By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

(Editor's note: This is part three of an occasional 3-part series on cold-water jerkbait tactics employed by pro anglers. To read part 1 about Jeff Gustafson, click here. To check out part 2 featuring Mike McClelland, click here.)

Jason Christie is the guy that prays for cold weather. He loves it, and if it weren’t for deer season, he’d probably want the Elite Series season to run deep into the fall and start during late winter. Whether he’s hunting or fishing, he fully understands cold-weather behavior, and uses it to his advantage with the knowledge that many in the field will mentally succumb to the conditions.

That’s why when water temperature dips below 38 degrees, he ties on a jerkbait.

“I like jerkbait fishing because it’s one of the best ways to catch them during the winter,” Christie said. “Bass are a lot more predictable in the winter than they are any other time of year.”

A Jerkbait? Seriously?

Christie has lived in Oklahoma his whole life, so once the water gets cold, he’ll deer hunt a bit, but he’ll have a jerkbait in hand ready to tread where few anglers dare to go. The program is simple – choose a bait that will sit in front of largemouth for a long period time that requires minimal movement.

“Any time you get that water temperature down there in the 30s, usually you are going to coincide with some shad die off and there’s nothing better to mimic that other than a jerkbait,” Christie said. “I’ve caught them throwing on the ice and pulling it to the edge before I start working the jerkbait.”

It’s no secret that some jerkbaits don't quite work the same as they do in warmer water.

When Christie and Smithwick Lures got together to design the Perfect 10 jerkbait, Christie was adamant that the bait perfectly suspend in cold water. Cold water temps cause some baits to sink or not suspend properly. The only time they could test the bait was during the winter when the water temps were right. Christie did some testing at his pool, but taking the cover off during the winter proved to be annoying.

Instead, Christie uses his Garmin Panoptix which offers a real-time display for what fish are doing, how they’re moving, and – in Christie’s case – how his jerkbait is performing (see video below).

“With the Panoptix, pull your jerkbait down a foot underneath the water and watch it,” he said. “That thing can sit perfectly still. It’s not going to do that at 10 feet deep. I don’t test by working a bait right next to the boat, I cast it out there and I watch Panoptix and I kill it and I watch it. You’d be amazed that a bait that floats or is rising next to the boat what it does out there. It does different things so that’s the only 100 percent sure-fire way that I know how to adjust a bait.”



Paying attention to what your jerkbait is doing is key because as water temps change daily and weekly, so will the action of the jerkbait. Each time he hits the water in cold temperatures, he’ll take the first few minutes to make sure that his jerkbaits are running true. Since he breaks very few off, he’ll need but a handful of baits at the ready.

“Mentally, I want to know that everything is right and how that bait is sitting,” he said. “It’s easy; it takes 10 seconds. Throw it out there, jerk it down, pan over it if it’s sitting still or if it is barely sinking. It depends on how I’m fishing and how I want that bait to act out there.”

He’ll even check it a couple of times a day to be sure. The Perfect Ten was designed to run 10 feet deep. It was also important that the bait suspended head down.

“I wanted it head down just a wee bit to give it a bit of a dig so it doesn’t take as long a cast or as much effort to get it down there and hit the maximum depth,” he added.

Key Conditions

When it is cloudy and windy, Christie will cover water by “point hopping” as the largemouth he’s targeting move around a bunch and are extremely aggressive with a large strike zone. Consistently, the jerkbait has proven its worth when water temps are 38 degrees or colder, especially when the weather is sunny and calm.

“When the water gets that cold, I really think that the fish are starving for sunshine and a lot of them get up there and suspend,” Christie said. “The depth that a lot of these fish stage and suspend for sunlight is about that 8- to 12-foot (range). If you can get the fish in that zone and you can put that bait right above them and right around them, you are going to get a lot of bites.”

The sun, though, will cause those fish to “lock down,” he added. He’ll put his bait as close to structure (stumps, submerged grass, brush) every chance he gets.

“Around here, the taller the structure is in the water column, the higher it lets that fish get to the sun – that's the best structure for jerkbaiting,” he said.

Christie’s Cadence

Christie has experienced days during which he couldn’t work a jerkbait fast enough, which runs contradictory to most anglers’ perception of cold-water fishing. Because he is often calling fish up off structure, he’ll work his bait by throwing it out and making five to seven quick jerks to get the bait down. He’ll even reel the bait down and employ a jerk-jerk-pause cadence. What separates Christie from many in the pack is his mindset.

“The whole time I’m working that jerkbait, I kind of pretend that the whole time I’m working it that there are fish watching it,” he said. “I want that jerkbait to act alive so I pretend there’s fish watching and to make the bait do different things to trick that fish. I think I catch a lot of fish because of that.”

When Christie jerks under cold-water conditions, he does not want to make contact with the bait until the end of the jerk. In doing so, it throws a quick twitch to the bait.

“What that’s doing is it’s throwing a quick twitch to it,” he added. “If you jerk and you are hitting the bait half way back in your jerk, then you are moving it two or four feet at a time. Once I get that bait over structure where I want it to be, I want that bait to sit there and just quiver.”

One thing he won’t do is recycle unproductive water.

“I have a lot of patience with the bait in my hand, but I don’t have a lot of patience fishing behind myself,” he said, adding that any time he’s tried, his efforts have not been rewarded.

Notable

> Christie’s preferred jerkbait tackle is as follows: 6’8” medium-action Falcon Rods Cara ST Micro casting rod, Team Lew's Lite or BB1 Pro casting reel (6.5:1 gear ratio), 12-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, Smithwick Lures Perfect 10.