drakeshooter
03-01-2008, 03:46 PM
Jones' Bassmaster Classic win a boost for jigs
By Steve Vantreese svantreese@paducahsun.com--270.575.8684 (svantreese@paducahsun.com)
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The jig is up in the hearts of anglers for its low-down fishing merits — and it doesn’t hurt that jigs were the ticket to winning the recent Bassmaster Classic.
Jigs are among the oldest lures and long-time staples for bass fishing, but refined jigs have been riding a roller coaster of rejuvenated popularity on the high-profile tournament circuits in the past three or four seasons.
That can only be expected to swell and spread wider with Waco, Texas, angler Alton Jones’ victory Sunday in the Bassmaster Classic on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell, where he caught 49 pounds, 7 ounces of cold, wintry bass on a jig-dominated pattern.
Jones won by fishing deep — 30 feet sort of deep — around ditches and wood cover along inundated tree lines in several places along drought-lowered Lake Hartwell.
“The fish I were catching were right on the bottom, and an extremely slow presentation was critical to getting get,” Jones said of his successful method.
Jones had some luck, limited to about a half hour each morning, vertically fishing a heavy Cotton Cordell CC Spoon, but the rest of the time he oozed along bottom two prototype Booyah jig and plastic trailer combinations. One jig, a 3/4-ounce Pigskin features a football-shaped, wider side-to-side leadhead, while the other, a 1/2-ounce AJ’s Go2 jig, has a more conventional, slightly pointed, bottom-fattened head. Both have typical nylon weed guards; both are built on “big-bite,” wide-gap hooks.
A feature of both jigs is skirts made of a combination of live rubber for its properties of action and silicone, which can carry a better range of colors. The color of both jigs was Booyah’s Ozark Craw, which is brown (the rubber skirt strands) and purple (the silicone legs).
Jones applied the more streamlined Go2 jigs where he felt there was more snaggy cover, and he used the football-headed Pigskin where he sensed fewer obstructions. With either, his presentation was to cast, let the bait settle to bottom, then grow old as he inched the crawfish-imitating back along the bottom contour.
Jones’ lethargic lure presentation was largely based on the winter, cold-water timing of the Classic and the stodgy attitude of bass even as far down as South Carolina at this time of year. But it also fits with a jig trend that’s been going on for some time.
“Over the past couple of years, people have begun to see how versatile a jig is,” said Jeff Samsel, a fisherman and spokesman for Fort Smith, Ark.-based Booyah. “More fishermen have been swimming jigs, and especially with the football head, the jig has caused fishermen to tap into deeper fish than they used to reach.
“More people have discovered that you can catch a lot of bass by just dragging a jig, which lets you reach bass a lot deeper,” Samsel said.
“Fishermen in most places are more used to giving a jig more action, lifting and hopping it. Around Kentucky Lake it’s even a little more extreme — a lot of people ‘stroke’ a jig there, hopping it way off the bottom.
“Now, we’re seeing a lot more tournament fishermen fishing the jig really slow, keeping it in contact with the bottom,” Samsel said. “Especially with the football head, you can barely pull and get the jig to rock with a crawfish-sort of motion without really moving forward. The wide head keeps the jig from moving so much sideways, so it acts more like the crawfish by working the trailer up and down.”
In many circumstances, fishermen prosper by minimizing the movement of the jig. Slow dragging seems to trigger bites from bass that scorn lures that are faster and moving with more exaggeration. “Sometimes less is more,” Samsel said.
Dragging a jig along slowly also lets the fisherman keep better contact with the feel on the other end of the line. Keeping a more constant, although light tension on the line (as opposed to lifting and dropping the jig), fishermen may find that they have an easier time feeling the “bite” with an interested bass inhaling the lure.
Keeping touch with a deep, slow-moving lure comes easier with a non-stretchy line. Jones won the Classic fishing while fishing 14-pound Silver Thread Fluorocarbon, one of the better thump-transferring connectors available. Less “give” in fluorocarbon may be one of the secrets in how bass anglers are able to sense soft hits in deep water nowadays.
“Dragging a jig is a great method for all kinds of bass fishermen,” Samsel said. “It helps you get down to fish that are hard to reach with other methods. And it doesn’t take any really special skills or precision to get it to work for you.”
From Alton Jones’ perspective, jig dragging was worth a half million dollars in prize money and who knows how much else in endorsements, public appearances and other window dressings that come with topping the Bassmaster Classic. For most people, jig dragging will be well received if it just gives them a new tool to catch some extra fish.
Steve Vantreese can be contacted at 575-8684.
By Steve Vantreese svantreese@paducahsun.com--270.575.8684 (svantreese@paducahsun.com)
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The jig is up in the hearts of anglers for its low-down fishing merits — and it doesn’t hurt that jigs were the ticket to winning the recent Bassmaster Classic.
Jigs are among the oldest lures and long-time staples for bass fishing, but refined jigs have been riding a roller coaster of rejuvenated popularity on the high-profile tournament circuits in the past three or four seasons.
That can only be expected to swell and spread wider with Waco, Texas, angler Alton Jones’ victory Sunday in the Bassmaster Classic on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell, where he caught 49 pounds, 7 ounces of cold, wintry bass on a jig-dominated pattern.
Jones won by fishing deep — 30 feet sort of deep — around ditches and wood cover along inundated tree lines in several places along drought-lowered Lake Hartwell.
“The fish I were catching were right on the bottom, and an extremely slow presentation was critical to getting get,” Jones said of his successful method.
Jones had some luck, limited to about a half hour each morning, vertically fishing a heavy Cotton Cordell CC Spoon, but the rest of the time he oozed along bottom two prototype Booyah jig and plastic trailer combinations. One jig, a 3/4-ounce Pigskin features a football-shaped, wider side-to-side leadhead, while the other, a 1/2-ounce AJ’s Go2 jig, has a more conventional, slightly pointed, bottom-fattened head. Both have typical nylon weed guards; both are built on “big-bite,” wide-gap hooks.
A feature of both jigs is skirts made of a combination of live rubber for its properties of action and silicone, which can carry a better range of colors. The color of both jigs was Booyah’s Ozark Craw, which is brown (the rubber skirt strands) and purple (the silicone legs).
Jones applied the more streamlined Go2 jigs where he felt there was more snaggy cover, and he used the football-headed Pigskin where he sensed fewer obstructions. With either, his presentation was to cast, let the bait settle to bottom, then grow old as he inched the crawfish-imitating back along the bottom contour.
Jones’ lethargic lure presentation was largely based on the winter, cold-water timing of the Classic and the stodgy attitude of bass even as far down as South Carolina at this time of year. But it also fits with a jig trend that’s been going on for some time.
“Over the past couple of years, people have begun to see how versatile a jig is,” said Jeff Samsel, a fisherman and spokesman for Fort Smith, Ark.-based Booyah. “More fishermen have been swimming jigs, and especially with the football head, the jig has caused fishermen to tap into deeper fish than they used to reach.
“More people have discovered that you can catch a lot of bass by just dragging a jig, which lets you reach bass a lot deeper,” Samsel said.
“Fishermen in most places are more used to giving a jig more action, lifting and hopping it. Around Kentucky Lake it’s even a little more extreme — a lot of people ‘stroke’ a jig there, hopping it way off the bottom.
“Now, we’re seeing a lot more tournament fishermen fishing the jig really slow, keeping it in contact with the bottom,” Samsel said. “Especially with the football head, you can barely pull and get the jig to rock with a crawfish-sort of motion without really moving forward. The wide head keeps the jig from moving so much sideways, so it acts more like the crawfish by working the trailer up and down.”
In many circumstances, fishermen prosper by minimizing the movement of the jig. Slow dragging seems to trigger bites from bass that scorn lures that are faster and moving with more exaggeration. “Sometimes less is more,” Samsel said.
Dragging a jig along slowly also lets the fisherman keep better contact with the feel on the other end of the line. Keeping a more constant, although light tension on the line (as opposed to lifting and dropping the jig), fishermen may find that they have an easier time feeling the “bite” with an interested bass inhaling the lure.
Keeping touch with a deep, slow-moving lure comes easier with a non-stretchy line. Jones won the Classic fishing while fishing 14-pound Silver Thread Fluorocarbon, one of the better thump-transferring connectors available. Less “give” in fluorocarbon may be one of the secrets in how bass anglers are able to sense soft hits in deep water nowadays.
“Dragging a jig is a great method for all kinds of bass fishermen,” Samsel said. “It helps you get down to fish that are hard to reach with other methods. And it doesn’t take any really special skills or precision to get it to work for you.”
From Alton Jones’ perspective, jig dragging was worth a half million dollars in prize money and who knows how much else in endorsements, public appearances and other window dressings that come with topping the Bassmaster Classic. For most people, jig dragging will be well received if it just gives them a new tool to catch some extra fish.
Steve Vantreese can be contacted at 575-8684.