Friday, March 21, 2008
The jerkbait bite
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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As Wayne Burchett surveyed the decks of boats returning at the conclusion of a recent bass tournament at Smith Mountain Lake, a couple of patterns were obvious.
"Just about everybody had rods rigged with crankbaits and jerkbaits," said Burchett, co-director of the Team Tournament Trail, a popular regional tournament series sponsored by David Fritts Outdoors.
Crankbaits have long been a staple of spring bass fishermen, but jerkbaits have caught fire in recent years.
"For probably the last six or seven years it's been the hot bait when the water is in the mid 40s to mid 50s," Burchett said.
The lures aren't named for the guys who use them, but for the way they are fished.
The minnow-shaped lures are typically fished with twitches or jerks separated by pauses, an action that can drive bass crazy as the fish feed heavily in preparation for the upcoming, stressful spawning season.
Jerkbaits can work well in rivers for smallmouth bass, but they truly excel in lakes, where they are effective at tempting bass that are moving from their deep wintertime haunts toward shallows where they will spawn later in the spring.
John Crews, a professional tournament bass angler who lives in Salem, said jerkbaits are among his favorite spring lures. He thinks the lures are so effective in part because the action can mimic the behavior of stressed baitfish, something bass may be used to seeing.
"Some bait fish die off in winter," Crews said. "They'll have that erratic action, like a jerkbait. So the bass are programmed to feed on those bait fish."
The most popular early-spring jerkbaits are neutrally buoyant. On the retrieve they dive to a certain depth range. When an angler pauses between twitches, the lure tantalizingly suspends, which often triggers a strike from bass that are still not overly aggressive in the cool water.
"The fish just can't seem to resist it," Burchett said.
Crews said he feels jerkbaits are at their most effective under certain conditions.
"I like a combination of sunny skies, wind and clean water," Crews said.
By clean, he doesn't mean crystal clear. Visibility of 18 inches to 2 feet is fine, Crews said.
The sun helps warm the water which can draw bass out of the depths. Wind not only can help push bait fish into concentrations, the chop serves as cover for bass that are moving into shallower water.
"For me, the windier it is, the better I like it," Crews said.
Good areas for fishing jerkbaits include points, bluff banks and around docks. But when the fish are holding under docks, there are better choices.
"You can't skip a jerkbait under a dock," said Burchett.
Finding the best retrieve can take some experimenting.
"Sometimes it's jerk, jerk, pause," Burchett said. "Sometimes, it's jerk, pause, jerk."
Crews has another trick. After working a jerkbait through his main target area, Crews will retrieve it steadily almost to the boat. Then he pauses and twitches it one final time.
"I can't tell you how many bass I've caught on that final twitch," Crews said.
Jerkbaits are available in an array of colors, from realistic finishes to garish paint schemes with blue, chartreuse, silver and orange.
Burchett said he typically favors muted, natural colors on sunny days and brighter colors on cloudy days.
Like most variables in fishing, there are no hard, fast rules on color. Anglers are across the board on their favorites.
Likewise, brand loyalty varies.
Some fishermen are perfectly content to throw relatively inexpensive models such as the Rapala Husky Jerk or Smithwick Rattlin' Rogue, lures that cost about $5.
Moving up a little gets you to the Rapala X-Rap which is around $7 and the $10 Owner Cultiva Rippin' Minnow.
Ten dollars may seem like plenty for a lure, but many jerkbait fans don't stop there. The Lucky Craft Pointer series, which starts at around $15, is incredibly popular.
John Zienius, an avid bass angler who also owns Big Z's tackle shop in Radford, said anglers are snatching up the new ima jerkbaits he's started carrying this year.
"It's a $20 bait and I'm selling the fire out of them," Zienius said.
Does a $20 jerkbait really catch that many more fish than a $5 jerkbait? It probably depends on who's throwing it and where.
But one thing is not in doubt: For the next month or two, just about everyone will be throwing one just about everywhere.
And they'll all be catching bass.
