Technique Highlight: Jerkbaits

What's going on everybody, it's Kip here with Omnia Fishing and Fall is right around the corner, which means that the bass are moving from their summer patterns, they're coming up deep, they're going to get a little bit more aggressive and a jerk bait is an awesome technique to use to target those bass. So today we're talking about jerk baits, we're going to go over the rods, the reels, line terminal tackle and some of the baits that you'd need to take this technique during the fall and target some of those bass. So to start off with the rods, there's two type of rods that you might see in the jerk bait world, but typically you're looking for a, it's called a 6/8 to a 7 foot medium light to medium powered rod with a moderate fast or fast action. This one here is the diowatutulule, this is Seth fighters jerk bait rod , it's a medium light, and this one's actually a regular bend and you can see that with this rod, but it bends fairly deep into the blank and it's a very soft rod. So this particular rod would be well suited for like your 110 juniors or smaller jerk baits, things of that nature and shallower water. So this is one option that you could go with, but the other option and probably our best selling jerk bait rod here at Omnia fishing is something like this X-Bride, it's a 6/10 medium and I believe this is a mod fast action, it might be a fast, but this has a lot more power, not quite as soft of a tip, so this is well suited for your traditional sized jerk baits, a Vision 110, your duo reallys 120's I think they are. This rod has been a staple in the jerk bait fishing world for years now, and the new X-Bride bees are no exception, this is a killer rod. So once you've got your rod picked out again a 6 1/2 to 7 foot medium light to medium powered rod, you're going to need a reel, and for me personally the main thing I look for in a reel is a small frame. The way you're working a jerk bait is the tip of your rod is down and you're ripping it every you know a couple seconds two to three times, two to three at a time, at sometimes. So I want a reel that's comfortable, small, it doesn't need to hold a lot of line, and these two have been my favorite personally, so I've got the Shimano Carrado 70 and the Dioitutula SVTW 70. These reels are both very small, easily palmable, and they have a 70 size spool which means it's not going to hold a ton of line which you don't need for a jerk bait. Typically we'll get to it in a second, but you're throwing 10 to 12 pound test fluorocarbon at max, a 70 size spool is going to hold plenty of that. So a couple of things that differentiate these two reels, the Carrado has a MGL spool, for those of you who aren't familiar, that just means that the spool is heavily ported, you probably can't see it, but there's a bunch of holes in the spool. That makes the spool lighter and makes it faster, so this reel is a rocket, you can cast it a mile. The one downside to an MGL spool in my experience is that they are a little squ irrely because they're so light, so fast, you can cast a mile, but if you've got a bunch of wind, you 're going to have to dial in your brakes a little bit, but outside of that this is a fantastic reel. In the Tittula, the SVTW70, same thing goes small, shallow spool, but this has the SV spool. Essentially it's a lot more controlled. You can still cast a decent ways with this reel, but that SV technology, the brakes are just a little stronger. I found that I can cast better into the wind with this reel versus the Carrado. And then the last thing to touch on with reels is gear ratio. For me, I want just about as fast of a reel as I can get. Any technique where I am imparting action to the bait with the rod and picking up slack with the line, with your reels, excuse me, I want a fast reel. So an 8-1, 8-5, in some cases, that's a perfect gear ratio for me for a jerk bait. Moving on to line, super simple with a jerk bait. I know some people use braid to lead or some people use mono. For me, it's straight fluorocarbon. These two are my favorites. So tried and true for years. I've used the C-Gar in Visex, but just recently I've tried this line from some line. This is the Sunline FC crank. Benefit of this line is that it has a little bit more stretch. So this is designed for treble hook baits. It's a great crank bait line, but it 's also awesome for a jerk bait. It gives you a little more stretch and helps you land more fish. As far as diameter, I mentioned it earlier, day in and day out, I'm going with 10-pound test. 10- pound test is going to get your jerk bait to the desired depth. It's going to keep it a little bit deeper, and you're going to get a little bit further casting distance with the 10-pound test if you're around hard cover, a bunch of rocks, maybe some lay downs, brush piles, bump it up to 12-pound test, and you'll be just fine. Let's go to baits first and then work our way to terminal. Baits, this is probably no surprise to you, but the go-to for me and around the office is going to be a Vision 110. They make it in a junior. That one's awesome too, but the 110 and the 110 plus one are my go-to throughout the fall. If the fish are a little bit deeper, and if I'm fishing in 12 feet or so, that 110 goes, I believe, from like 7 to 9 feet. If you're throwing a 10-pound, you can probably get it down to 10 feet. If they're up shallower, early fall, that Vision 110 is around the 4 to 7 foot range, I believe, 4 to 6 foot. I might be wrong there, but these baits are incredible. They've got a weight transfer system. They're one of the only jerk baits on the market that truly suspend in most water temperatures. But if you 're looking to save a few bucks, those Vision 110s are 25 bucks. I get it. Not everybody wants to spend that much money on a jerk bait. This bait from Marappola saves you 10 bucks, the Maverick. This one is almost just as good. It's got an internal weight transfer system. It comes stock with VMC, Redline Hooks, so the Hooks are, this bait's good to go out of the package. It might not suspend quite as good as the Vision 110, but if your fish are aggressive, that doesn't matter. You go with the Rappola and you'll catch just as many fish. Lastly, talking about terminal tackle, both of the baits we talked about here come with quality components already, but if you happen to bend one out or if you just want to upgrade to the best of the best as far as Hooks go, these are your two options that I've found. The Gamigatsu G-FNS, the Aaron Martin's Hooks, they're a light wire, they've got a slick coating on them. They replace the standard Vision 110 Hooks very well. I believe it's the size six that I've been using. Another route, this is kind of a hidden secret in the fishing industry for the last few years. People have figured out about it now, but the Ichikawa Lightwire Trouble Hooks, Ichikawa's an amazing company. A Japanese brand, they make razor sharp hooks, slick coating, the number seven, and maybe the number six in the Lightwire Hook pairs great with any of these jerk baits we've got, but these are razor sharp. You're going to land more fish. The last tip I have for you is optional, but it's one that I've been playing with for the last couple of years now. I found that a color change in your offering can make a huge difference when you're fishing a jerk bait. For me, sitting there and retying every three, four casts to try to get that school fired up became tedious. I tried playing around with these owner-welded quick snaps and they've been flawless. I don't know if any action haven't broken any or lost any fish due to the snap. They're very small in the size zero, the number zero, that's what I'd recommend. You can change your bait at will. You can have your jerk bait box on the deck of your boat, make a few casts if they're not reacting to that jerk bait color, make a quick switch without retying and you're good to go. So like I said guys, the jerk bait bite and incredible during the fall. If you haven't thrown a jerk bait before or you're trying to really dial in your jerk bait equipment and setups, take a look at the information in this video, put it to practice, and go catch some more bass on a jerk bait this fall.