Fishing With Hair Jigs for Bass Not Just For Fall Part 1

When the topic of hair jigs comes up among bass fishermen it is almost always associated with fall bass fishing. However, this is not at all true. In fact, hair jigs can be highly effective when fishing becomes tough and the bite is slow. I remember fishing the Rip Van Winkle tournament on Connecticut’s Candlewood Lake in the early spring about 3 years ago when they paid huge dividends. I had partnered with Keith Cleary on a two-day tourney. As is usually the case on Candlewood jerk baits and crank baits were the preferred weapons at this time of year. We were on a fair jerk bait bite during practice as well as the first day of the tournament. The second day the bite turned tough in spite of high winds, which normally fire up the jerk bait bite this time of year. The problem was that the winds were out of the north and as one would expect in early spring very cold. This resulted in dropping the water temperature below the 43-degree mark and turning the jerk bait bite to seldom. Keith suggested we cover some of the more sheltered areas of the lake with a different approach. On Candlewood these areas are few since the lake runs north to south. We did manage to find some good shoreline out of the 20-30 mile an hour winds. Keith tied on a black hair jig and cast to shallow cover ranging from about 3 to 8 feet deep from the shore to the boat. A 2.5-pound keeper large mouth of the rock-clustered shoreline almost immediately bit Keith. My point being that when bass start getting lock jaw and the traditional jig and pig combo is too unsettling the smaller more subtle breathing hair jig can trigger strike just by short hopping the jig and making contact with the chunk rock in your line of retrieval. Stay tuned for Fishing With Hair Jigs for Bass Not Just For Fall Part 2.