Winter Bass Fishing with Jigs

Hi, I'm Jeremy Lawyer. I'm here with BassResource, and I want to talk wintertime fishing with a jig. You know, a jig in the Ozarks is a staple, you know, and we use it year-round, you probably got one in my rod locker tied on, 12 months a year, especially if I'm at home fishing. You know, and it's something that I cut my teeth on. And it's something that you can do about anywhere in the country in some situation.

The wintertime is no different. I live close to Table Rock Lake. Table Rock is an absolute fabulous jig lake. What makes it really good is that it's really deep, really clean. It's really rocky. Got a good, crawdad population, and it's got all three species of bass. So in the wintertime, I can turn around and go down there and really key on just focusing with the jig, knowing I'm gonna get some bites, especially if I haven't been on the lake in a while or anything like that.

But the thing that we've probably noticed more about the wintertime...and when I say winter is, it's cold. You know, deer season is over. It's coming on to where the water is in the 40s. Below 50. You know, the jerk bait bites kind of went away. You know, it's just kind of one of those deals to where the fish metabolism is really slow. And you've got to go really slow to get some bites.

And you've kind of got two options, you can fish suspended fish, or you can fish fish that are out on tips of roll-offs, long gravel points, right out next to the main river channel that fall off.

And it's just something that I really have a passion for. Because I know if I do it long enough in a day's time, I'm going to get enough good bites, I'm going to find me a group of bass. And then you never know what you're going to catch because we've got all three species.

But the way I like to target them is with a football jig. Right here you can see this is a three-quarter ounce football jig. And one thing you've noticed, right from the bat, is I don't have a weed guard on there. And the reason a lot of times I cut that weed guard off is because those fish bite so soft in the wintertime that you can't hardly feel them. And then by the time you do feel them, they just kind of got that mealed in their mouth a little bit because they're kind of biting it just because it's there unless it's just one of those fishing days where they're really thumping and hammering it. But for the most part, I feel like that weed guard kind of gets in the way, so I like to take it out of there.

Now, of course, if you're around structure, and you're around a bunch of standing timber, you're not...that's not gonna be possible. You can always thin it out just a little bit as well. And if you are to thin it out, instead of cutting it completely off, always trim it from the bottom instead of on the top, because if you trim it from the bottom, it's going to keep the integrity of your weed guard, because all you've done is cut the bottom strands off. If you cut it from the top. then the bottoms are going to be weak because they don't have any more leverage. They've lost half their buddies that hold them up there. So keep that in mind if you're trying to trim your weed guard.

I like to take it completely off there. This is a three-quarter ounce peanut butter and jelly. Really a good crawdad forage color, you know, in clean water and everything. Catches them all. They're not too picky.

But the thing that I notice the most is that your cadence, kind of like throwing a jerk bait, is really important in the wintertime. Even when it's summertime and you're kind of jerking the jig or stroking the jig, however it might be, the bass really aren't that picky. I don't feel like. But in the wintertime, they really get that way. They get to where they may want to just dragging one day. They don't even want it to leave the bottom. And the next day, they may want these little, short hops. Some other time, they may want to just swim it. You just swim it really slow and kind of kill it every four, five rounds of your reel, and then let it coast to the bottom. Do it again. It's not really something that you really know day to day. You have to kind of figure that out as you're out there. But it's a really cool way to catch them.

You know, something that I have to do is downsize my line, because I'm fishing way deeper. You know, I'm still going to throw it on this 7'3'' Kovert series jig rod. This is a medium-heavy. But I'm gonna downsize to maybe even 14 pounds Sunline Shooter,12 pounds, because I'm trying to reach depths of 30, 35, 40 foot. You know, and a lot of times I think a jig works great in that depth because they don't see it a lot. A lot of people don't have the patience to get it down there that far. A lot of people want to get up on top of them and use some sort of maybe Damiki approach, or some sort of drop shot approach, you know, and that's fine. But I feel like you get more bites if you can stay back off, carry them, and key in on them with the jig, and then figure out the cadence you need. And I think that really works well.

One of the things that that 14, 12-pound Sunline does is that it has a little bit of stretch with the Sunline FC Sniper. And when you go to lean back on one, it gives him a minute to kind of go ahead and eat it, kind of like a crankbait would, you know, with the cranking rod. If it's really stiff and you're...maybe you're trying to use braid to feel better you think, you actually want to feel a little bit less because the chance of that fish actually swallowing the whole football jig in the winter is not nearly as great. But if you feel him exactly the minute that he puts it in his mouth, there's probably a good chance you're going to jerk and miss him. So it kind of does a couple of things like that. Allows your bait to get down there and allows you to not feel quite as good in order to let that fish eat that bait a little bit. But you know, it's a really great setup. It's a really easy way to catch them.

You know, a lot of times in the wintertime, it's cold. You don't want to have something winding all the time to where you're getting your hands wet, your gloves wet. You know, getting ice in the eyes of your rods. And this is a way you can slow down and keep from having to worry about that, and fish for the same fish with a technique they don't see a lot, a lot of places. And a technique that's pretty simple to do. The hardest part is just understanding that 35-foot is not that deep. If you stood to Ranger boats end to end to end, and they were 20-footers, that wouldn't really be that tall. So it's really not that big a setup to do, but it's a great way in the wintertime to key on them, catch them out there in schools, catch all three species, and just have a really great time.

BassResource may receive a portion of revenues if you make a purchase using a link above.