fishing a moderately sloping shoreline or point, for example, you should slowly pull the lure a little bit off the bottom, let it settle down while keeping in contact with it, take up the slack, and repeat this. When working a ledge or a sharply sloping shoreline, slowly pull the lure over the structure until it begins to fall, let it settle, and then repeat. Don’t hop the jig up quickly here, because it will fall out and away from the bottom and likely miss a good deal of the important terrain. With some jigs, such as grubs, a good technique is to make them jump quickly off the bottom rather than make short hops. You can also swim a jig on the edges of cover by reeling it slowly across the bottom and giving it occasional darting movements by manipulating your rod tip. The majority of strikes while jigging come as the bait falls back down, so be alert for a strike then and concentrate on the feel of your line to detect it.

Jigs also have value in rivers and where there is current. In a fair amount of current, you should cast upstream or up-and-across-stream, engage the line-pickup system as soon as the lure splashes down, reel up slack, and try to keep the line taut by letting the jig drift or by reeling in slack to achieve a natural drift. You virtually fish a jig in quick water the same way a fly angler works a nymph, keeping slack out and rod tip up and feeling the lure as it bounces along. In deep, swift current, you actually need to swim the jig a bit by pumping the rod tip.

Vertical jigging

Jigging vertically, of course, is useful, especially when fishing through the ice in freshwater, when angling on the bottom in deep water, and when angling for suspended fish in open water. Here, both leadhead jigs and metal or lead spoons are used and you needn’t maintain bottom contact, though you might start at the bottom and jig your way upward. Sometimes you’ll need to get to a particular depth and regularly jig at that spot.

If you know what depth to fish, you can let the desired length of line out and commence jigging, never reeling in any line and paying out line only if you begin to drift. Here’s one way to know how much line you’re letting out: Reel the jig up to the rod tip, stick the rod tip on the surface, let go of the jig, and raise your rod tip to eye level; then stop the fall of the jig. If eye level is 6 feet above the surface, your jig will now be 6 feet deep. Lower the rod tip to the surface and do this again. Now you’ve let out 12 feet of line. Continue until the desired length is out. With a levelwind reel having a freely revolving line guide, you can measure the amount of line that is let out with each side-to-side movement of the line guide; multiply this amount by the number of times the guide travels back and forth. If you use a reel that doesn’t have such a guide, you can strip line off the spool in 1-foot (or 18-inch) increments until the desired length is out. Another method is to count down the lure’s descent. A falling rate of 1 foot per second is standard and may be accurate for medium-weight jigs, but you should check the lure’s rate of fall in a controlled situation first to ensure accuracy.

For some vertical jigging, you may need to let your lure fall to the bottom and then jig it up toward the surface a foot or two at a time. Bring the lure off the bottom, and reel in the slack; then jig it there three or four times before retrieving another few feet of line and jigging the lure again. Repeat this until the lure is near the surface. The only problem here is that you don’t usually know exactly how deep a fish is when you do catch one, and you can’t just strip out the appropriate length of line and be at the proper level.

Detecting strikes/hooksetting

Perfect for small waters and calm conditions, the jonboat is widely used in North America.

Discerning a strike when jigging can be difficult because so many fish don’t slam a jig when they take it. Certainly some do, and there’s no question then that a fish has struck, but in most light-jig usage where small fish are sought, something just a little “different” happens that signals a strike. That difference is often barely perceptible. The job of detection is made even less obvious by the fact that most strikes come when a jig is falling, which is often when the line has a slight amount of slack. If you fail to detect the strike quickly enough, the fish may reject the lure or you may be too late to set the hook properly.

In a sense, it’s good to tight-line a jig backward as the jig falls, but don’t use so much tension that the jig falls unnaturally and stiffly. You need to slightly lower your rod tip as the jig falls; when you feel something take the jig, set the hook quickly, keeping the rod tip high and reeling rapidly at the same time. A lot of jig-struck fish are lost because the angler, in reacting to a strike, raises the rod high but never gets the hook to penetrate the mouth of the fish. So the hook pulls out after a moment, or the fish jumps and throws the hook easily. A forceful hookset that eliminates slack, coupled with constant pressure and rapid reeling, is the way to avoid losing fish on a jig.

Having the right rod is also a big factor, especially in freshwater where jigs are usually fairly light. Light jigs are rarely fished well on stiff, heavy rods, and vice versa; wimpy super-flexible rods don’t make good jigging rods, nor do the pool-cue versions. This is where that elusive quality of sensitivity comes into play. A well-tapered rod with a fast tip is preferable, and it’s good to keep the tip angled upward. In some types of jigging, a low-stretch line is helpful. Great depths, very heavy jigs or jigging spoons, and fishing for large bottom fish that can quickly get into cover and break off are instances where lines with little or no stretch may be beneficial.

Two conditions that make strike detection more difficult when jigging are fishing jigs under windy conditions and fishing them in and around weeds. These conditions also make it more difficult to maintain jig depth and control. Many anglers tip their jig hooks with bait; for fishing around vegetation, the best bait is a leech. The leeches work better for weed fishing than nightcrawlers because worms get torn up too easily through constant contact with weeds and the constant contact makes it hard to detect a strike, especially if the wind is up.

Developing a keen feel, especially in weeds, takes patience and practice. Realizing that the “tick” you feel is a fish (often a walleye or perch) ******* in your offering, takes some adjustment, although detection is usually easier with larger fish because they take in more water when they inhale a lure and thus the effect you feel is more pronounced. You will lose a number of fish, including a few good-sized ones, that you have momentarily hooked because you don’t realize quickly enough that you have a strike instead of contact with a weed. Most of the time you feel the strike as you pull on the jig. Detecting that strike is made easier by using light jigs and light (6- or 8-pound) line on a spinning outfit.

If you must fish a jig in weeds when there is wind, try using a bobber with the jig in the weeds to counter the detection problem. An alternative is to use a split shot and jig, which will keep the lure down but is very hard to feel.