(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.)
Bassmaster Elite Series pro Bill Lowen has used a swim jig successfully in 45-degree water as well as when the air temperature is 110 degrees, but he’s happiest with it in the spring, when bass are generally dirt shallow. “If I’m not kicking up mud with that trolling motor, I’m not happy,” he explained. Like everything he does, there’s a system to maximize his success.
“I think one of the most important things to swim jig fishing is the rod,” he said. “I’m very anal about my equipment.” He prefers something in the 7’6” range because swim jigs are almost always utilized around some form of heavy cover, but a “broomstick”-like flipping rod will tire him out. Instead, he’s working with Lew’s on something similar to a heavy spinnerbait rod, what he calls an “80/20” with 80 percent backbone and 20 percent tip. It allows him to make accurate casts, and skip his swim jigs under overhanging cover, even shake them violently without tiring him out. “Let the rod work for you,” he said. He pairs it with a Team Lew’s HyperMag baitcasting reel, the 7.5:1 version, not the 8.3:1 model. He said that with the latter he tends to “winch on ‘em too hard.” He spools it up with 30-pound Seaguar TactX braid, which provides maximum action. Most strikes are visual and the rod’s soft tip provides a slight delay that prevents him from pulling the jig away from a biting fish.
Many anglers run into trouble picking a trailer because there are so many choices. “For me, the simpler the better,” Lowen said. He tends to use three or four categories most often: Something with a kicking action, like a Rage Craw; a shad or bluegill profile, like a Caffeine Shad Swimmer or a Rage Swimmer; a creature with less kicking action, like a Rage Bug or a Strike King Menace; and some type of grub.
He rigs those trailers on the various jighead designs he’s developed or refined for Lure Parts Online, all of which are in the “quarter-ounce window.” That’s because Lowen prefers to hover his jig and keep it in the strike zone as long as possible, and a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce jig prevents him from doing that. When he gets to a stump, a clump of grass or the shade line of a dock, he can “just float it.” That’s best accomplished with a bulky trailer on the back, like the Rage Craw, which provides ample resistance. He’ll go to a “heavy quarter” when he wants to wind the lure more consistently, fishing it slightly deeper and/or slightly faster.
On all of his swim jigs – and his flipping jigs too, for that matter – he prefers some tinsel in the skirt: “It gives that bait a little bit of flash,” he said, and he’s convinced it produces more bites and more checks over the course of a season.
If you want to learn some of the other secrets of how Lowen utilizes a swim jig, including his primary color selections and the surprising soft plastic he uses as a trailer when it’s super-cold, check out his full on-the-water video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
