Pro Lesson
Monsoor on Swimming a Jig, Top to Bottom

Photo: FLW Outdoors Tom Monsoor catches Beaver Lake's deep fish by swimming a jig deep along bluff walls.

"I think it resembles a minnow so much, or other prey fish," he said. "They'll come 20 feet to get it in clear water. Usually they just nail it – they don't hesitate before they hit it. There's something about it that they like, and you don't get follows that turn away."

Here's a breakdown of what it takes, and how to catch fish swimming a jig.

The Hook is Everything

"I started off swimming a jig in shallow water for fish up here in Wisconsin," he said. "I won a bunch of tournaments doing it. It seems like half the tournaments up here are won doing that. Then when I started fishing the FLW Tour, I found out fish everywhere would eat it."

He'd swim his jig through vegetation, both submerged and emergent, and around laydowns, docks, rocks and other cover just a few feet deep. "It was a technique I pretty much had to myself (on tour), until I had two 3rds and a 2nd doing it," he noted. "Then it was on TV and I told a bunch of people about it."

But there still aren't a lot of anglers using a swimming jig, and many who do it don't do it right or use the wrong type of jig, he said.

"I spent 20 years perfecting the right jig for this technique," he said. "The hook is crucial. The big secret to a jig is the hook. (The hooks on most bass jigs) are like musky hooks. You don't need that for bass. I won't use anything but a 5/0 Owner 5318 hook." That hook is a light-wire, round bend, super sharp jig hook with a big bite and a 90-degree eye-bend.

The weedguard is important too. "I use a very light weedguard, like one-fifth of the normal one," he said. "Its job is to keep (the hook point) off logs and grass, but it can't be so heavy that you won't hook the fish."

His normal trailer is a single-tail Yamamoto 5-inch grub. "Some guys use a twin-tail and it works okay too," he added. His favorite colors are a watermelon red jig with a watermelon trailer, and a black-and-blue jig with a blue trailer.

The Technique

Swimming a jig is just that: Make a long cast, with light line, and slowly reel the jig back, making sure to direct it over and around all likely bass-holding cover along the way. Don't get in a hurry, and if you bump into a snag, don't pull, just shake it free.

"The long cast is important because you get your bait in front of the fish before they ever know you're there," he said. He added: "With the (Abu Garcia) Revo STX, I can cast a 1/4-ounce jig 30 to 50 feet farther than any other reel."

The hookset using a 1/4-ounce jighead with the needle-sharp light hook is effortless. "You just keep reeling and they hook themselves," he noted. "A terrible hookset with my jigs will still go in."

Not Just For Shallow Fish

After a while on tour, he figured out that he could swim a jig and catch fish 30 to 40 feet deep, with adjustments to his tackle and technique. "At Beaver Lake, for example, on bluff walls the fish position themselves never more than a foot off the rocks," he noted. "They're just sitting there like there's a chair (in the water). So you have to keep your jig close to the rocks, and slow down your retrieve as it gets deeper."

He normally fishes his 1/4-ounce swimming jig on 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line with the Abu Garcia Revo STX reel and a 7-foot medium-heavy Fenwick Techna AV rod. But for deepwater fish, he ups the jig to a 1/2-ounce model. "One-half ounce is the secret for deep, clear lakes," he said. "Berkley will be making them next year."

Notable

> Bass Pro Shops sells Monsoor's signature jig, using the correct hook. Next year, Berkley will produce the Monsoor Swim-Hop jig – also using the hook he specified, among other exacting details, such as the weedguard color matching the jighead. "They've been really great about letting me design exactly what I want," he said. "It's exciting to work with people like that."

> If the water gets below 50 degrees, swimming a jig is less effective. "That's when I put on a plastic chunk instead of the grub, and start hopping the jig," he said. "I probably would have won the FLW Tour event at the Atchafalaya Basin (in February 2004, where he led day 2 before finishing 2nd to Sam Swett) if I'd have remembered my own rules. I just got too wrapped up in what I'd been doing to realize the cold snap had changed things."

> When he's fishing around heavy cover, he may up his line size to 15-pound Berkley Big Game green monofilament.

> He also swims a jig over the tops of grass mats. For that he downsizes to a 3/16-ounce jighead, but with the same 5/0 hook.

> Sometimes monster bass hang out below schooling stripers, and he's caught whoppers in practice casting his swimming jig to the school and letting it sink down to the bass. "I keep waiting for that situation to come up in a tournament, but so far it hasn't happened," he said.

> Monsoor is also a buzzbait fanatic. "You can catch an unbelievable number of bass on a tiny 1/4-ounce black buzzbait," he noted. "I make my own and you have to have a good hook – the same 5/0 Owner 5318 model."