Chuckin' bucktail. Hair jigs and similar lures.

Haven’t done a whole lot of fishing with hair jigs and just looking for the 101 on them. Somewhere I read they excel in that 45-55 degree water temp. but I also recall guys catching fish on them in water both warmer and colder than that. Is the retrieve the same as with a plastic bait? I know you could catch fish on a 1/16thoz. hair jig all the way up to a 1oz. hair jig, but if you had to pick just one or two sizes for fishing the river right now what would they be? Might as well throw a favorite color in there too while we’re at it.

pitching 1/8 oz. 1/2 oz for verticle jigging or pitching extreme currents like by the dam

As the water temp drops I tend to use an 1/8-3/16. 3/16 oz being my favorite weight year around.

If I am vertical jigging in somewhat heavy current I would use 5/16 oz.

My 2 go to colors would have to be black/kelly green and black/yellow.

I would usually pitch them and drag them back real slow.

3/16 or 1/4 for pitching. 1/8ths get pretty light and can get pretty tough to cast with out the right rod.

If you want a good selection to choose from head to Evert’s wall of hair jigs. Good prices and lots of variety. It also a good excuse to go to Everts.

Not sure about water temps. They catch fish year round. have a rod with one tied on and pitch it right into the same spots you are pitching other baits. Many times not all the fish on one spot want the same thing.

I think bucktails have a broader window of use water-temp-wise than plastics. We has water slightly under the 50 degree mark this morning where we were at on Pepin so those bucktails should be real good fodder right about now.