Alabama FLW Tour and Series pro Matt Herren loves to fish a jig, and who wouldn't? If the jig bite's on, there's rarely a better way to put a load of big bass in the livewell. The trouble is, what if the bite isn't quite right?

Herren won't just abandon the jig without a fight. He has a few tricks up his sleeve that he'll try before he goes to backup options like jigworms or tubes. Here are a few of them.

Show Your Colors

When they're biting, but not well, you might find yourself whiffing a lot of times with no hookup. Next, some of the hookups may come unbuttoned before you can get your hands on them. Finally, you get one in the boat. At this point, Herren really gets serious with his analysis of what to do next.

"If you're getting bites but they're not really eating it, most of the time, it's color," he said. "You're just not quite right on the color.

"I learned 20 years ago in a team tournament that color is the biggest thing to look at. I lost the first seven or eight big fish that bit. I was throwing a brown jig with black pork on it. I finally realized that the fish were keying on the black tail and just nipping at the lure.

"I went to solid black (jig and pork) and then every one had it in their tonsils."

He has a simple set of colors he uses most of the time. "I'm pretty basic," he noted. "With a jig, you're imitating one of three kinds of forage – a shad, a crawfish, or a bluegill. I'll use a white jig to imitate shad, green-pumpkin for bluegill, and green-pumpkin, black or brown for crawfish.

"Then I tint it with chartreuse, blue or orange. I have a box with me in the boat with just about every color of silicone skirt material I can get my hands on. I have a lot of skirts and heads made up to start with, but I'll change things on the water. I'll add a few strands of color to a plain skirt or change a color."

He added that he usually starts with a black jig and blue plastic trailer. If the bass aren't eating it well, he'll start to tweak the color combinations. One way he does that it to dip the tail of the trailer in chartreuse, orange or blue dye.

"You have to pay attention to the way they strike," he said. "Are they inhaling it or not? If he's stuck good (you don't need to make a change). But did he just nip it? Was it a faint bite? Where is he hooked? Is it on the lip or back in his mouth? A color change can get them to just slam it."

He didn't have any particular recommendations as to what colors to try first, or what specific color changes to make based on what circumstances. However, he did say that water clarity has an influence (use darker colors in dingier water).

He instead stressed that you have to just start trying things to see what they react to. "Experience on different lakes and time on the water" is what he uses to guide him.

Weighty Matters

Along with the black/blue color combination, he has a favorite weight to use as a starting point.

"I use a 3/8-ounce jig most of the time," he noted. "I'll use up to 1-ounce, or as light as a 1/8-ounce in very shallow water. The cover dictates the weight, but if I'm fishing docks in 1 to 10 feet, for example, the 3/8-ounce is a good starting point."

Then, if he's not getting bites – or getting weak bites – and different color combinations doesn't seem to help, he'll start experimenting with weight. "The type of cover dictates the speed of fall you need," he said.

"You have to think about where the bites were coming. If they hit it when it was dead on the bottom, you should use a heavier bait so you don't waste time getting it down there, especially if you're fishing a deep lake.

"On the other hand, if they hit it 2 feet down over 10 feet of water, you may need to slow down the fall with a lighter weight.

"In other words, adjust the speed of fall relative to the strike zone," he said.

Keeping it in the strike zone longer may result in better, and more, hookups. But sometimes ripping through the strike zone will get a reaction bite from tentative fish.

"Sometimes a slow fall will work better, and sometimes you need to crash it for a reaction bite," he added. "You just have to play around with color and weight until you find out what they want."

Notable

> Herren's favorite jig trailer is a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver. "I'll use a Smallie Beaver on a finesse jig, and the original Sweet Beaver on a regular size jig," he said. "And (recently) at Lake Fork (at the Toyota Texas Bass Classic) I used a Double Wide Beaver. A big fish likes a big bait sometimes."

> To read about his winning pattern from the recent Dardanelle Eastern FLW Series, click here.