Swimming pools are a great spot for fishermen.
What! I can just hear somebody snort when they read that statement. By golly it’s true!
Nope, I’m not suffering delusions. You see, I’m not thinking about swimming pools as a place to catch fish. What I’m thinking about is how great they are as a place to learn how best to use different lures.
If you read my last column you’ll recall I said a swimming pool is a darn good place to get a handle on jig fishing. Why? Because you can practice everything from how to get a quiet entry with a jig as you cast as well as what the darn thing does as it falls.
What you’ll find in bass fishing is that you’ll often get hits as your lure drops. Now and then these pick ups are so soft and easy they are extremely difficult to detect. Your practice time in a pool really helps develop your feel for what’s going on as the jig falls. You’ll find it easier to know when there’s a different feeling when you’re actually fishing.
Let’s suppose you’ve tied on a new Mack’s Lure UV Smile Blade jig. When you cast this set up into the pool you’ll see exactly what happens as that lure drops. One of the keys to successful jig fishing is to make sure the jig drops straight down and doesn’t swing toward you on the fall. It won’t take long at the swimming pool to determine what you need to do with your rod and line to make sure that doesn’t happen.
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Jigs, if they're fished properly, take a variety of sports fish. You can see a Mack's Lure jig still pinned to the mug of this Columbia River steelhead.
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And here’s something else that swimming pool practice does for you. It will show you exactly what happens as you manipulate the lure once it touches down. How much rod action does is required to activate the bait? Want to make it just quiver down there on the bottom? Need to know how much rod movement it takes to make it hop up from the bottom? The quality time you spend practicing on a pool will provide quick answers.
Let’s suppose that you’ve found some great looking cover and you’re not certain of the best approach to take with a jig to see if it holds bass. I’ll never forget what one of the best jig fishermen I’ve ever met had to say in that regard.
Here’s his thinking. “Once I find appropriate cover,” he told me, “I get my jig into it with the least possible surface disturbance. Then I let the jig fall straight down. If I don’t get bit on the way down, I let the jig settle for about 10 seconds. Then I bounce it up 5 to 7-inches with a flip of my rod tip. If I still haven’t had a hit, I hop it forward along the bottom for a few inches. I do this twice. If I still haven’t had a bump, I pick it up and cast to a different spot.”
Bass, of course, aren’t the only fish that will grab a jig. Last year I fished a number of times at Fool Hollow Lake in the White Mountains of Arizona. I knew this lake had trout, bass and panfish as well as a scattering of walleyes. I was after bass but that wasn’t what I wound up catching.
I’d flipped my jig and grub up next to some rocks and---wham! Fish on! I thought I had hold of good sized largemouth until I got that fish up close to the boat it turned to be a channel catfish of about 4-pounds.
We moved on down the shoreline and 10 minutes later a channel cat of that looked to be about twice the size of the first took off with my jig. I eventually lost that one but it was more evidence that a jig gets unexpected results.
Certainly bass and catfish aren’t the only fish that often find jigs to their liking. On the walleye fishing trips I’ve made on the Columbia River our guides have always used a jig at least part of the time.
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Jigs have always been a favorite lure of knowledgeable walleye anglers. My friend Mike Jones used a jig to take this nice walleye from the Columbia River.
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These big river pros used fairly heavy jigs and always tipped them with a nightcrawler. Their usual approach was to have their clients let their jigs fall to bottom. After the jig and worm was on the bottom it was hopped up and then allowed to fall back.
Jigs aren’t only effective where larger fish like bass and walleye are concerned. In the right size and color they can be one of the most productive lures you can tie on a line for panfish. They are often pure dynamite for crappies.
In my next column we’ll take a close look at jig fishing for crappies, bluegills and perch. Watch for it beginning Dec. 1.
-To Be Continued-
