What a jerk: Thin minnow plugs are big playmakers

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Anglers often encounter situations that require a different look than they get from crankbaits, jigs and blade baits.

Late spring is one of those times. Bass and other game fish are in transition from spawn to post-spawn. From central to south Arkansas, bass are transitioning out of the post-spawn into their summer patterns. Sometimes, when all your old favorites don’t work, you need to run a trick play or two. For me, the stickbait — or jerkbait — is the play.

Jerkbaits come in hard and soft varieties. The hard variety is traditional and time tested. It is a thin, tapered plug with a plastic lip on the front. Most are designed to run shallow, but some have long, level lips for deep running. Most float and rise when idle, but some are weighted to suspend when idle.

If you retrieve it by merely cranking the reel, it moves with a tight wobble. If, on the other hand, you jerk the rod tip downward and sideways, the jerkbait darts, dives, jukes and jives like a wounded baitfish or a fish in distress. Fish, especially Kentucky bass, will come from a long distance to attack it.

I witnessed a clinic on the technique in June 1995 while fishing on Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma with Rowe Waelder of Fort Smith. Fishing over a deep, secondary point, Waelder’s jerkbait provoked big Kentuckies to rush up from about 25 feet to attack a bait. Each strike aroused the rest of the school until we triggered an all-out feeding frenzy that lasted for about 90 minutes.

In May 2003, Bill Chester of Reeds Spring, Mo., showed me a technique on Table Rock Lake for catching big smallmouth bass with a C-10 Red Fin. Early in the morning, he retrieved the Red Fin very slowly so that its back was above the water. The “waking” motion summoned big smallmouths from down deep. That pattern ended the moment direct sunlight touched the water. It is the same pattern that striper anglers use to catch big striped bass on lakes Ouachita, Beaver and Bull Shoals.

For anglers in the White River system, the Smithwick Rogue is the avatar for the jerkbait, but there are many, many others, including the Long A Bomber, Rapala thin minnow, the Cordell Redfin, the Lucky Strike Gun Fish, the Luck-E-Strike RC STX and the Lucky Craft stickbaits. They all work the same way, and they all catch fish.

Soft plastic jerkbaits are comparatively newer and are more of a niche item, but they work on the same principle. They mimic prey in distress. Scott Little of Springdale, a onetime competitor on the old Red Man Circuit, introduced me to the soft plastic jerkbait during sessions for a series of articles we did together on Beaver Lake in 1993. His favorite flavor at that time was called the Fin-S. In late May, we used them to catch multiple limits of chunky largemouths on the outside edges of flooded buckbrush in the War Eagle arm. They were especially deadly on schooling largemouths in open water. I still have a few packs of Fin-S baits.

Aggressive schooling bass cannot resist a jerkbait, so it is always wise to have one tied to a rod in reserve. It is also very effective for catching white bass, hybrid striped bass and even big striped bass when they school in the mornings and evenings. They are also extremely effective for catching big brown trout and rainbow trout in high water. You will encounter all of those situations in late May and early June.

Sometimes a jerkbait works when and where you least expect it. One such incident occurred last summer on the Buffalo River while fishing with Ray Tucker of Little Rock. None of our usual summer offerings worked, and we were soon discouraged. Tucker tied on a shad colored Long A Bomber and quickly caught three big smallmouth bass in bang-bang fashion.

I never use jerkbaits in a creek, so I didn’t have one on hand. Thankfully, Tucker had an extra. I tied it on and joined him at the top of the summer smallmouth hit parade. That unexpected revelation turned a dud of a trip into one for the ages.

You can fish jerkbaits with spinning tackle or baitcasting tackle. To get the best action from the lure, use a medium-action rod with a fairly slow tip. Line should be fairly light, 8- or 10-pound test. I often use 10-pound test monofilament backing with an 8-pound test flourocarbon leader spliced with a double-uni knot.

Instead of cinching your knot directly to the eyelet, use a loop knot that allows your bait to dangle. I use a Mirr-O-Lure knot. This will greatly enhance your jerkbait’s action.

Cast the lure as far as you can, preferably with the wind at your back for greater distance. Vary the duration and severity of your jerks. Hammer it on a few retrieves, and then be subtle with a few retrieves, dancing it lightly with generous pauses in between. Combine severe and subtle jerks on other routines.

The Holy Grail of jerkbait fishing is if you can make one do a loop. This is unteachable. It just happens, and when it does, remember as best you can everything you did to produce that miracle. When a jerkbait does a loop, it is going to get bit, guaranteed.

Sports on 05/28/2020

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