Regardless of where your next fishing trip is, more than likely that body of water has a hot bass bite going on. It might be the deep crankbait or magnum spoon bite on Kentucky Lake, or perhaps smallmouths hitting a drop-shot on Lake Erie. Once summer hits, I will always have these three lures rigged up and ready to go, as they allow me to just go fishing and target any form of cover I come across.
SWIM JIG
The swim jig was developed by anglers who were catching bass by swimming a flipping jig back to the boat. It’s very effective because you can fish it shallow or deep.
When I’m fishing shallow, I’ll use a 1/4-ounce jig around inside weedlines, boat docks or through lily pad fields. When my graph gets beyond the 5- or 6-foot mark, I’ll switch over to the 3/8-ounce size and fish this along outside weedlines, crawl it over sand flats or work it up the backside of an underwater point.
By changing up your retrieve, color and trailer, the swim jig can easily mimic whatever bass are feeding on. If they’re feeding on shad, then a white jig, retrieved with a rod twitch every so often with a small swimbait as a trailer, is a good choice. If bass are feeding along the bottom on crawdads, try a brown-colored jig. Reel it slowly and bounce it along the bottom with a craw or double-tail grub trailer.
