How do you like to fish soft jerkbaits/flukes?

[jazzwannabe]

I just picked up some soft jerkbaits and need some pointers on how to rig them and present them. Never tried them before. Weighted/unweighted, etc.?

[Rooger]

jazz

depending on the depth you are trying to fish, you can use weighted hooks, but most are too heavy and affect the action. I like braided line because it floats, then use different weights inside the bait to find the right drop. You can buy weights, but i find its much cheaper to take penny nails or something similar and cut different lengths with a bolt cutter. Insert them in the middle of the bait, lengthwise, so they don't interfere with your hook set.

Unweighted works great, but only if you're fishing very shallow, or there's zero wind and/or you can really control your boat position. It just takes a lot of patience to get the bait more than 2-3' deep. If you're on the bank, unweighted is the way to go.

Use a flouro leader (or mono for a little stretch). Again, experiment with the length - I usually go about 18-24". Regardless of what your main line is made of, attach your leader to the lightest, quality swivel you can find. When you reel in fast to throw another cast, no matter how perfectly straight you rig the bait, it's going to spin on the retrieve. The swivel will help lessen the line twist which is especially key with spinning reels.

I usually use a spinning rod with some backbone, and point my index finger down the blank toward the tip. I just seem to impart better action this way than I'm able to achieve with any of my baitcasters.

My favorite bait is the Mann's hardnose. The tough material in the head seems to give me greater shelf life with the bait, and the body is so much more pliable, which helps impart action. They only thing I'd improve, if I were Mann's, is to work on their color selections.

Good luck - these are one of my favorite baits, especially when bass are tight to cover and you need to keep the bait in a small strike zone window.

Rooger

[Rooger]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - with the spinning rig, it's really easy to skip these baits under overhanging trees and docks, once you get the hang of it. (Sometimes it's too easy and the bait will skip into the branches or over the dock if you're not careful.)

[BassManDan]

Yeah, good baits on a spinning rod with 8 lb lightly weighted or unweighted is usually the way to go.

Something I do is just get a standard 3/0 Gami EWG and wrap one Suspend Strip length-wise on the shank of the hook. The weight added as almost negligable, but it is the perfect amount of weight when your fishing 6 ft or less. If you want depth, go with a 3/16 oz weighted shank hook and let'er sink.

[Kevin Evans - Kap]

I would also use a 1/8 darterhead and also try it on a split shot rig, nose hooked with ur favorite circle type hook...

Good luck,
Kap

[Oldschool]

Also try them on underspins like Sworming Hornets, Bladerunner spintrix and Scrounger head jigs.
Tom

[acm95301]

Also try them on underspins like Sworming Hornets, Bladerunner spintrix and Scrounger head jigs.
Tom

+1

also a double fluke rig is fun. take two white flukes with 5/0 ewg. thread a swivel onto a line...thread not tie. to the main line tie one hook. to the swivel tie 18" of line and then the second hook....if your seeing bass or striper busting shad on top...BAMO!

[Wild Bill]

Just about everyone knows about rigging them on a 4/0 or so sized EWG hook, for weedless use.


For more open water, Tie a 2/0 OCTOPUS hook on your line, and NOSE-HOOK them.
Take you hook-point and about 1/2 to 3/8 of an inch back from the nose of the bait come straight up from the bottom to the top of the bait, so the bait now is impaled onto the bend of the hook, and the hookpoint now just about reaches the front of the lure in an EXPOSED state .

This I fish on a 7' Medium St Croix Avid/10 pound copolymer.[or 8 test]

It works GREAT !!

.......

I also use them on weighted-shank 3/0 EWG that have 3/32 of weight on 12 pound copolymer on a baitcaster, using a 7 foot MH Kistler LTX 2.

[Wild Bill]

Wazzup, Kevin ?

Hope life has been treating you well.

Been a long time since I saw you at Beaver Lake at the Yamamoto Tourney Final there.


I should be going out to Morgan Hill for about nine days in Mid-May again. I leave a bunch of rods there
I'll try to give you a shout out before I come, and hopefully, we could wet some lines together then.

[Kevin Evans - Kap]

Hey there Wild Bill...
I'm hanging in there, not fishing as much as I should be but hopefully that will change real soon here.
Good to hear from you and hope you are doing well?
Beaver Lake .. WOW.. It was fun until I broke down.. But Thanks again for the Tow Rope my friend.
It would be nice to get out on the water with you if possible when your out here.

Take care,
Kevin

[Wild Bill]

Kevin,

I am going to PM you now.

Don't want to tie the forum up with talk between two guys.