Jig fishing for pike deserves special attention among the methods of hunting for predators due to its prey ability and simple technique for performing fishing techniques. An important factor in the popularization of jig was the variety of inexpensive, but at the same time effective baits used in this fishing method. Spinning for jig fishing for pike is a mandatory attribute of every fishing store, and as you know, availability generates interest and development, which influences the continued successful spread of jig in the fishing culture of predator fishing. Our next article will be about the secrets of jig fishing for pike.
Rules for choosing the right jig head
Fishing for pike on a jig is not complete without the use of weights, which are sinkers specialized for the fishing method, called jig heads. Heads are available in several variations of their shapes, each of which satisfies one or another hunting conditions. The most familiar to spinning players are stationary jig heads in the form of a lead ball with a hook soldered into the body, which are considered universal in jigs. But in addition to the ball, for better maneuverability of the bait, the shape of a boot can be used. In addition to stationary jig heads, manufacturers produce articulated weights or cheburashkas, which hinder the movement of rigs less and make the bait more mobile and more natural when retrieved. Hinged weights are also produced in the form of a bullet. These loads increase the range of the tackle.
Pike fishing technique
The most used tactic for catching a spotted predator with a jig is the classically executed “step” .
The bait is lowered to the bottom of a lake or river, then, placing the rod at an acute angle, make up to 4 rotations with the reel handle. The position was not chosen by chance - it guarantees effective hooking when quickly straightening the spinning rod to a right angle. Lower the nozzle to the bottom again and repeat reeling.
With the help of a spinning rod, the bait is also detonated - after casting, the tip of the rod is brought to the splashdown point of the artificial food.
Mark the slack in the cord and set the spinning rod perpendicular to the water . Wait for the bait to fall to the bottom, constantly changing the position of the rod from 45 to 60 degrees and back. Repeat all the steps again.
Bites are detected by the movement of the tip of the spinning rod and by changes in the tension of the fishing line. Most of them occur at the moment of pause, while the pike attacks the prey from below. As soon as you feel a poke and blow, you should immediately make a hook. As soon as it becomes clear that the predator is on the hook, another 2-3 hooks are made.
To quickly fish the territory of a reservoir and detect accumulations of fish, search fishing techniques .
A weighted jig head can be cast in any direction and carried with a classic step in an accelerated version. Bites signal the location of predators.
Having decided on an area that is promising for fishing due to frequent bites, you can move on to local fishing . The heavy jig head is replaced with a lightweight version that provides a soft feed of the bait.
Now the fishing speed is reduced, and the artificial bait reaches the bottom in 5-7 seconds.
Spot fishing for pike with a jig is the most effective.
When catching pike with twisters, the wiring technique changes slightly. The braid is reeled in evenly , and the movement of the tip of the spinning rod forces the bait to play.
We believe that the best retrieving technique remains one where the animation of the bait is ensured by the rotation of the reel, while the rod remains motionless .
Installation of equipment for catching pike with a jig
Preparation for catching predators with a jig begins with assembling and completing the equipment. The equipment is not complicated and includes standard elements selected for the weight of the baits used.
Important! It is worth paying attention to the choice of lightweight equipment, since jig fishing is one of the most dynamic methods of spinning fishing, and heavy tackle will not allow the angler to conduct even a couple of hours of high-quality and intensive casting fishing.
The kit itself consists of a spinning rod, a spinning reel, a cord and a bait combined with a jig head. We’ll talk more specifically about the parameters of each component in the continuation of our material.
What is a jig head for pike
A jig head is a key element of equipment for bottom fishing , which consists of a sinker and a hook rigidly connected to each other. It is attached to a metal leash, and silicone bait is located on the hook.
In addition to jig heads, for catching pike from the bottom, hinged mounts , which consist of a Cheburashka sinker and a single hook , double or tee, attached to winding rings.
The jig head has significant advantages over them:
- it ensures smoother and more stable play of the bait without failures;
- when fishing with a jig head, the hook cannot stick in the ring on which the sinker is attached;
- the tip of the hook looks up almost all the time, as a result, the chances of a successful hooking increase.
Jig heads turn out to be very effective when catching pike, which usually takes the bait “in flight” while hovering in the water column, immediately rushing to attack when it appears in range.
When hunting for pike perch and perch, which often study the artificial fish offered to them before biting, when it is already lying on the bottom, a hinged mount .
The main disadvantages of jig heads compared to equipment consisting of a sinker and a hook, which is attached to it on winding rings:
- Casting range is reduced due to high drag.
- When using a jig head, the ability to change the size of the bait is limited - you need to put an artificial fish on it that matches the size of the hook. Once it is worn, it is not easy to replace it with another one. When fishing with a hinged mount, one sinker can be easily replaced with another, and it is also possible to change the hook with bait, leaving the same weight.
- During retrieval, a hooked fish can use the hook rigidly attached to the jig head weight as a lever to free itself. The number of trips when fishing with it is greater than when fishing with a hinged mount with a Cheburashka sinker.
Selecting a spinning rod, reel, hook and line
For jigging, semi-fast spinning rods are selected in lengths for coastal fishing from 2.3-2.7 meters and fishing from boats from 1.7 to 2.1 meters. Test parameters in pike fishing vary from 4 to 20 grams, which corresponds to the parameters of light and, occasionally, ultralight rods. The inertia-free mechanism must be distinguished by the reliability of the mechanism, because the main load of guiding and landing fish falls on this element of the equipment. Jig reels fit into the size selection parameters of 1500–3000 units, with a gear ratio of 1/5. You also need a friction clutch that allows you to adjust different loads from the resistance.
Important! For jig fishing, purely braided cords are used, which have a low stretch coefficient, which better transmits signals when animating the bait and biting the trophy.
Hooks are used based on the size of the bait. As a rule, these are hooks with an elongated shank. The fastening of the hook soldered into the head is located on the load. The hook used in hinged joints must have a fastening ring. The articulated jig head is mounted to the hook through just such a fastening ring. For non-hooking lures, offset hooks are used.
Important! A mandatory element of equipment when fishing for pike is a leash, which can be made of fluorocarbon line, steel or Kevlar.
The length of the leash varies from 15 to 30 cm, depending on the expected size of the trophy in the catch.
Equipment
Before going fishing, you need to carefully select and prepare your gear . Having studied their characteristics, you can collect equipment that will not let you down at the right time.
The length of the rod for jig bait depends on the fishing method:
- from the shore – 2.2 – 2.7 meters;
- from a boat – 1.7 – 2.1 meters.
If conditions are constantly changing, you should choose a universal size - from 2.1 to 2.4 meters . This value has proven itself well and is suitable even for novice fishermen. The main thing is that the other characteristics of the spinning rod match.
of a fishing rod is its response to load levels. Opinions differ about the optimal action for a jig spinning rod. It should be loud and sensitive. In fast current conditions, a Fast action with a cast of 15-40 g is appropriate. In difficult waters and when using heavy and large baits, choose a rod with an L-fast action and a cast of 20-56 g.
The manufacturer is not always important when choosing a spinning rod for jigging. Some companies offer a whole line of high-quality spinning rods; you can find what you need at a reasonable price.
The main requirement for a reel is the presence of a metal spool . This requirement is due to the use of braided cord. The clutch is front, although the rear is used with the same success. For a medium jig, a reel with a line capacity of up to 3000 Shimano is suitable.
The fishing line is suitable braided , with a diameter of at least 0.18 mm.
We recommend using fluorocarbon leashes with a length of 1 meter or more. Line diameter – 0.25-0.3 mm. It is invisible under water and stretches well. The windage of the material slows down its progress under water, and the slower the bait, the more it attracts a predator.
A leash twisted from string is considered reliable . Its diameter will be 0.17 mm, length 5 cm. It is mounted to a fluorocarbon piece. A jig is attached to the untwisted leash and twisted again.
Jig head size and weight
Methods for selecting the required bait weight depend on the fishing conditions and, in particular, the strength of the current and the depth of the reservoir. For fishing currents with the same bait, heavier loads are used than for fishing with the same bait in still waters. This is due to movement errors during wiring, which occur as a result of the resistance of the bait to the flow. Jig fishing is mostly carried out in the bottom layers of a reservoir, and for fishing in deep areas, the weight of jig heads is increased to speed up the delivery of equipment to the bottom of the reservoir. So, if you fish at a depth of three meters, then it is effective to use a mass of 8 grams, and if you fish with the same bait at 10 meters, then it is reasonable to increase the mass to 14–15 grams. In this case, the time of the bait falling to three-meter and ten-meter depths will be almost identical in time.
When does it make sense to use the lightest jig heads?
Example one. The place where the fish are supposed to stop is known, and it is not large. It could be a snag at the bottom, a clump of algae, and so on. In this case, a bait that flies like a bullet past a fish ambush will most likely not interest the fish, since the predator in an ambush is usually not very active, and therefore will not chase the bait. Here it is better to present the bait at low speed. The bait (let's digress from the topic) here is a soft one with an active game; the use of an attractant will give good results. A very typical example of such fishing is fishing for pike with a cast to a reed wall. Here, the catch usually occurs immediately after the bait splashes down during its dive. The longer the dive, the greater the chances of catching a fish.
About
Jig lures for pike
Classic jig baits for pike are, of course, made of silicone, although foam rubber baits and rotating spoons are also suitable for these purposes. It is impossible to unambiguously name the best bait option, because the preferences of the toothy bait are changeable, and the wiring technique of each spinning player, despite the common principles, differs in the nuances of execution. Therefore, only practice of wiring with development of their technique and experimentation in the use of different types of attachments can bring the expected result.
Silicone baits
Silicone baits come in a variety of shapes and colors. For pike fishing, the optimal sizes are considered to be silicone sizes starting from 80 mm. Smaller items also attract interest from fish, but the caught specimens will not differ in their significant size. Both inert and soft playing silicone are suitable for jigging.
Important! The use of edible rubber increases the number of bites.
In fishing, vibrating tails and twisters are preferable, although all kinds of slugs should also not be excluded from fishing strategies, especially if the bite is not stable and requires non-standard moves when fishing.
Foam rubber baits
Foam rubber is one of the cheapest types of bait. When the predator is highly active, the inertia of the bait does not particularly affect the result, but frequent losses in the writhing of more expensive rubber can upset the spinner, which is not the case with foam rubber, which you can cut yourself and paint with markers in promising colors from waste construction materials. For pike, shapes starting from 10 cm and thicknesses of 20–25 mm are suitable.
Spinners
Rotating spoons on wire frames with front loading are also successfully used in jig fishing. For pike jigs, select products with oblong petals, the working angle of which is within 45 degrees. Jig baits for large pike of this type are taken in numbers 3–5 according to the Meps classification. The only drawback of fishing with this tool is the depth, which should not exceed three meters.
How to catch pike with a jig
You can catch pike with a jig in various reservoirs; the only inconveniences to fishing are dense aquatic vegetation and silty bottom sediments, which do not allow the equipment to work properly. As a rule, jigs are used to fish hard bottom bases at the boundaries of aquatic vegetation, edges and dumps at the transitions to different depth levels, driftwood and dead wood. Promising points are considered to be places near hydrological structures and bridges, as well as stuck areas of water areas. The depth factor has little effect on fishing possibilities, which are equally successful both at meter and 10 meter marks.
Postings
During the cultivation of this type of fishing, jig wiring has acquired a number of distinct directions, which are considered basic in jig technology. Based on these techniques, spinning anglers, adding certain technical techniques to them, such as pauses, jerk length and bait toss height, practice their own jigging technique. We will present to the reader fundamental methods of posting that will help to understand the principles of jig fishing.
American way
The wiring technique is based on the animation of the bait using a fishing rod. After casting, the jig head is allowed to sink to the bottom and two or three pulls of 15–20 cm each are made with the spinning rod, and during a subsequent pause, reeling out the slack line. Thus, the equipment is carried out along the selected trajectory, selecting the length of the pauses and the magnitude of the pulls depending on the bites.
Step view
This method is based on animation of the bait with a reel. After the rig touches the bottom, the reel is made two or three full turns, alternating such winding of the cord with a pause. During the pause, the bait, raised from the bottom and making a step at each turn of the reel handle, falls to the bottom again. As in the previous case, by increasing the pause time, the optimal wiring rhythm is selected.
Aggressive wiring method
This technique is used in the complete absence of bites, when you need to force the predator to pay attention to the installation by sharply moving the equipment. The wiring style is similar to twitching. The bait is torn from the bottom with a sharp jerk of the rod; this is achieved by lifting the quiver tip of the tackle upward, throwing it 20–30 cm in the water column. After a pause, the spinning rod is returned to a horizontal position, while simultaneously reeling out the slack cord. The jig bait for pike acts with sharpness of movement and is attacked during a pause, after the first couple of jerks.
Carrying out demolition equipment
The demolition technique is carried out according to the principle of the American method of fishing, only fishing is carried out on the current. During the pause between pulls, the bait lifted from the bottom by the force of the current is carried along its course, and the excess cord is wound onto the spool of the reel. During demolitions, such silicones as twisters and worms perform well, the natural movement of which due to the forces of the current does not go unnoticed by the toothy one.
Uniform type of wiring
The most technically complex type of fishing, requiring the angler to strictly control the bait in the water column. Various water horizons are fished using this method. After casting, the bait is not placed on the bottom, but having reached a certain level, they begin a uniform reeling, during which a pause is made, moving the bait to a lower level, and when reeling begins, returning to the initial horizon. Thus, the installation makes wave-like movements in the water column. Otherwise, this technique is called pelagic jig.
Features of fishing at different times of the year
The jig fishing method undoubtedly differs depending on the season of the year. These changes affect both the behavior of the predator and the processes in changing the structure of the reservoir itself. For example, pike are more willing to jig in the fall than in the summer due to their increased feeding activity, and even in the autumn months, dormant aquatic vegetation opens up new points for comfortable fishing. We will discuss the nuances of spinning hunting in different seasons of the year in continuation of the jig theme.
Spring
They begin jigging already with the first melting of the ice cover, fishing for exits to the shallows in the coastal zones of the reservoir and riffles at the places where smaller tributaries with fresh water flow into rivers and lakes. In muddy waters, light-colored baits are used, making monotonous and non-aggressive retrieves. Peak fishing occurs during the pre-spawning period in March or April, which depends on the geographic location of the region. According to the observations of anglers in the spring, the bite is better in the afternoon, towards evening, although the fish become active in the morning, with full sunrise.
Summer
Summer is not the most productive time for jigging. The pike disperses throughout the reservoir, taking up positions in thickened areas of water areas where jig fishing becomes impossible. In the summer months, fishing is promising at the boundaries of clear water and thickets, in snags, as well as on river beds along the edges of holes and on rifts. Lures are used in medium sizes, using natural colors. Pike bite better in the early morning and evening hours, resting throughout the rest of the day.
Pike jigging in autumn
Catching pike with a jig in the fall is the most promising. The predator is noticeably more active, and water bodies are freed from algae and become more suitable for fishing than ever before. Since the beginning of the autumn season, they have been fishing in relatively shallow waters, moving with cold weather closer to the deeper parts of the water areas. The speed of the posting increases, as does their aggressiveness, and the largest silicone and foam fish are used as bait in the hope of catching large specimens. Jig hunting is carried out right up to freeze-up, throughout the daylight hours.
Choosing a place to fish with a jig
Since the majority of fish are generally distributed unevenly throughout the reservoir, and even more so in the spring, you must adhere to some rules in searching for the most promising points (places of their accumulation). At this time, forage fish tend to move to smaller, heated and oxygen-enriched places, where the biological activity of all living things is primarily manifested - zooplankton, insect larvae, algae, flowers and shoots of higher plants, which are the main food for leucorrhoea and its numerous juveniles.
Such places, among other things, have significantly less current than on the riverbed, and in the same flooded oxbow lakes and backwaters it is completely absent, which is especially attractive for weakened leucorrhoea after the winter period. Immediately after the linen, the predators we are interested in come here, since the linen for them, in turn, is also a food object.
If this is a backwater, a reach or an oxbow lake, then the predator should be looked for on the nearest adjacent channel edge, a gentle slope into the channel itself and on the return paths, next to which, as a rule, the bottom topography is quite rugged and it is easy for the predator to make ambushes there, waiting for a weakened or slow fish. If the backwater, arm, or oxbow are quite extensive in volume, and the average depth is from one and a half to three meters, then, regardless of the structure and type of bottom, in the spring not only pike and perch come here to hunt, but also pike perch, which, without going to deeper places , can stay here all day.
At other times of the year, this is not typical for pike perch, and it can only visit such zones at dusk and at night. In spring, you should not neglect areas that are the mouths of small rivers and sections of the lower reaches (about one third of the entire length), provided that there are no artificial barriers to the movement of fish (dams, bypass locks, etc.). ), and the total length of the river itself is at least 15–25 km.
Fish will come to these places to spawn, but begin to gravitate towards them almost immediately after the ice melts (both whitefish and the predators themselves - pike, perch, pike perch, bersh, etc.) can spawn here. Also interesting now will be the flooded coastal sand spits, ridges, “groins” and “mini-dams”, behind which a failure is formed and a significant decrease in the strength of the current, or its return occurs (preferred depths of 1.5–3.5 m).
Small fish, not being able to resist the main (rushing) stream, tend to such zones and often accumulate next to them in large numbers. Of course, these areas will attract all kinds of predators: pike perch, perch, bersh, catfish. And such as asp and ide fatten not only here, they also do not leave the riffles without their close attention. Moreover, immediately after the disappearance of the ice cover, ide is especially active on the riffles, and the chances of catching the largest individuals of this species are the most optimistic.
