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How do I fish a finesse jig and trailer?

Fishing with a finesse jig and trailer is all about subtlety and finesse, as the name suggests. Here's how you can effectively use this technique:

Rigging: Start by pairing your finesse jig with a suitable trailer. A small craw or creature bait often works well as it adds a realistic action and helps slow the fall of the jig. Make sure the trailer is securely attached to the jig to prevent it from slipping off during casts or when working the bait.
Rod and Reel Setup: Use a spinning setup with a 7-foot, medium power, fast-action rod. This type of rod has enough sensitivity to feel light bites but also enough backbone to set the hook. Pair the rod with a spinning reel that has a smooth drag system. The drag is crucial because it needs to be able to give line smoothly when a fish strikes to prevent break-offs, especially when using light line.
Line Choice: Fluorocarbon line is preferred due to its low visibility underwater and its sensitivity. It allows you to feel the subtle bites that often come with finesse jig fishing. Depending on the cover you're fishing and the size of the fish you're targeting, line strength can range from 6-pound to 25-pound test.
Casting and Retrieval: Cast your finesse jig to the desired location, letting it fall on slack line. Watch your line closely for any unusual movements that may indicate a bite, such as twitches, jumps, or an accelerated sinking of the line. If you detect a bite, set the hook firmly.
Working the Jig: Once your jig has reached the bottom, work it back with small, subtle hops or drags. You don't need to lift it far off the bottom, especially on steep grades where lifting it slightly will cause it to move out and fall further, mimicking a fleeing or foraging creature. The key is to keep the movements minimal to maintain the finesse presentation.
Speed and Patience: Finesse jig fishing often requires a slower retrieve than other techniques. Take your time working the bait back to the boat, as it can take several minutes to complete a retrieve. Pay attention to how the fish are responding and adjust your speed accordingly.
Cover and Positioning: When fishing around cover, position your boat away from the cover rather than right on top of it, especially when the fish are finicky. Cast to the edges of the cover and work your jig around it, being mindful not to spook the fish with your presence.

Remember, finesse jig fishing is about precision and presenting a natural-looking bait in a way that entices bass to bite, especially when they are not actively feeding. Use these tips to improve your finesse jigging technique and you should find success on the water.

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How To Fish Finesse Jigs (The Best Ways) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → This is a great place, normally you would fish, say, a tube jig or a football head jig with a twin tail grub, something like that. This is where the finesse jig really shines. The thing is when you throw it out here, first one I'm gonna tell you is when you're jigging it back, you lift it up off the bottom but don't lift it up very far. Because on a steep grade like this, see, it's like this...the lure, you lift it up a little bit and then it travels out, and then it's got a further way to fall. So it's actually dropping more than the amount you lift it up. So you don't have to lift it up, you don't have to do this big movement. It's subtle movements. That's the beauty of fishing the finesse jig. So the first thing you wanna do...I'm gonna show you a couple different methods of fishing this. First thing you wanna do is just cast it out there and when it hits the water, let it go on slack line and watch it very carefully. You're watching the line for any twitches, jumps, or maybe the line's going into the water and suddenly starts accelerating, something like that. That's usually a fish on the line, so you probably wanna set the hook. If you're not exactly sure how deep it is, what you might wanna do is start a countdown method. Throw it out there and just go, "One, two, three..." you know, until it hits the bottom. And keep doing that.

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How To Fish Finesse Jigs (The Best Ways) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → I wanna take you through that today. I'm gonna really key on two main different ways of doing it. One is the traditional finesse style of fishing that everybody does. I'm gonna start off with that and then I'm gonna show you another way to fish it that some people may not have considered and I think you're gonna like it. So let's start off with how to fish it, the traditional finesse fishing, starting off with rigging. Okay, so with finesse fishing, that conjures up an image of light line fishing with spinning tackle. And you're right, that's what I have here. This is a 7-foot, medium power, fast-action rod. It's got a lot of tip to it, a lot of give. And you're gonna need that because you're fishing a light line. And traditionally, finesse jigs have a light wire hook. So the key about this with the reel here is it doesn't matter too much about the gear ratio on it. Because you're not fishing it fast, so you don't need a high-speed reel. What I'm most interested in is a nice, smooth drag. Make sure you get yourself a reel that's got a real good drag system in it that's nice and...see, nice and smooth. That's what you want when you're fishing these jigs because when the fish is pulling and fighting on you, you gotta let the rod and the line all work together with the drag so you don't break anything. And guys, don't be afraid to downsize to 6-pound test.

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How To Fish Finesse Jigs (The Best Ways) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → It's fluorocarbon. And the big reason for that...and I'll get to that in just a second but that's what I'm using. And then the reel, I'm not so much interested in the speed on the reel as I am the drag. This has about 16, 15 pounds of drag on it. Real strong reel, that's what you need for flipping and pitching. And I'm just using, you know, a 1/2 ounce finesse jig in this case, you know. It's very similar to the one I just had but a little bit bigger, right? So that's the setup. We're not doing spinning gear anymore, we're heavying up a bit. But it's not the full flipping and pitching rig like you would think in the traditional sense. The reason being is, you know, this is a nice, small, compact bait. And the traditional flipping jigs, they're big, they're bulky. And they have, you know, big trailers on them. Great when the fish are buried up in the cover and you need to dig 'em out and you need a lot of bulk to do that and get their attention and the fish are actively feeding. Finesse jigging comes in style or comes into play when the fish, the bite is off. They're not really chasing baits, they're not actively smacking your lure as it's falling down, you know, down in cover. The other thing is when you're flipping and pitching, you bring your boat right up on top of the cover and you're just in pitching distance, maybe 6, 7 feet away, right?

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How To Fish Finesse Jigs (The Best Ways) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → So those are a couple different ways to fish a finesse jig in the traditional finesse style. I'm going through it kinda quick for you but the speed, you'll have to figure out what the fish want. And a lot of times when you're fishing this, you gotta slow it way down. Like I said, it takes several minutes to do a full retrieve. So practice with that speed and how long it's gonna take you to get that lure back before the fish tell you exactly how they want it. All right, so that was finesse fishing, traditional style. Spinning gear, open-water. Now I wanna show what I do with finesse jigs, a little bit different than maybe some people think. And that's basically what I would normally do flipping and pitching with jigs but I lighten up a little bit and I fish a little bit different cover. A little bit better. That's all right. Here we go. Come here. There we go, look at that. You think he wanted it? Look at that, he wanted it. That's a finesse jig for you, guys. So first of all, what we're doing here is I'm using, instead of...you know, a traditional flipping outfit would be, you know, a flipping rod that's heavy action, long, with stout 50-pound, 65-pound braid, something like that. We're gonna lighten up a little bit in the true sense of the finesse. This is a medium-heavy, 7-foot, medium-heavy action rod. It's a little bit lighter action. Here I'm using Seaguar 20-pound flipping line. Actually, it's 25-pound flipping line.

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How To Fish Finesse Jigs (The Best Ways) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → And when you pull to try to get it out, all you're gonna do is you're gonna tighten it right up against the rock and you're not gonna get it out. If the line ties on the top, a lot of times you can get the lure to come out the way it fell into the rocks just by that line tie, the nature of it being at the top. So that's critical. This is really good for fishing in the rocks. This is good for fishing in light weeds, light cover, that sorta thing. It's not designed here to fish in heavy, heavy cover but that's not what we're doing with this finesse style of fishing. So that's the gear and that's the reason why I rig it up the way I do. I've got a trailer on here, just a small craw trailer which helps add in the fall, it slows it down and gives it a more natural look. That's how I rig it. Now let's go fishing. There we are. Little guy, he thinks he's big. That'll work. Couldn't stand my little finesse jig. See that? Right on the roof of the mouth. Little guy but they're fun. All right, so for finesse jigging, as you see out here, it's kind of a rocky bank, rocky shoreline, fairly steep drop. I'm sitting here in about 16, 17 feet of water. Drops off pretty quickly and it's got these big boulders in between everything, great place to fish.

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How To Choose A Combo: Finesse Jigs (Rod, Reel, & Line) | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → lot of bulk to do that and get their attention and the fish are actively feeding. Finesse jigging comes in style or comes into play when the fish, the bite is off. They're not really chasing baits, they're not actively smacking your lure as it's falling down, you know, down in cover. The other thing is when you're flipping and pitching, you bring your boat right up on top of the cover and you're just in pitching distance, maybe 6, 7 feet away, right? Or pitching a little bit further away, you know, so flipping, pitching, you're only, at the most, maybe 20 feet away. That's a really long pitch. Most people are a lot closer than that, 10 to 15 feet away. In this case, what we're doing is I'm taking the boat and I'm positioning it off away from the cover and I'm pitching it to the edge of the cover. You wanna pull off away. You don't wanna get a 20-foot boat right on top of the fish when they're real finicky. That can scare 'em off. So in this case, we'll pull away from the cover. Again, we're using the fluorocarbon line because braid...you know, if the fish are real finicky, it's a real slow fall, you're moving it slightly on the bottom, slow movements. You're giving the fish time to examine your bait and then the whole setup. And braid, you can't hide it. Braid just looks unnatural. Fluorocarbon has less visibility, it's a low-vis line, it's less apt to look unnatural to the fish.

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