Jerk Bait Fishing the Ozarks
A staple for me and most bass fisherman, especially if they are a wintertime fisherman is a jerk bait. A jerk bait is a hard body lure with three treble hooks and generally a smaller bill to get the bait to dive to the needed water level. All jerk baits are similar but are very different so making sure you have the right one for your fishing needs is important.
A jerk bait is a great lure for cold water but can be good all year round as it's a fast action reaction bait. Most jerk baits drive a range between 6-8 feet but sometimes with some deeper winter fish a deeper style jerk bait can be a really good bet. Having a deeper jerk bait allows you to work the bait in 12+ feet of water giving you a deeper range of fish to target. It's all about the cadence of how you work the bait, for the winter most people give their bait a 6-8 second pause in between twitches. twitch, twitch, twitch pause for 6-8 and repeat. The colder and more lethargic your fish are the longer you let it pause. I catch them on 12-20-second-long pauses when my bait is in a school or high potential area. In an area where you have got bit or caught a fish, really let that bait sit and do lots of repeat cast into that area. Generally, in the winter months the bass school is tight together. Usually when you catch one there is a handful to be caught with it.
Some of my favorite jerk baits to throw are a mega bass 110, spro mc stick, jackal rearrange and a lucky craft pointer. All of these model baits come in a deeper bill size for the deeper staging fish that won't come up for the traditional jerk bait. Having a jerk bait that suspends is very important if your bait is floating or sinking your chances of getting big bites drops dramatically. If you bait is not suspending properly you can add lead wire to the hooks or suspend dots which you stick the bait adding more weight for it to suspend. I Like to throw a jerk bait on a 10-12lb fluorocarbon line paired with a 6’10 medium action rod. The reason you throw fluorocarbon for a jerk bait instead of monofilament is fluorocarbon sinks while mono floats so in order to get your bait to suspend properly fluorocarbon is the way to go. If you are yet to try a jerk bait at all I would highly recommend it, especially if you haven't tried it in the cold winter months here at Lake of the Ozarks.
Let's go do some fishing, I will show you the secrets to catching consistent big bass all winter long on jerk baits. Once you fish a jerk bait you will never go back to your traditional winter techniques.