After launching the boat onto a slick, calm finger lake, the warm early-spring sun shining bright, I had a feeling this was going to be one of those days. Not a bit of wind and bright bluebird skies: not what most anglers would consider “ideal conditions” for throwing a jerkbait, but for me, this is what I dream of all winter long.
After a long cast, the cadence begins. Twitch, twitch, pause — twitch, twitch, pause — twitch — and the line goes tight. The fight has begun. Not knowing what the fish is, I slowly ease him in, not trying to pull the light wire hooks out of his mouth. The fish jumps, a beautiful bronzeback. As I net the brown beast from beneath, an ear-to-ear grin breaks out across my face. This beautiful 4-pound-plus bass is exactly what I waited all winter long for.
What is a Jerkbait?
Rip baits, jerk plugs, swimming lures, stick baits, whatever you want to call them, the jerkbait has become a main staple in everyone’s tackle box across the globe. Why? Because everything eats a jerkbait! Whether its bass, stripers, walleye, musky, or any saltwater fish, everything that eats a minnow will likely crush this style of bait.
So what exactly is a jerkbait? It’s what many bass anglers classify as a reaction style bait, like a crankbait. It includes either two or three treble hooks, has either a long or short bill, and has a long, slender profile. Stick baits are supposed to mimic long, slender profile baitfish, like smelt, blueback herring, or alewifes.
Three Primary Types
Jerkbaits can be placed in three main categories: floating, suspending, and sinking. They all have their place in the spring.
Floating
Floating jerkbaits, like a Rapala Original Floater, are meant for either casting with a straight retrieve or trolling situations. Stickbaits of this kind are either made from balsa wood or plastic and have extreme buoyancy.
Suspending
In the middle of the road, you have suspending jerkbaits like the BOOYAH Flash Point or the Lucky Craft Pointer. These baits are meant to be retrieved with erratic twitching action on the retrieve, and when stopped, will suspend in the water column, triggering most of your strikes. Most are composed of a plastic or polyethylene material and have steel or tungsten balls that slide through the bait cavity. The balls will slide to the end of the bait to give you the furthest cast and on the retrieve, the balls will slide back towards the head of the bait to allow suspension. These are the most common types of jerkbaits used most often by bass, walleye, pike, and crappie anglers.
Sinking
Lastly, we have sinking jerkbaits and the only one that truly comes to mind is the Rapala Countdown Minnow. It is a bait that is super situational as most anglers fishing jerkbaits don’t want one that sinks. But it still has its time and place. Especially when fishing areas with swift current like rivers or streams.
These baits have a fall rate of one foot per second, so you know exactly how deep your bait is going. Countdowns are made for straight retrieving, and you can’t really impart much action into them with it sinking. They are perfect for chasing trout, walleye and bass in deeper holes in rivers and streams where you can get the bait down to the fish and work with the current.
Springtime is the Right Time to Fish a Jerkbait
Stickbaits can be used in a variety of different places through all four seasons. In my boat, it’s something I always have tied on. But like any other bait on the market, there’s a time and place when it truly shines and when it doesn’t.
When it comes to late winter into spring fishing, I always have two or three different jerkbaits tied on at any given time. Why? Because it is the time of year when having suspension in your bait really shines. Bass, walleye and pike aren’t the most active during this period, so having a bait that has suspension to it makes the stickbait look like a dying baitfish hovering in the water column, before erratically darting off again.
Also, the reason for three different jerkbaits is for depth. As the water warms in the spring, most species will move shallower, so adjusting the size of the bill on your jerkbaits to the water depth is crucial. For deep water jerkbaiting, you want a much longer bill, like the BOOYAH Flash Point Deep-Diving Jerkbait, and vice versa for fishing shallower water. The Megabass Vision Oneten jerkbait series is one of my favorites during this period in the year. It comes in a variety of colors, sizes and bill lengths to have you covered from the shallows to the deeper depths.
Summer and fall can also be a great time to throw jerkbaits. As the baitfish in many lakes starts to school up offshore, rip baits that have very erratic action can be killer! Most anglers think of throwing topwater baits when they see fish schooling on bait, but what if I told you that floating jerkbaits can work better than a topwater?
That’s right, it’s a true fish catcher on schooling bass around bait as the hard floating action lets that bait go right back to the surface. Just like a dying baitfish in warm water. Baits like a Bomber Long A stickbait work amazing for this technique as it has a very high buoyancy. More erratic suspending jerkbaits, like a Rapala X-Rap, dart very aggressively when twitched in the water and also have perfect suspension when stopped.
The aggressive darting motion is something I love in the fall time when baitfish move shallower and are very erratic. Usually the bites on stickbaits during the summer and fall are ferocious, so hold on tight!
Rod, Reel, and Line for Success
Having the right tackle to handle the jerkbait you’re throwing is what can make or break a fish in the boat or just another fish tale. Since they are a reaction style bait, you want something that has some sort of stretch to it. Stay clear away from braid! You will overwork the bait and in turn rip the bait out of the fish’s mouth.
Instead, try a fluorocarbon line, like Sunline Crank FC or FC Sniper. Sunline has great manageability and sensitivity to feel the lightest bites but also has enough stretch to better play the fish. Also, fluorocarbon sinks which helps with bait suspension. Generally you’d want something mid weight in the 10 to 12 pound test range, which is not too heavy but not too light for throwing reaction baits.
As far as rods and reels go, I could go on about either spinning or baitcasting for using a jerkbait, but that’s a topic for another article. In the end it’s all personal preference. I really love a shorter rod, something less than seven feet in length for all jerkaiting.
With a longer rod, you tend to impart more action in the bait than what is needed, especially in cold water. Something in the 6’8” range is perfect. I love my Dobyns Sierra Series 683C, which is a 6’8” medium fast action rod and is soft enough to absorb the reaction of a jerkbait and keep fish pinned on those treble hooks. It’s a perfect rod for all of my shallow jerkbait applications.
For deeper diving rip baits, I go just a little longer to a Dobyns Kaden Series 6104C jerkbait rod. It has a moderate fast action and just a little bit longer where I still have control of the baits in deeper water. For reels, keep baitcasters in that 6.3:1 range. Again, you don’t want to overwork the bait and take up too much line.
When it comes to retrieval, theres many different actions and cadences that work. The biggest key to unlock is what retrieve the fish like the most. Trying different cadences with twitching and speeds and seconds left suspending can make all the difference in the world. Yes, the standard “Twitch, twitch, pause…” works well but varying the speed and cadence can make all the difference in one bite a day and 20 fish in the box by lunch.
Why Throw a Jerkbait?
The biggest reason as to why you should throw a jerkbait is because it has actions that no other lure can replicate, and thats the ability to suspend!! Out of all the different kinds of lures on the market, none have the ability to perfectly suspend in the water except a perfectly weighted suspending jerkbait. It allows for a different approach that truly drives fish crazy all year long. Many of your strikes usually come as the bait is sitting there suspended in the middle of the water column.
If you’re like me and spent countless hours of youtube videos of how dying baitfish swim in the water, then you have seen that theres only one bait that can replicate that movement, and that’s a jerkbait. When a dying baitfish moves through the water, they tend to dart with extreme side to side motion all over the place followed by periods of stillness. The twitching of a jerkbait represents those darting, dying baitfish motions to a T. Its the only bait on the market that can fit that bill.
Overall, jerkbaits as a whole are a great addiction to your tacklebox if they aren’t already in there. They provide something different that fish don’t normally see from other styles of baits which make them extremely unique. Hopefully this read will get you a little more excited to try some jerkbaits this season. You’ll be thankful you did!
