Power-Finesse Program

The state of Alabama and the jig are just about synonymous. Sure, the diverse fisheries of the state offer opportunity for tons of different techniques, from frogs to swimbaits to dropshotting, but day in and day out, it's a good bet that half the anglers fishing Alabama at any given time are throwing a jig.

But as the fisheries become more and more pressured, some pros have found that their traditional 1/2- and 3/4-ounce jigs function more like scarecrows. A lot of times, the fish have been pounded so hard that a large-profile bait falling through the water column simply becomes a negative image.

That's what Cullman resident Greg Pugh has discovered. His home water is deep-and-clear Smith Lake, but as an FLW Tour and Series pro, he's just as often working the mega reservoirs like Pickwick, Guntersville and Wheeler.

And he's found that his Alabama recipe for battling beat-up fish works all over, at all times of the year.

What's his secret? He calls it power-finesse fishing.

The Setup

Pugh turns to power-finesse whenever "the fish have really been fished a lot," he said. One recent example of when the switch paid big was this year's Norman FLW Tour in North Carolina, where he finished 8th with power-finesse. Another was this year's Pickwick Eastern FLW Series, where the technique delivered him a 5th-place finish.

The basic theory is to offer more than a shakey-head, but less than a bulky jig. His power-finesse bait is thus a 1/4-ounce homemade ballhead jig with a fiber weedguard, lightwire hook and thin skirt, which he trims down even more. The heads employ a 4/0 Gamakatsu lightwire hook with a 60-degree hook-eye. He paints them in subtle, natural hues and tips them with a green-pumpkin 4" Berkley Chigger craw.

He fishes the jig on the new Fenwick Elite Tech flipping stick – the 7'11" version. It's a heavy-action rod built with a fast tip, which allows him to sling the bait, detect subtle pickups, and also to play the fish on the lightwire hook once he drags it out of cover. Without that fast tip, he feels he'd lose a lot of fish at boatside.

The setup as a whole allows him to use heavier line than expected for a 1/4-ounce jig, and he typically throws it on 12- to 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon.

"With the Chigger craw behind it, that slows the bait down a whole lot more," he noted. "I know fluorocarbon makes a bait sink faster, but once you put that Chigger craw on, that creates some buoyancy and a slower fall."

The setup also allows him to move around to different depths and cover with the same bait. He can throw it in trees, under docks, or down to ledges. What follows are a few examples he gave of how he works it.

Deep Trees

"I fish a lot of deep timber, especially on Smith Lake, and power-finesse is a great way to do it," Pugh said. "On Smith, I may have the boat over 120 feet of water, above a tree that's 90 feet tall. So I'm actually fishing the jig 30 feet deep, right in the tops of the trees. That's why I call it power-finesse, because it's a small bait, but I can still get the fish out of the cover."

If it's windy, he'll fish the trees with a vertical presentation – drop the jig to the treetop, then start shaking it, just like you might shake a worm.

If it's not windy, he'll cast past where a tree is and tight-line his jig down into it.

"I'll feed my line out to the depth of the tree, click my reel, then tighten the line until I feel the tree," he said. "Once I feel the tree, I'll start working and crawling it over the limbs. When you first hit the tree, then move it a couple of feet, is usually when they bite it.

"I can get the fish out with the heavier line, but it's something that's a small profile – like a real small crawfish," he added. "That's how I catch so many of my fish on these deep, clear lakes."

Docks and Shallows

The key to power-finesse, Pugh said, is its versatility, and he can move right from trees to docks without missing a beat.

"I finished 8th at Norman this year by actually going in behind guys that were power-fishing docks with 20- or 25-pound line and catching fish they missed. I did that a lot in that tournament, and it gave me even more confidence with it.

"I also used (the setup) in the Stren Championship at the Mobile Delta. The fishing was tough, I wasn't getting a lot of bites, so I went to power-finesse in 5 or 6 feet of water and the slower fall was something those fish liked."

Ledges and Deep Water

When Pugh takes his finesse-power jig deep, he lets the fish tell him how to work it, which can mean anything from a slow crawl to a fairly aggressive stroke.

"If I stroke it, it drops real slow and I think that makes them bite it more than with a heavier jig," he said. "But when fishing highly pressured fish, I'll only crawl it about 6 inches at a time. A fish may hit that slow jig five or six times until he actually picks it up.

"I did that at Pickwick. A fish would bite it, I'd move it again, it would bite again, I'd move it again, and finally after a while the fish would swim off with it. There are just so many different ways to fish this jig, but in general, with more pressure I work it slower with less movement."

Notable

> About where he gets his jigs, Pugh said: "I used to pour them myself, then I actually got a friend of mine to pour them for me. I pay him what it costs him to do it. I'd like to get a company to pick it up (and market it)."

> He's pretty specific about his color details and switches out head color. "I'll use tan, brown or watermelon heads, according to the time of year. Once the fish start feeding on bluegills around docks, the light-tan head makes it look like a small little bream (bluegill)."

> As noted, he always uses a green-pumpkin Chigger craw, but dips the tips, again according to the time of year. When he wants to imitate a bluegill, he'll dip the very tips of the craw chartreuse – the length of "about half a fingernail." At other times he'll use red or orange dye on the tips to mimic (he says "manipulate") the color to look like various crawfish. Again, though, he'll dip just the very ends of the claws.