Jerkbait Fishing

Why Trebles Decide the Action

Treble hooks — three hook points sharing one shaft — are small, there are two or three sets of them, and each point holds in hard tissue by a fraction of an inch. Nothing needs driving. What they need is for the pressure never to spike. A stiff tip levers a small hook straight back out when a fish shakes at the boat, which is why the rod here bends well down its length instead of resisting.

Holding a bait partway down is a depth problem before it is a rod problem. Weight and retrieve speed decide where the bait rides. The rod keeps contact with it while it is there.

That is what the medium or medium-heavy rating and the moderate or moderate-fast tip above are for. You snap this bait down with the rod on every single retrieve, so a rod that gives is doing that work all day. The same give keeps small treble hooks in a fish that shakes its head at your feet. Length lands between 6'6" to 7'6". That is long enough to cast and to move line on the pull, and short enough to stay accurate.

• 7'0" medium, moderate action casting

  Length

  7'0"

  Power

  medium

  Action

  moderate

  Casts

  3/8-7/8 oz

  Line

  10-17 lb

  A specialist that exists for one reason: keeping small hooks in a fish. The rod bends well down its length, so when a hooked fish shakes its head the rod gives instead of levering the hooks out of the small amount of tissue they hold. That same bend flexes deeply through the cast, which helps a wind-resistant crankbait fly straight. It is the wrong rod for almost everything else, and buying it before a fast-action rod is a common ordering mistake.

  Cannot drive a buried single hook, because the tip gives before the point moves.

The One Bait Fished This Way

One bait, because the method is defined by it. Here is how to work it and when to leave it alone.

• Suspending jerkbait

  Weight

  3/8-7/16 oz

  Size

  3.5-4"

  Hook

  treble

  Water

  clear

  Best in clear water when fish are hunting minnows and are shallow enough to see a bait pass overhead. Two or three sharp downward snaps of the rod tip, then stop and count. Reel up the slack between the snaps, not through them. Lengthen the pause until you find what they want.

  Wrong in dirty water, where a fish never sees the dart and the stop that make the bait work.

The One Fish Caught This Way

A method this specific has one target here, and the rod requirement above is really that fish's requirement written from the other direction.

Fished in lake and river water. It rewards time on the water. The motion is simple to describe and takes a while to make consistent, and a share of the strikes are missed even when it is done right.

• Smallmouth Bass

  Water

  freshwater

  Mouth

  bony

  Fight

  medium

  A bait that darts and then hangs still pulls them up off the bottom when they are hunting minnows.

  Ranked 5 of 6 for smallmouth bass. Ned rig is the more common first answer, so this is the one to reach for when that is not working.

Where It Goes Wrong

Snapping the rod upward, which pulls the bait toward the surface instead of down.

Cutting the pause short, because standing still feels like doing nothing.

Fishing it on a stiff rod, which tears small treble hooks out on the first head shake.

Where This Decision Goes Next

• Crankbait Fishing

  Also fished on treble hooks, so it asks a similar thing of a tip. This is the case where one rod may genuinely cover both.

• Walking a Topwater Plug

  Also fished on treble hooks, so it asks a similar thing of a tip. This is the case where one rod may genuinely cover both.

• Find the rod for jerkbait fishing in your water

  Five questions, four of them skippable. The rod requirement above holds for any fish; naming yours, and the water, turns it into a specific rod — and tells you whether one you already own will do.