Football and finesse have never been synonymous terms, but some bass anglers are discovering that finesse football jigs have improved their game.
Jewel Bait Company owner Gayle Julian and his Ozark Mountain Team Trail tournament partner Scott Pauley have relied on the Jewel Bait Company Pee Wee Football Jig for a finesse tactic to catch more bass, especially when fishing gets tough. "As fishing pressure gets greater, I think smaller baits will get you more bites,” Julian says. “We started with a heavy cover football jig years ago, and that was a new concept of fishing football jigs in brush piles. Normally, football jigs are made for fishing gravel points and ledges. With the Pee Wee Football Jig, it is just a small compact version that gets many bites."
Julian remembers when he used to fish for bass with live crawdads, he caught from creeks. He recalls the crawdads that caught the most bass were about 2 to 2 1/2 inches long, the same length as his Pee Wee Football Jig.
Pauley believes the size of the small jig makes it an outstanding bass catcher. "Many times-- especially in the summertime--the Pee Wee Football Jig is more the size of a juvenile crawfish,” he says. “So when there is the crawfish hatch for the year, and there are all those baby crawfish growing (the pee wee jig) is the right size, and there is an abundance of those juvenile craws which the bass are feeding on."
The tournament partners have caught bass on the versatile finesse football jig in all seasons, in clear or dirty water, in the shallows, or out to depths of 40 feet or more. “The pee wee fishes a little heavier than what it is,” Julian says. “It has a thin strand skirt and doesn't have the same buoyancy as a heavy skirt, so you can use a lighter jig than you would normally use."
Their fishing depth usually determines how heavy of a finesse football jig Julian and Pauley select. "I tend to like a heavier jig, so I probably throw the 7/16-ounce jig most of the time,” Pauley says, “but there have been many times that the 7/16 will hang up in the rocks. So I switch to the 5/16 jig and can fish it all day long, and it doesn't get down there and dig in the rocks. “
Julian prefers the 5/16-ounce jig for most of his finesse football presentations but will opt for the 7/16-ounce version when fishing deeper than 30 feet. “I will use the 3/16-ounce jig a lot whenever I am fishing an area where I know there are fish, but they have been beaten up either because of fishing pressure or just boats running," says Julian, who uses the lighter jig at depths less than 10 feet. "It has a prolonged fall. I can work it through cover and heavy rocks, and it doesn't hang up, so I can fish it slow, which I typically do when there is a lot of fishing pressure."
The tournament competitors base their jig color selections on water clarity. They prefer a black and blue jig for dirty or stained water and more natural hues like green pumpkin, PB&J (brown and purple), and Basswhacker (brown, orange, and chartreuse) for clear water.
Both anglers favor matching the pee wee jig with the Jewel Bait Company 2.5 Pee Wee VersaCraw for the jig trailer. They also prefer contrasting colors for the jig and trailer, such as using a PB&J jig with a green pumpkin plastic craw.
The versatility of the VersaCraw makes it Julian’s top choice for a jig trailer. The small craw can be rigged seven ways by pulling apart or removing segments of the craw to vary its action. “Several years ago, I had the opportunity to fish every Friday and Saturday from November to February, and I would see what fish preferred and why I was getting bit and why I wasn't,” Julian says. “I learned trailer action is the key to getting bit. It was more important than color and size. The action was the most important part, so with the VersaCraw, we built it to where you can have multiple actions."
Keeping all the pieces of the VersaCraw together gives the jig and trailer a subtle action, whereas pulling apart or removing segments increases the trailer's action. “You will notice on any given day there will be some days when you are fishing, and there will be squirrels running around on the bank, and fish will be jumping and birds singing, and there are all kinds of movement,” Julian says. “Then there are other days when it is dead silent. So if I had something with a lot of action on those days when everything was subdued, I learned that I didn't get the bites versus having something with no action that was very subtle."
Despite its diminutive size, the pee wee jig can be pitched or cast with baitcasting equipment. Julian opts for a 6-foot, 10-inch Virtus medium heavy spinnerbait/finesse casting rod and a fast gear ratio (8.5:1) baitcast reel spooled with 10- to 12-pound fluorocarbon line.
Hopping or dragging the miniature jig produces the best results for Pauley. Julian employs the same retrieves and surveys his surroundings to determine how he hops or drags his jig. "If everything looks subdued, then I tend to work it more subdued, but if everything looks more active, then I tend to be more active with it,” he says.
The fishing buddies have caught both quality and numbers of largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass on the miniature football jig. "I don't think of it as something I need to get, just some keeper bites," Julian says. “I just want to get some bites. I have caught as big a fish on the pee wee jig as I have ever caught in all the years I have fished. So it is not a deal where it just catches small fish, but it will catch you numbers of fish (of all sizes).”
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