| Winter Jerk-Bait Fishing | |
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by Phil Williams
Mid-America Bass
I'm not saying you have to jerk it in 2 foot jerks, but rather than let it sit as you normally would, kind of walk the dog with it with much shorter pauses than you would if they could see it, moving it forward as little as possible. This allows the fish to find the bait without having to run it down as they will seldom do that in water in the low 40's. You might ask why not a jig or slow rolling a Spinner-Bait. The deal is the fish are not on the bottom but suspended in about 3' to 5' of water and will not follow a jig to the bottom, if they could see it, and will seldom chase it or a spinner bait very far if you swim or slow roll it.
The Jerk-Bait on the other hand stays in pretty much the same spot and gives them the opportunity to move much slower to eat what they believe is a dying shad, their main winter diet. Sometimes the water gets too clear and the shad suspend around 20' or so and the fish just won't come up on your bait unless you get it down beyond its normal running depth. Rather than using a long-billed model in this situation I weight the bait so that it slowly sinks. I just don't like the long bills as they just don't have the same action as the short-bills, but that's just my personal preference. I'm sure a lot of fish have been caught on long-bills, I just don't like them.
One thing to remember when adding weight to your jerk bait is that the more weight you add to the bait the faster you have to fish it to keep it from sinking too far, too fast. I would rather have to wait for it to get down there so I can fish it like the fish want it, rather than how fast I must fish it to keep it off of the bottom. When the fish are suspended over brush piles or are in relatively shallow water I like to weight the bait so that it slowly rises. This allows me to get the bait right over the cover or right on the bank and fish it as slow as possible and still keep it from getting hung up in the tree or settling in the rocks.
Many times it will hit the tree or a rock and float itself out of trouble preventing me from having to go over and retrieve it and screwing up the whole deal. Most times this is when you'll get bit, as it floats out of the tree. Granted you must fish the bait a little faster than you may like when it slowly rises as opposed to if it were suspended, but it pays off big if the are over cover. If they're shallow, they're usually active enough that it won't matter that you're fishing it a little faster. Again, the faster it rises, the faster you must fish it to keep it down so experiment with the weight until you find the right rate of rise.
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