(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
In the course of just over a decade, the bladed jig has become a critical part of just about every serious tournament angler’s arsenal, all but supplanting the role of the spinnerbait or square-bill crankbait in many situations. It takes the appearance of a traditional lead-head jig and adds the critical component of vibration, making it deadly when bass are around vegetation in the pre-spawn and spawning periods. After that, though, even some pros put it away.
That’s a mistake, said FLW Tour pro John Hunter. On many waters, particularly those featuring grass, it continues to shine all year long. The key, he believes, is not to overcomplicate things. That starts with color. “You only need three,” he said. “Keep it simple.” He’ll use green-pumpkin when there’s at least a foot of visibility, white during the shad spawn, and black and blue when it’s “really, really, really dirty.” He keeps the sizes limited, too. “Three-eighths and half-ounce, those are the only two sizes I own. That’s really all you need. Don’t get caught up in the other ones.”
He matches his trailers to his skirts, utilizing a crawfish imitator when the grass is nearly topped out and he wants the lure to stay higher in the water column. In sparser vegetation, or when he’s trying to get the lure deeper, he’ll use a swimbait.
Even if you have the perfect lure, you can’t just use a random rod and hope to maximize your strike-to-land ratio. “I can’t stress it enough,” Hunter explained. “The rod is everything.” He raves about the Cashion 90474B, a “frog rod” that has the perfect amount of “load in the tip” to allow bass to inhale it. If your rod is too stiff, the bass never has a chance to suck it to the back of its throat. Additionally, the “break” of the blank occurs at about the halfway mark, which means that it has enough backbone to horse even a monster out of the thick greenery.
He pairs it with a 7:1 or 8:1 gear-ratio reel, which allows him to cover water and catch up with a streaking fish. He’ll have the trolling motor on 50 or 60 percent much of the time, so the ability to recover line quickly can often make the difference between a trip to the check line and heading home empty-handed. He spools it with 17- or 20-pound P-Line Tactical Fluorocarbon, favoring 17 whenever possible because it allows him to put more line on the spool and make longer casts.
The bladed jig may be a “year-round deal” anytime there’s submerged vegetation, but many anglers discard this “killer pre-spawn bait” in the summer and fall. Not Hunter, who seeks out windy banks and puts it to work for some of his best late-season catches.
If you want to learn some of Hunter's other bladed jig secrets, including which two of his top three colors he’d take to a desert island, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
