The story goes that soldiers in World War I carried survival kits containing basic fishing equipment, including line and jigs. The thought was that if a man became isolated or ran out of rations, he could locate a body of water and catch a meal. The jig’s universal appeal to fish must have motivated its choice as what to throw with survival on the line.

The question remains, however, was the lure a weed jig, a timber jig, a football head, a darter head? Was it a Stanley, a Strike King, or one of Don Iovino’s latest creations?

Jigs catch fish because they get down where bass and other species do much of their feeding. Predators like to corner their prey. Underwater, the bottom’s the best barrier. The surface makes another good barrier, and while some predators are too lethargic or live too deep to take advantage of the surface, bass certainly do. Hence the success of topwaters, another lure type featured in this year’s In-Fisherman Bass Guide.

Choosing the right type of jig to match the bottom terrain or bottom cover helps a jig help you. Variations in head shape and weight make the most difference, but style and stiffness of brushguards, eye placement, and hook size and style can affect the number of fish you catch and how often you get snagged.

Most bass anglers first think of jigs as skirted leadheads with weedguards, designed for fishing various types of cover. These baits are backed by pork rind, plastic craws, plastic pork, or other trailers. In many parts of the world, this type of lure can carry an angler through most of the year. Indeed, several top pro anglers use jigs as least 75 percent of the time when big bucks are on the line. Jigs are rightly considered a top bait for big bass. Weedless bass jigs can be divided into categories, depending on the type of cover they fish best in—weed, rock, or timber.

Weed Jigs

At one end of the spectrum of jig shapes lies the tapered weed jig. This style slides between weed stalks near the bottom or forces its way through a thick mat of weeds or algae to reach bass lurking below. Only heavy models (3/4 to 11⁄2 ounces) can punch through summertime hydrilla or milfoil. For thinner stands of weeds, models as light as 1/8 or even 1/16 ounce provide the slow fall that can arouse the interest of a somnolent bass. A straight eye helps the lure move among vertical stalks.

Note, too, that weed-style jigs work well for skipping under docks or overhanging tree limbs. The lure’s smooth edges slide well at any angle it hits the surface. And the soft brushguard helps get a good hookset with the rod at an odd angle, as sometimes happens in tight quarters. Choose the lightest models you can throw, with some adjustment for depth, cover, and wind. Hooks, though, can’t be light, for fish must be pulled immediately from their lair.

Another category of weed jigs overlooked by many avid bassers are open-hook jigheads. Active or semi-active bass often hold near deep weededges, while active groups roam, sticking their noses from the weed stalks into open water. Worms rigged on open-hook jigheads can entice these fish better than anything else. Gopher Tackle’s Mushroom jighead has long been a favorite, but darter heads, designed for rocky conditions out west, also work well. And other shapes of open-hook jigs may outfish heavier weedless models. We’ll cover this category in the section on jigworms.

Rock Jigs

Rocky terrain often snags jigs, particularly on boulder reefs or in rivers. Riprap is the jig fisherman’s greatest challenge and frustration, but bass sometimes prefer jigs.

Choose lighter jigs with a broad center of balance. The head should be blunt and broad, not pointed like a weed jig. And the eye should be positioned atop the head, not directly on the nose. These characteristics help the lure stand up on individual rocks and swim over the tops of rocks.

Jigs with flatter heads keep the hook resting upright on bottom. On some models, the hook shank angles upwards, which may help hook bass that nip at a bait. It also positions the plastic or pork trailer pointing toward a bass approaching from behind the lure, an attitude mimicking the defensive posture of a crayfish.

Standup heads are most effective in pockets of sand on weedy flats and on sand or rock ledges beyond the deep weedline. Active bass often cruise these edges to flush out preyfish or craws. A standup jig offers more action and visual appeal in those conditions, as the plastic craw or pork rind and skirt undulate. Underwater tests also show that standup heads make a louder thump than more slender styles as they hit bottom. These cues help attract bass anywhere, but provide an extra benefit in murky water.

Timber Jigs

Jigs entice largemouths in fallen trees, as the leadhead stumbles from branch to branch, skirt billowing and pork chunk undulating with each bump. But they tend to hang up, so many anglers instead cast or pitch pegged plastic worms into fallen trees.

The best timber jigs have a somewhat flattened but still rounded head, which allows them to fall slowly through leaves and limbs. The Stanley and Arkie jig designs are examples of heads that work through the large, somewhat open branches of trees like oaks or older pines that have lost their scraggly branches.

On such designs, the eye is positioned at about a 45-degree angle for a better rocking action. The turned eye on models like U.S. Tackle’s new Rattling Jig and Alron’s Chatter Box help pivot the lure over limbs.

To penetrate the dense brush of newly felled trees like pines, maples, and willows, or to drop through Christmas tree brushpiles, jigs with pointed noses, like those designed for thick weeds, work best. Heavy models (3/4 to 11⁄4 ounces) punch through, though high-test super braids may be needed to extricate lure and bass.

Jigworms

A class of jigheads receiving less attention but equally productive are light jigheads that carry plastic worms into the fish zone and provide special actions not possible with standard bass jigs or Texas-rigged or Carolina-rigged plastics. Head shape and weight, and hook design determine the presentation they work with best.

The spread of jigworm fishing has been slow, as macho bassers view mini jigs and light spinning rods as a finesse tactic or one destined to catch small fish. But more anglers now recognize the need to downsize presentations in the face of fishing pressure or adverse weather conditions.

Charlie Brewer’s Slider fishing system was the first jigworm to make national news. His Slider head matched with a small straight-tail worm produced a gliding action that proved successful on less-than-aggressive bass. Even earlier, though, anglers in the Ozark region and Upper Midwest matched a standard ballhead jig with worms like the Creme Scoundrel and Mann’s Jelly Worm.

These open-hook designs worked weededges and deeper structure well. Lure makers in various areas have contributed novel designs. Conrad Peterson at Gopher Tackle built the original Mushroom Head, excellent for presenting a swimming-tail worm inside or outside weededges. The relatively small hook also snags less and can be snapped free from leaves—a definite turn-on for bass.

Yet it hooks bass in the corner of the mouth and holds them securely. New models of that style include Walker Fishing Systems Mini-Mag Jigs with an Owner Deep Throat, Wide Gap hook; Tournament Lures’ MushRoom Heads; Culprit’s Angle Eye Finesse Jig; and Gopher’s own new designs.

Western anglers have remained at the forefront of jigworm fishing for decades, as the deep, clear impoundments of that region are ideal for presentations of this type. Westys Bass Worm, for example, has been a staple item for more than two decades. Its elongated head keeps the stiff prerigged worm straight as it drags along bottom. A stinger hook is embedded toward the worm’s tail and secured with a 4-inch piece of monofilament. Westys wormers find that up to 30 percent of their catch occurs on the back hook, an eye opener for users of jigworm styles with only a hook near the worm’s head.

The darter head is another western style that works well in vegetation. Its conical nose with the eye on top lets the angler snap the jig upward, whereupon it glides to one side or another. It works nicely along rock ledges, falling from one level to the next. A few, including models from Kalin and Lunker City, are available with a wire hook guard.

To increase gliding action, Kalin’s added the High Rider Skimmer Jig, with its flattened head. Note that jigs of this type work best where bass are scattered over structure. For pinpoint fishing, a switch must be made to jigworm heads that fall straight.

A new style of jighead is designed to match swim baits, which are hot out west and anywhere bass feed on shad or other pelagic preyfish. It generally fits the jigworm category though it’s designed to carry shad-body baits, not worms.

Lunker City’s Fin-S-Head, available in 1/16-, 1/8-, and 1/4-ounce weights, was built to match that company’s Fin-S-Fish. Kalin’s Ultimate Swim Bait Jig, from 1/4 to 11⁄2 ounces, matches swim baits and shad bodies from 2 to 10 inches. These heads are contoured to match the fish-shape plastic bodies for a more realistic and streamlined package than a ballhead jig.

Standup heads are shaped to land so the worm or lure points upward, in a highly visible and attractive position. A plastic craw, for example, takes a natural defensive pose, and a lizard looks like it’s feeding along the bottom.

Many heavier standup heads have a flat, triangular design that thumps the bottom when lifted and dropped. A new rounder style allows the head and plastic lure to pivot back and forth a bit as it lands, an enticing action to bass. Current also rocks these jigs, but can’t tip them over. Owner’s new Ultrahead line includes nine jigworm styles equipped with light-wire hooks.

Football Jigs

The hottest style of jigs last year was the football head, and with many experienced anglers now trying this type of lure, I expect their use and success to rise further in 1998. Unlike the various styles of standard bass jigs and jigworms, which often take fish as they fall or work through cover, football heads are bottom jigs, imitating bottom-dwelling prey like crawfish, suckers, sculpins, and darters.

The football-shape head is located at the most forward position of the lure. This nose-heavy attitude makes the lure and its plastic trailer stumble and scuttle across the bottom, kicking up silt and banging over rocks. As the head rolls up on contact with bottom, the spider grub, plastic craw, or other bait rises in a natural manner.

Another advantage of the football head is that its action conveys to the sensitive angler much about the bottom contours it’s moving across. Jim Moynagh, among pro bass fishing’s top money winners last year, relied heavily on the Roll’r Jig, a football head made by Walker Fishing Systems. Last July, Moynagh won the Forrest L. Wood Tournament on Lake Minnetonka, pocketing $200,000, the largest payout in competitive fishing history.

Football heads also can be worked parallel to inside weedlines for largemouth bass and across gravel flats for smallmouths. The compact design in 3/8- to 3/4-ounce weights easily works into the 20-foot range and deeper. Combine football heads with skirted spider jigs for a compact package that resembles a crawfish or other bottom-dwelling edible.

One presentation key for fishing football heads is to make long casts or drift with a long line. The low angle of the line to the lure keeps the jig in full contact with the bottom, producing a bobbing, stumbling action that triggers strikes. For smallmouths on broad windblown structures, deploy a drift sock from a gunnel cleat to slow the boat, while maneuvering with a bowmount trolling motor.

Bottom contact conveys the nature of the substrate. Silt, for example, offers a steady drag, with a slight hanging action as the lure buries slightly. Sand produces a steady drag with no hanging, and gravel conveys a bumpy feel. After some practice, it’s possible even to judge the size of rocks by the time required for the jig to crawl over them.

Subtle variations exist among football heads, such as Yamamoto’s, Kalin’s, Tournament Lures, Lunker City’s, Jensen’s, Walker’s Roll’r Jigs, and others. Eye placement, hook shape and gauge, and the angle of the hook from the head determine how the lure passes through and over cover, and how actively it moves.

Lunker City’s Lunker Grip system uses a ridged collar to hold grubs securely to the football head. Several models also offer fiber weedguards for reservoir structure where brush and stick-ups remain.

While many basic jighead designs remain nearly unchanged, ultrasharp hooks make them even more effective when you’re fishing for supper behind enemy lines or battling the clock to fill a tournament limit.