Jerkbait Lessons Learned

Well I spent a bit of time on Lake of the Ozarks over the past two weeks and while I struggled with getting onto the right kind of fish for my tournaments I feel that I learned a little more about jerkbait fishing. Jerkbait fishing has never been one of my strengths. It’s something that I’ve messed with but I haven’t mastered. It’s a technique that I am hoping to continue to improve upon and I hope to someday become skilled with a jerkbait. Here’s a couple of tips that I would like to share though about my experience of playing with the jerkbait over the past two weeks.

When you have overcast conditions some of the best colors that you can have tied on during a shad kill are bone, and black and chrome. These colors seemed to work the best. The bone color really stands out in the overcast conditions and it does a great job of mimicking shad.

When you work your jerkbait one of the best cadences to try first is two short twitches and then a pause. The biggest thing you have to mess with is how long you pause the bait. When you are looking for active fish a lot of times you just have to wait 5 seconds in between twitches. I caught a lot of fish letting the bait sit from 10 to 20 seconds. In practice I caught some letting it sit for about 25 seconds without moving it. If you know you are around fish try slowing down and working it really slow and letting it sit sometimes for up to a minute.

The places you want to look for to get your jerkbait fish are on secondary points and bluff end points. Look for the secondary points that have chunk rock and pea gravel mixed. Transitions like these attract bass in cold water. Try and spot brushpiles up on these points or any other stickups. Take your jerkbait and toss it right over the brush piles and let it sit. If the bass are around you can tempt them into coming up and eating your bait.

Some of the best bluff end points are the ones where you have the bluff end coming into a chunk rock bank that creates a shelf. One one of these points I caught a 6 pounder off in practice that just drilled it.

When it comes to getting bites try getting your jerkbait to hit stuff like rocks, and brush. Sometimes that is what it takes to get bit. Make sure you have a plug knocker handy though cause those jerkbaits get caught on everything.

When it comes to what brand of jerkbaits to throw make sure you invest in a couple of different styles. For whatever reason the bass will prefer Megabass Ito 110’s one day and your old Smithwick Rogues the next. I think a lot of it has to do with the sound that they make along with the action. Certain jerkbaits though have louder rattles on them which I think makes them more productive in stained water.

One last thing I learned is that jerkbait fishing is all about timing when the water is cold. You can fish a lot of points and then hit one point and load the boat. The key is to be patient and keep your head up and keep on fishing.