Jigworming

I just got done reading about jigworming.This is something i have never tried and was wondering if anyone has and what you think of it? Seems like it would be productive on SB

Dan Wi,

I can’t say I’ve ever fished a jigworm on the river. I would put it in the same lure family as tube with a jig head inside or a twister tail grub on a jig head. I use both a lot but tend to swim the high in the water column. If I want a longer-thinner profile I usually go with a fluke.

I tend to see the jigworm as tool for the lakes in our area. I suspect the articles you read suggested fishing them on the weedlines. The typical scenario is to cast a 1/8-oz mushroom head with small hook and a 4-6″ worm to the deep edge of the cabbage or coontail line and work it to the outermost weeds. This works well when the fish are high in the weeds. Because the lure is so light it catches on the weeds and can be popped free with a sharp tug. The small hook seldom gets weed choked. I took a thorough a– kicking from the guy who eventually won the 2001 Minnesota BASS Federation Championship on Gull Lake. I now have a lot of respect for the technique now. I would prefer to fish other techniques, but I always have the tools onboard if needed. In fact, I used it this Tuesday at our club tournament on Prior Lake to save the day. If you remember it was a cold-front day. We knew about a school of decent fish on a rock point that’s a community spot. Caught the first one on a crank bait, my partner caught the next 2 on a Carolina rig (the ones that would have won the tournament for me). I got several to hit a ¾ oz spinnerbait drug through the rocks but didn’t hook up. They may have grabbed the blade. The next tool was the jigworm. The technique was to toss it out and let it sit on the bottom. After several seconds something would grab the worm. But the key was to let the fish swim off with the bait before you set the hook. Many of the hits were sunfish and we did catch some walleyes. A lots of times the worm would come back all balled up on the hook. You know a sunfish can’t do that but if you set to soon you would come back with half of a worm. It was frustrating but it worked for us in a tough bite. The spot and technique allowed me to cull up (it’s legal on the MN lakes) to a respectable limit and my partner finished his limit using the technique. I used a 1/8-oz head and a 4″ Berkley rib worm in green pumpkin. The Berkley worm has a fatter body than ringworm and the color was close to the sunfish in the area.

Riverfan

jigworm is one of my summer staples on the river and on the NW wisconsin lakes that i fish. I simply use a homemade 1/8 once round head jig and a variety of Berkely worms, 4″ worms, 4″ ringworm, or 4″ berkely jigworm (bought in bulk in Spirit Lake) usually go through 100-200 in a typical summer. One of the keys I think is to fish them on a good weedline, I know thats hard to find on the river, but there are plenty, the hook is exposed so the hookups are better than the traditional texas rig, and yes sometimes you get weeds, but much of the time you can pop the jig out of the weeds and it triggers strikes, oh yes, walleyes love them also

thanks for the info.Im going to be on the river tomorrow and give it a try.If i have any luck with it i will report back

The jigworm, in my case I prefer ringworms, is a staple for many of us here on the river for smallies and I literally make my living guiding with them for walleyes for 7 months of the year. I’ve caught most of my 10+ lb walleys on them, a 23 Lb pike on them, big flatheads, lots of nice bass, blah, blah, blah. They’re very versatile. I fish them on light jig heads poured with premium hooks. They work on rip rap, wingdams, sand flats AND weed beds.

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I just got done reading about jigworming.This is something i have never tried and was wondering if anyone has and what you think of it? Seems like it would be productive on SB

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