What do you really know about the jig?

[WB Staff]

What do you really know about the jig?

Do you know about the impact that the west has had on the jig?

Ultimate Bass Radio host Kent Brown takes a look at the early years.

Read more and see KB's video here: http://bit.ly/1zT1VVP

For more about jigs, look for KB at the Demo Tank this week at the International Sportsmens Expo (ISE).

[Oldschool]

Nice article . My recall doesn't quite agree with some of the early 70's history.
My first jig was a mold by Larry McCain a tool make at JPL that looks very similar to Garlands jig in the article, except it dates back to '71. There is a In-Fisherman article "Horizontal Jigging" Jan '93 issue, article I wrote back then. Today I still use the same 7/16 oz jig except with 5/0 #114 Gamakatsu hook.
Larry McCain made football heads to 3/4 oz in the late 60's and early 70's for Bill Haddock.
Tom

[bassrman]

I know ' I have a quiver of jig rods" one for every weight 1/4,3/8/,1/2, 3/4 & 1oz, also shallow water & deep water rods " this time of year " I will have 6 to 10 rods on deck' with all jigs tied on! until I get it dialed in !

[merc1997]

i am with old school about some of the things in the article. i had some of the very same barrel head (football) jigs from bill haddock back in about 1975. also, we had live rubber by 1976 and i won a fairly big tournament on table rock fishing with jigs tied with the live rubber. if i remember correctly, the first jig that i saw with the live rubber was called the brawley bug. we also used the live rubber to tie around slip sinkers to use with plastic worms to give them a bulkier look and slower fall.

one thing that most manufactures have never studied about the jigs they produce are the hooking mechanics. jigs have been and still are the best fishing tool we have.

bo

[steve0806]

Love the shorts in the pic.

[george]

I can remember back to about 1972 when I was in the 8th grade and went over to my older brothers house. He was into bass fishing big time and was making his own football and round head jigs. They were pretty much black, black/blue and brown and made with vinyl skirt material and were thrown with a pork trailer and fished slow.
He was always trying to put a new twist on bass fishing in general and started adding a Colorado blade on a swivel to the hook and I think he called it a "Mattie" or something like that; his thought process was to pitch it to the bank and swim it off like a craw fish with a slow hop retrieve.
When I started getting into tournament fishing in the 80's I went back to him and asked if he still had any of those jigs left and he took me out to the garage and proceeded to give me about twenty five to which I caught fish on consistently.

Now folks have re-fined the jig making process to be what is a work or art, I have seen some of these jigs made by Wadda, Johnny C. and Pepper jigs and they are beautiful pieces of work.

We now have Nu-Tech Jigs which if you have not seen or thrown one of these you are missing the boat or bass for that matter! These jigs have taken us to a whole new stage;(of making a better mouse trap).
They are built with the use of science/physics and are made to fall and sit in an upright position as well as to hook a bass in the top of the mouth every time. I bought a few and I used them and I have put numerous 20lb bags in the boat with them.
They are the latest and greatest and are really a work of art as much as a fishing lure but I think the coolest thing about them is that I have fished with the two of the same three original jigs for almost two years now because you cannot snag and that is the one of the best characteristics of them, they will hang but you move over the top of them and shake them out every time.

I personally know of two guys on the Elite series right now who are throwing them but don't want that to get out because they want the edge over the competition as long as they can keep it secrete.

Jigs are the bread and butter of bass fishing to me and I will always have two tied on each time I hit the water!

George

[hydro]

0 ) Billy Westmoreland popularizes the "Hoss Fly " hair jig in 1960's for taking cold water small mouth in Tennesee
1) Haddock jig had a sort of football head with a vinyl skirt
2)Troy Brawley (and or one of his brothers) originator(s) of the Brawley Bug was credited with creating the first living rubber jig from rubber stranded material first used for bras and underwear waistbands .
3) Dee Thomas created the whole flipping concept and made his own weedless hair jigs with polypropylene rope weedguards for flipping cover since there wasn't anything available at the time to fit the bill .
4) Frank Hauk Sells bulk living rubber ,jigheads , fly vises , etc. at his store in San Jose and gives lessons to anyone who wants to learn how to tie living rubber jigs
5) Bobby (or Gary ) Garland created the fist spider skirt by welding two tails off of Gitzits together for the first soft plastic jig skirt that was fished with a Mister twister double tail on a jighead .
6)) Hal Huggins started Fangard tackle and sold weedless football heads , spider skirts , Gitzits and tackle geared for western anglers
6) Twin T's introduces the first injection molded spider skirts with color matched double thin tailed grubs.
Twin T's is later bought out by Gary Yamamoto and Hula Grubs are born . Hula grub skirts still appear to maintain the same profile today as when introduced by Twin T's

[Oldschool]

Trying to recall who's kid the Mattie jig was named after? The late Vale White related the story and as I recall a member of SoCal Bassmasters club fishing Cachuma won the event using a jig his son put a blade on and it became known as the Mattie. I believe it was a purple vynl skirt with #2 good Colorado blade attached with a small swivel on a football head. PVJ, purple vinyl jig with Pedigo L3 was the hot ticket.
The barrel head tooling was made by Fred Long for Haddock, the idea was to put eyes on the flat ends.
1 oz ball head hair jigs were popular at lake Roosevelt in the early 60's, I know because that is what we used when going to ASU back then, along with heavy single spin white spinner baits made locally.
Tom
PS, Garry, not Gary.

[Lugnut]

I am not sure of the exacts (as it was before my time), but Wayne Brawley was one of the first to make them, fish them, etc. He was a great guy, fun to hang out with....especially at our Clear Lake outings. I heard it many times....he forgot more about jigs and jig fishing then most of us will ever know.

[ash]

Wow, I didnt know I was a part of the dying breed I remember first hearing John Murray talking about stroking heavy jigs on bluff walls and fishin the One Ton out on the AZ lakes. Ill never forget what Murray was talking about, he said we are always told fish slow and when you think your fishin slow, slow down some more. - Murray said I think its completle JUNK - Start fast and vary ROF, speed until you find what the fish want and as you go through the day they will naturally slow down and so will you. I went DUH, I get it I tied on a 5/8ths football on a double Hula and started strokin em. If im jig fishing you will see two very different setups on my boat a 3/4 - 1oz (3/4 typical) football head (brown Black) and a 1/2oz TnT Wadda Jig -

Its amazing how you take away one lil thing from a seminar and BOOM your world opens up - this was the big boom. Since then there have been many others, Fishin with Cooch, Kent Brown talking about sliding that 1 ton in 80' (yup and it works)

Thanks for the read, and OH YEAH LOVE THEM SHORTS!

[Cooch]

I personally, don't know a whole lot of the history behind the Jig, can't say or even begin to ponder who, what, where, when and how it got started. With that, I mean no disrespect to all the great names mentioned in the article and following in this thread. What I will say though is that I am SO thankful, that each and everyone of em had a hand, somehow in introducing and refining that bait to me as a bass fisherman, for that jig has won me more money over the years, caught more fish over 8 pounds, than any other artificial bait (live bait included) that I have been exposed to.

There's no right or wrong way to fish it, there's no time of year that it's not affective, there's no body of water that a bass lives in, that I can't catch fish on a jig. Ya just gotta believe, understand and build the confidence in the allure of that bait to catch bass, bigger bass. Guys like Hank Parker, Denny Brauer, John Murray, Steve Sapp, Dave Gliebe, Greg Hackney and Dee Thoma have had amazing careers in tournaments fishing that bait. There are a lot of lesser known, non-tourney anglers who have done the same. It's truly a bait that bass anglers at all skill levels can fish.

All I really know about a jig is, that it's the fish catchinest bait I've ever tied on, and that's really all I need ta know about a jig! Just Do It!