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Chalk Talk: Swim jigs with Canterbury

Chalk Talk: Swim jigs with Canterbury

(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)

Alabama pro Scott Canterbury is happy to fish a vibrating jig or a lipless crankbait when necessary, but he believes that a swim jig consistently catches better-quality bass.

“You may not be fishing for as many bites as some people do during a day, but we just got to catch five,” he explained. He dotes on them because they’re weedless, cover lots of water and allow him to operate in just about every depth range. Anytime the water temperature is over 52 degrees it’s almost a certainty that he has one or more on the deck of his boat.

In the old days, many anglers swam an old Rattleback Jig, and they were limited on the variety of trailers that were available to them. Today, you can use either a flipping-style head or a bullet-head, and Canterbury likes both under different situations. He pairs them with three main classes of trailers. The first, and his favorite, is the NetBait Kickin B, which unlike some other similar craw chunks has a flat body that keeps it high in the water column. His second favorite is a 3.25-inch Little Spanky swimbait. He used to fish a Paca Chunk a lot, and still keeps it in reserve for when fish are especially aggressive because it has a “wide kicking action.”

“I carry about five different colors,” he added, explaining that generally they’re some form of white/shad, black and blue or green-pumpkin flavor. On occasion he’ll intentionally mismatch the jig/trailer pairing, putting a green-pumpkin craw on a black and blue jig, or vice versa.

Alabama anglers tend to shake their jigs as they come through the water column, especially around willow grass. Because a lot of the bites are visual and the fish is coming at the angler, that can lead to disaster if your rod is high up. Accordingly, Canterbury advised to keep your elbow against your rib cage so that you’re always in position to strike. He said that in Florida and the northern states the fish don’t tend to like as much action, so he doesn’t shake it. Instead, he’ll make long casts on grass flats and wind the bait back. When it temporarily gets hung on submerged grass and then gets freed, he’ll let it fall and start again.

Vegetation isn’t the only place he’ll swim a jig. He’s noticed that it can be deadly around docks and laydowns. In a laydown that suspends over 10 feet of water, a big bass may be sitting just 2 feet under the branches. If you flip past him, he’ll never see your bait, but swimming the jig triggers a bite. Another technique he’s developed is swimming a jig around shade lines on highland reservoirs. “That’s the most overlooked pattern of pretty much anywhere,” he stated, arguing that at 2 p.m. on a warm day, the shaded areas next to a bluff or a marina wall are substantially cooler than nearby sunbaked areas.

If you want to get more information about how the 2019 Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year Scott swims a jig, including why he never pulls too hard when his jig gets hung up in grass, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.

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