Jig fishing

  well i have been doing a lot of it recently and  its been really working well these past few months. when i first started fishing i really had no clue what i was doing and gravitated to the easier faster baits. i think i did most of my fishing with a spinnerbait but a lot with various kinds of crankbaits too. the more i read and saw on fishing shows the more i wanted to learn different styles. i guess a lot of people cut their teeth on plastic worms but when i tried the slower baits i was just so lost i quickly became uninterested in them. eventually i became interested in the old " jig and pig". i forget why or what drew me to it. they say its a bigger fish technique, I'm not so sure about that but i think one of the main reasons i started doing it was that the weights of soft plastics texas rigged or carolina rigged made them very hard to keep the "feel" of the lure.  i was always wondering " what will a fish feel like?" " how do i know I'm working it right?"  the more i read the more i was confused. i knew i needed a slower technique for tough days on the water and really wanted to expand my game. after some experimenting i found that the jig and pig let me keep good contact with the bottom and was surprisingly weedless and snagless for having an exposed hook. i was able to feel what i was going over and thrue much better and i had always read that i shouldn't worry what a fish biting will feel like,  you only have a fish on your line 1% of the time so don't worry about it. you have nothing on your line 99% so concentrate on what it feels like the 99% of the time. when suddenly it dosent feel that way SET THE HOOK!!the jig let me get in tune with this "feel" much better than a texas rig did. so that was many many years ago and it seems like an eternity has passed but i would say I'm pretty confident in my jig fishing. and its come a long way too, back when i started plastic trailers were limited and if you used one it was a worm or plastic crawfish. pork was the standard then, today plastics are in every shape action and color. pork is messier and hard to find these days. it dries out on the hook, you must always keep it wet  or it shrivels into nothing. its hard to get on and off a lot of the time. the jars leak salt all the time and that causes rust so you have to constantly add salt water and keep the jars away from your tackle. plastic is so much more easy to deal with. match any color these days. change shapes and styles of baits to match the bite. never drys out and on and off is a snap. a lot of them are pre-scented with salt and all sorts of stuff like coffee and garlic.  so heres how I set up and pick my jigs. there are 3 basic types of jig heads. football( for rocky bottoms) tear dropped( an all purpose) and pointed ( for swimming through grass) there is a large selection of line tie placements and flat bottom to sit with the hook upright, different gapped and sized hooks. and a meriad of weights. with all lures these days it can be pretty confusing. i know i was lucky not to have so many choices when i started. basically pick 3 weights, i like a 3/4 for heavy heavy cover or flipping matts of debris . a 1/2 oz for windy days or when i really need a fast decent to get deeper or get a reaction bite. and finally a 1/4 oz for more finesse situations to get finicky fish or in a small stream setting for smallies. i like the wide gap hooks, size is usually relevant to the jig head so being precast its usually already chosen for you. head shape dosent really concern me too much. theres not a lot of rock to worry about and i never really throw the swimming jigs deep into the grass so most of my jigs are the old cheap tear drop shaped ones. things are so expensive now i remember when jigs were like 1.80$ for one  now they go for like 5$ and more sometimes!! skirt sizes very but get em longer and you can trim em up to match the need. bulky on some, thinner on others to keep with what the fish are looking for. colors these days are out of control crazy, I'm a firm believer in keeping it simple and my color selection shows this. the old tried and true black/blue is a must! hands down one of the best all time colors. i would say 75-80% of the time i have a dark colored jig on, it dosent have to be black and blue  black and any combo work, just dark. it provides a great silhouette in the murky and muddy water. works well in low light and even in clear water gives a great target.  i use a lighter pumpkin or natural color in clearer water when i need to tone it down or the fish aren't going for the darker bait. sometimes its a better match for the hatch as they say. finally i use a white or silver or some variation of that color for when the bass are feeding heavily on baitfish and I'm swimming it or trying to get bit on the fall more so, especially when the bass suspend in limbs. the pork or plastic question just depends on the conditions. i think the mechanical movement of plastic makes it more ideal for low light or dirty water. its very much the same movement and transmits well through the water on the fall. when I'm going for reaction bites i use plastic , when I'm going for visual bites i use pork. pork is much more subtle and in clear water or when the fish need a less intimidating look it dominates. put the two in the water side by side and see what i mean. pork undulates by itself and seems almost alive. plastic needs more movement to get it to do stuff. i am lucky to have  some bo hawg frog pork rinds from strike king. they were discontinued and blow the doors on uncle josh any day. longer with better action and  just such a better look, i really don't know what I'm gonna do once they are all gone. they are deteriorating now to, dead matter can only last so long and no amount of salt is gonna keep pork fat from falling apart eventually. there is a new product out form uncle josh called "MEAT" i haven't tried it or seen it other than online but it sounds promising and is supposed to be much cleaner and easier to deal with than the traditional pork rinds. i work my jigs in a variety of ways, i let the fish tell me what they want. often a different retrieve every cast till i find what they want. fast or slow,popping it off the bottom or dragging it. jerking it once in awhile to mimic a crayfish scooting. eventually you will find what works and then you can get going on making a pattern out of it. i use a couple of set ups for fishing jigs. my favorite and most used is a cabelas prodigy rod with a shimano curado reel. got it as a package deal a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised how awesome the combo actually is, very light and very sensitive. the shimano reels speak for themselves! the rod is a medium heavy 7ft rod with a fast tip. its very sensitive when your dragging the jig you can really feel whats down there. it has plenty of backbone and for the price id take it over a lot more expensive rods any day! this particular setup is spooled with yo- zuri hybrid line in the hi vis green 14 lb. love this line! its very castable and very abrasion resistant. not to pricey and maintains the feel without losing all of the stretch. its the best of mono and flouro combined! i do a lot of line watching so the hi vis green is a must on certain days you may see the hit before you feel it. the great thing about the color is its so visible outside the water but its completely disappears once its in the water just like any other flourocarbon. this setup is my most used jig setup and is in my opinion the best  all around choice. the second setup i use is  the same rig i use for topwater frogs and buzz baits. its a  high speed 6.3.1. quantum pt tournament reel spooled with 20 lb spiderwire braid and its got a 5 ft fluorocarbon leader, usually seaguar 8lb or vanish 10lb. joined with an albright knot. the rod is a shakespear intrepid medium heavy rod with a fast tip . 6ft long and has aluminum oxide guides made just for braid. again a cheap rod by a lot of peoples standards but perfect for braid and again the price is well worth it! you could get 4 of these  to one g loomis and still feel like you have got a great rod. this is my flipping setup. heavy matts, deep grass, anything i know I'm going to have to horse a fish out of. i don't use this rig as often for jigs, the water has to be really off color or a lot of debris matts for me to bust it out. its basically for throwing a very heavy jig or creature bait and punching through deep heavy cover and thats the limit of its use as a jig rod for me. the final setup is a  7 ft spiral graphite bass pro shops rod in medium heavy, again not the most expensive rod but does well for the price. paired with a bass pro shops pro qualifier reel in 6.2.1. it has 14lb suffix elite mono on it. this is my deep water setup for working points or anything i know i will be dragging or slow hopping in 12ft of water or more. this is a rod i carry a lot during the summer months when deep is often the mid day pattern. often i use my electronics to find a good spot then drag and hop a jig down there to entice larthargic mid day bass. over all jigs are very versatile and add a lot to your arsenal. but just like any bait once you get confidence in them you can really knock em dead with a jig. like most lures they have good and bad days, you could probably throw a spinnerbait or crank bait all day and just keep changing till you found what worked and a jig is the same in that aspect. its not a cure all by any means but paired with the knowledge and right conditions you can't help but have fun pitting yourself against the bass with one!