One of the most effective ways to trigger fish that are either actively feeding or
sometimes that are in a negative mood but we just want those fish to react, is with a suspending
jerk bait. And there's a few different ways that you can work it, but there's a lot of principles
in those different cadences that stay the same across the board. And when I talk suspending
jerk bait, we're talking about something similar to this right here. This is a Rapala Shadow Wrap
Deep, it's number 11 size, that's the length of it. It's got three treble hooks, that deep is that
longer bill and what this bait is going to do is it's going to go down there and it's going to hunt
side to side and that's what we want. As this bait slashes forward that bill
is going to catch the water move side to side and it's going to turn and go the other way,
have a little bit of shimmy, that flash is real important in that bait and what that does
is that triggers a fish's brain the way that it's wired to take advantage, take the opportunity
that they see when that bait comes by because they are wired to either bite a fish that is fleeing
trying to get away, that creates a reaction or something that is dying and is an easy meal. A
jerk bait imitates both of those things very well, but you need to know how to create that action
to get those bites and what you need to do is make that cast what I like to do is I'll give
a couple cranks to get that bait started in the right direction, if your jerk bait has a
magnetic transfer system you want to get that ball rolling forward, and then you want a little
bit of slack in your line and we're going to jerk and use our wrist. You notice how that
rod or the butt of the rod comes above my forearm and then drops back down and back up. What I what
I'm doing there is I'm throwing the line back at that bait so as I slash I throw my rod tip forward
slash it forward again and I'm throwing that line back and that gives it the slack to allow
that bait to go sideways. If you're just straight pulling, that bait is just darting forward like
this you're not getting that side to side action, you're not going to get as many bites that way. So
it's really important when you slash that rod forward, that you allow that slack and you do
that by throwing the tip of that rod back at it just a little bit right so it's all on our wrist.
That's why we call it slash. Okay so make another cast slash slash
slash slash. Now what determines the cadence is the conditions that we're in. So a general rule of
thumb is when you have cooler water temperatures you want a longer pause in between those slashes.
So it may be jerk jerk and then we may pause and it may be up to 10 seconds sometimes 15 seconds
to get that fish to bite. Now we have electronics now, things like our hummingbird mega live,
that allow us to actually see our bait see if a fish is tracking it and you're able to change your
cadence to get that fish to bite. But if you don't have that technology it's perfectly fine just use
that general rule of thumb at cooler water longer pause as that water warms up then we'll start to
use a faster cadence less of a pause. My go-to is typically a jerk jerk pause jerk jerk pause
jerk jerk paws but you notice every time I jerk I throw that rod tip back to allow that bait
to have the action required. So, keep that in mind next time you're throwing a suspending jerk bait.
Make sure you give it just enough slack you want a little bit of slack when you jerk
and slack when you throw it back and that's going to give you the best action of that bait.
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