hey what's going on guys welcome to another hooked up Wisconsin video and today I am super excited to be covering jerk baits jerk baits are a bait I've been fishing for the past few years and the more I fish jerk baits The more I've just been impressed on their ability to catch fish in all conditions and especially tough conditions and I'm not just talking one species I'm talking Wy small mouth large mouth panfish everything eats these jerk baits that said they are a little tricky to fish and there's a lot you need to know about these jerk baits to fish them properly what color to use what action to use what dive depth to use what line and and Rod and real to you so we're going to cover all that stuff so that hopefully you can go out pick the correct jerk bait and catch the fish you're after and uh at the end of this video I'm also going to cover my number one jerk bait in each category of these jerk baits we're going to talk about as well as which jerk baits are the best for each species so make sure you stick around for that but for now let's get started started on the details and talk jerk baits all right guys so let's start with what is a jerk bait a jerk bait is designed to imitate some sort of bait fish it's a typically a minnow shaped bait with a lip on it that's going to dive to a certain depth it's going to suspend when you stop and it's designed to be fished with a jerk pause jerk pause retrieve these jerk baits are not designed to be cast out and reeled straight in or trolled although you can do that with some of them the original design was to be fished with a jerk paw retrieve and for that bait to sit pretty still on the Paw so that's kind of what a jerk bait is um now these baits are particularly deadly in colder water I'm talking just after ice out through about 65 70° that's when they really shine and that's when most people are using jerk baits is in the spring and the fall although they can be used in the summertime especially when retrieved at a faster rate and they are an underrated warm water bait as well but like I said typically it's a cold water to cool water bait and I'll use jerk baits often times very religiously all the way through about mid to late June so let's talk about the retrieve the retrieve is key on any jerk bait and this goes for any slow sinking slow Rising deep diving shallow diving doesn't matter the retrieve is the key the retrieve on any kind of jerk bait you're going to want to cast the bait out reel it down to what you think is about the depth you want to be fishing might take five or six turns of the of the handle on your Rod then you're actually going to start fishing the jerk bait when you do the jerk paw retrieve with the jerk bait you want to hit the bait with a slack line so you do not want to reel up to the bait and make it start moving and then pull or real pull real pull you want to hit the bait with a slack line so that slack line means the bait stops and it stops in midwater column and like I said that's the trigger often times and when you hit it on a slack line it darts forward and then stops again so it's pop and then you let the line slack pop let the line slack and that's the key to really fishing a jerk bait properly now the time between pauses is critical you don't want to stick with the same length of time between a pause and a jerk if it's not catching fish especially and often times I'll very it even on each retrieve I'll vary the time between those pauses and the jerks the crazy thing about these is in cold water especially you can pause that bait a long time and sometimes that's what it takes to actually get bit I know guys that pause them up to 30 seconds even up to a minute sometimes and just let them hang there and uh sometimes that's what fish want other times it's like a pop pop pop pop and you're going to be moving it fairly quickly but still pausing it completely with that slack line so you just have to experiment with the retrieve and like I mentioned that pop pop I really have had good luck with that uh retrieve so I'm going to hit it once and then I'll just pop pop like double pop it and then it'll it'll dart back and forth and it's just a kind of a an off Rhythm thing that sometimes just triggers fish now usually when a fish hits these baits it's going to be on the Paw you don't always feel them because you have a slack line line right sometimes they hit it hard enough to pull the slack out of the line and you'll actually feel the bite but more often you're going to see the line jump or you're just going to feel the fish on the next jerk often times they hit it so hard that they hook themselves even though the line is slack and you'll just have a fish on on the next jerk but uh what I like to do is actually watch the line and see if it jumps while it's laying on the water so that's why the line you use is critical which we'll get into in a little bit but that's kind of your basic retrieve sequence and kind of what you can expect if you just keep trying different retrieves eventually you're going to hit the one that those fish are going to like that day and then once you kind of dial it in you should just be able to catch a pile of fish okay guys let's get into the details on the jerk baits themselves we'll start with the diving lip so the diving lip is the plastic part the clear part on the front that makes the bait actually go downwards and the longer the diving lip typically the deeper the bait is going to go this uh Shadow wrap deep is going to go much deeper than this regular Shadow wrap because the bill length is longer on this bait that's really the only difference between uh lip sizes is typically the diving depth so another Factor you need to take into consideration is the rise and fall speed of the bait and that is going to determine the depth to some degree that this bait will run to there's three different categories we've got slow sinking totally neutrally de buoyant and then slow Rising stick baits uh a slow sinking bait is going to get deeper than a slow Rising bait obviously but it's going to have a bigger effect on the action of the bait itself than it is on the running depth so when you're talking uh fish coming in on a bait that's just darted and it's moving in and it stops that bait can completely hang motionless and that is usually the trigger that I'm looking for but there's certain situations where I want that bait to slowly rise or slowly fall and we're going to go over kind of which baits do that in a little bit here but that's another Factor you need to take into consideration uh number three is the color so color on jerk baits is different than a lot of other baits I fished surprisingly I've had really good luck on very bright colors like this Pinky and uh you know like this clown in very clear water especially for Smallmouth and Wy I don't know why that is but you know it's kind of reverse of what you hear about a lot of other baits you know get those bright colors in dark stained water in Dark Water I've had great luck with silver uh bronze kind of flashy colors like that um I don't know why that is I think maybe the flash is just too it's a little too much in Clear Water for fish that uh that aren't used to seeing like a mirror shined in their face off the bait so I think those shinier colors actually excel in a a little bit darker stained water and the brighter duller colors Excel more in Clear Water that's been my experience I know a few other guys who have had that as well but certainly experiment also Bait fish type that the fish are keying on comes into play I've had really good luck in all conditions with perch you know with those vertical bars that looks like a perch or a bluegill that's a great color anytime on a jerk bait and anytime they're feeding on shiners you know a silver or a gold that's going to be a really good color um also for Walley any kind of purple back with gold purple's always good for Walley in my opinion um and you know you've got a few other options like glow like this one you've got rainbow there's a whole bunch of different colors but really the natural kind of pery bluegill colors some hot colors like the pinks and chartreusis and then your minnow kind of Shiner imitating colors are typically what I use all right guys so now that we've covered kind of the basic aspects of what to look for in any jerk bait in a minute here I'm going to cover each one of these ones laid out on the table they're all jerk baits I've used in the past that have caught me fish and they all have a little bit different attributes to them so we'll get into that uh in a minute but first of all if you guys are getting value out of this video make sure you subscribe to the channel I have a lot more videos like this one and more coming so that would be awesome like this video that also helps out and I'm going to leave a link in the description for all these baits as well and it helps the channel out a ton if you purchase these baits through my links I get a little commission and that helps me keep giving you guys more videos like this one so before we get into each of these jerk baits I'm going to cover Rod's reels in line really quick when it comes to jerk bait fishing I am still a spinning rod guy at this point although I did just order a bait caster that I'm going to be trying out I know a lot of guys like to fish jerk baits on bait casting rods but I have so far been a spinning rod guy and what you want in a spinning rod for jerkbait fishing is a fast or an extra fast action because when you pop that lure you want it to really pop you don't want to have a big Rod bent and load up and uh have that bait kind of go forward sluggishly you want it to really pop now that said I'm also going to be using like a medium light uh medium at the most because I do want to have some Rod Bend when I do hook a fish because these are small hooks so what I've been fishing is either a medium or medium light seven foot 610 7 foot uh fast or extra fast action spinning rod and it's pretty much the same for a bait caster it's going to be like that medium light to medium around 7 foot 68 610 7 foot fastaction Rod is typically what we're going to be using for these and as far as line goes I'm just a huge braid guy I love braid I love fishing a jerk bait where I can see that braid floating on the surface and see it twitch if a fish hits it it's a really good indicator I typically use high viz braid and um that's really helping me see the line on the water and see if a fish hits it so I can set the hook before I have to do that next jerk sometimes it gives you what you need to really just having one up on the fish so now I know a lot of guys like to use fluorocarbon for for baits too and a lot of guys use straight mono or fluorocarbon and that works I mean I just am a kind of a braid guy myself like I said and that's just my preference maybe when I get this bait caster I might try spooling it up with some floral but in my opinion that braid just gives you so much more casting distance and in the clear Lakes we're fishing up here it's super important to get these baits way out there away from the boat so you're not spooking fish and that's another reason that I really kind of prefer break but uh I know a lot of guys prefer that stretch of a mono or fluorocarbon but uh I've been having pretty good luck with the braid myself I do like to use a long leader like a 8T leader and depending on what I want my bait to do I'll use either monofilament or Flor carbon fluorocarbon sinks monofilament floats if I'm using a slow Rising bait often times I'll use mono if I'm using a a neutral or slow sinking bait I'll use fluorocarbon and I like to have that 8 to 10 ft in there for a little bit of added stretch at the end of the fight when I'm pulling that fish to the net uh I really like to be able to have a little extra stretch to it and it also helps with visibility and Clear Water where we're often fishing these jerk baits to uh keep the fish from seeing that braid so that's kind of my rod and reel setup like I said I'll be experimenting with the bait caster and I will I'll talk about my results with that on my Instagram which you should definitely give a follow CU I do give a lot of information out there as well that you won't see here on YouTube so I'll leave a link below for my Instagram as well and you should follow me there so uh now let's get into each one of these jerk baits and kind of go over each one individually and the attributes of each jerk bait all right so I kind of arranged these in order from slow sinking to neutrally buoyant to slow Rising baits here and one of my favorite slow syncing baits is the Rapa Shadow wrap deep and I've been catching a ton of fish on this lately especially Walley this one gets down to about 10 ft deep on the retrieve and it's just there's something about that depth that Walley like to be at in the spring so uh I've had great luck on flats and different areas where Walley are staging kind of after the spawn post spawn um and this will work all the way basically anytime fish are shallow you can use jerk baits and this is a great one for Wales that are hanging just off the edge of those reefs now the second one is uh just a regular Shadow wrap and this one has slow sinking as well but it's a much shorter lip so this is going to only run a couple feet deep and this is a great small moth bait uh one of my favorites when small moth are feeding on small shiners and they're up tight to the bank the shadow wrap is a great one um as well now now moving on this is a bait that I haven't fished quite as much yet this is the Berkeley Stunna it's a fairly new bait but it's got a very similar action to these two baits uh the shadow wraps and it's a a slow sinking bait and it's got a good rattle in it um so you do want to fish this uh basically anywhere you'd fish the shadow wraps and it's got a little bit different um get a different roll to it when you pull it through the water so it's just got a little bit different profile too and I haven't fished it a ton but I have caught fish on it definitely worth a try now getting into the neutrally buoyant baits this is my number one this is the Rapa xrap there's just something about an xrap that Flatout catches fish all the time it neutrally suspends almost perfectly and hangs perfectly horizontal in the water it's got that feather treble for whatever reason Smallmouth especially seem to key on that feather and these are just great baits I got a couple sizes here and the smaller one I often fish when fish are keying on shiners but this bigger bigger bait just seems to catch fish no matter where I fish it um it's a pretty good size bait but even smaller fish seem to hammer that thing um here's another one the six cents uh this is a new one and I actually have only fished this once but I did catch some nice smallies on it this one's very neutrally buoyant as well Dives to about 4 ft very similar to the the X wrap the bigger one um now like I said this xrap the smaller one only Dives to about 3 fet you know the bigger one's more like four to five so we're kind of covering different depths with these two baits as well so if you got a real shallow bite you might want to use the smaller one because it doesn't go quite as deep now my number one finesse stick bait is the eurotackle Z spender it's the smallest suspending jerk bait I've ever found that suspends perfectly now this one I've added a feathered treble to but you can see I got a whole box of them here and uh these baits I absolutely love for crappies perch even bluegills will eat these things and make sure you check out fishmore this is a fishmore tackle box they've got custom inserts for all their boxes for different types and this one's a custom uh Z spender box and I absolutely love those so I'll leave a link in the description for those boxes too cuz they are really handy they they keep your baits from getting scratched up and they protect them really well and they're easy to pull out of there and they keep them dry so check those boxes out too now let's get into the slow Rising baits this is one I've just started using recently this is the Rapa Maverick 110 so a lot of these slow Rising baits are going to be 110 series baits and these baits typically hang head down these are known for being Largemouth producers uh all these 110 style and it kind of started with the vision 110 meab bass it's one of the most well-known Largemouth jerk baits and it's got that that head down kind of hang to it and slow rise and for whatever reason Largemouth just really really like both of those baits but I've been really happy with this Rapa uh this is the new Maverick and I've been fishing this all spring I've caught some very nice fish on that and that one only runs about 2T deep so if you if you want a fish shallower that's a great option for you now here's one that also is kind of a an odd one CU it's the shadow wrap kind of like these two slow sinking but the shadow wrap Shad style bait here this one floats it's a slow floater so it's got a completely different action than those two and it's got the wider body to it I like this one again only Dives is maybe 3 ft deep but I really like this one when I want a long pause and I want that bait to move up and away from the fish slowly it looks like a bluegill just kind of suspending there and and slowly Finning his way up to the surface so in bluegill areas that's a really good uh really good lure now the last one is the r of rip stop this one I haven't used a ton but I have noticed the action on is very unique in that when you Dart It Forward instead of that head down kind of slow rise it actually goes backwards a little bit and then Rises straight up horizontally so it's got a weird action to it so you jerk it and then it kind of backs up and then goes up slowly it's something different a little bit different that fish haven't seen that one runs fairly shallow as well that's like a maybe two or three foot running bait but um that's kind of all the baits that I would typically use and like I promised we're going to kind of cover my top for each species here and my top one in each category so as far as deep Runners I really don't fish anything but the shadow wrap deep for jerk baits it's just it's all that I need to get into that 10 to 12T Zone it's a absolute killer my number one for neutrally buoyant baits is the xrap you can't beat the xrap it's it's an absolute Slayer on multiple different species of course uh and then the slow Rising baits I'm going to go with that Maverick I really like that I have fished the vision 110 but it's so much more expensive it's like twice the cost of these Mavericks and it really hurts the wallet and the it kind of gives you heartbreak when you lose one to a pike so U that's why I'm going with the Maverick they both have very similar action both good but that's kind of my top picks in each category now my top pick for each species obviously for fish let's start there the number one is the Euro tackle Z spender I've s caught so many big crappies big perch big bluegills on this bait it's an absolute panfish Slayer so I would definitely go with that one um again if I had to pick one for largemouth it would be between these two 110s either the Maverick or the mega bass if you want to spend the 25 bucks on one of these things go for it but if you want to spend closer to 12 or 11 go with the Maverick they both have really good action for large mouth for Walley I've caught a lot of Walley on like I said on this bait right here the shadow wrap deep and I've also caught a lot of Walley on X wraps so depending on the depth they're at I guess would kind of determine which one would be my favorite for walles uh I guess if I had to pick it'd probably be the xrap because it's a little more versatile but uh it's between those two for me for Walley and then for Smallmouth probably either the straight X wrap or the shallower shadow wrap those two have been really good producers for me but if I had to pick just one it would probably be the xtrap just because it's such a producer and that feather treble just seems to be the money for smalles so that pretty much covers everything you need to know about jerk baits but one last tip for you guys before we go about fighting fish and Landing fish on these jerk baits once you hook a fish do not try and horse that fish in play it out let that Rod load up keep your drag light and just work that fish in because these hooks are very very thin on most of these baits and they can tear out very easily out of a fish's mouth if you try and push it too much so make sure you play that fish out if you can and then once it comes time to land the fish it is one of the worst baits to have in a fish's mouth if you're going to try and hand land the fish fish uh it is also one of the worst baits to have in the fish's mouth if you're going to net the fish because the hooks are going to get tangled in the net and it's going to be a big mess however if you're questionable about Landing the fish By Hand by all means use the net for safety sake but when it comes to actually hand Landing a fish uh especially a large mouth or a small mouth instead of lipping it I'll often times belly land it so I'll hoist it by the belly and keep my hands away from those hooks uh unless I have a clear shot at one side or the other of the fish's mouth where the hooks are on the opposite side and I can get in there and lip that fish I'm going to stay away from that that bait and I do not want to be hooked to a angry small mouth or large mouth uh that's not a good time so when you're Landing fish be careful and if you have to land them in the net so be it but just be aware sometimes it's best to just belly land those fish if you can and uh just keep them out of the net to avoid damage unless you're going to be keeping those fish so thanks again for watching guys hopefully this video was super informational for you again subscribe to the channel if you like this stuff I got a lot more videos like this coming up and a lot more to see already out there so here's the one for you right here I'm going to leave catch you later guys get hooked up [Music]