Soon, cold temperatures and piles of plow truck dirtied snow will be making room for warmer air, muddy yards, and chirping birds. Dock sections will be thrust back into the waters from which they came months ago. A barren shoreline will be smattered with the likes of swim rafts, boats, and lifts creating summertime havens for spawn-wary bass. Through the morning fog rising up off the water the careful observer will be able to make out the slightest glimmer of a boat in the distance, as the sudden snap of a casting rod surprises sleep-sticky eyes. Curiosity will strike. What is the morning fisherman throwing this time of year – the bass opener – with water temperatures still ramping up from the winter freeze? I offer to you the suspending jerkbait.

I’ve long thought of a suspending jerkbait as a late winter to early spring lure, often times burning its usefulness out before our late May Minnesota opener. But with patience I’ve found this lure can deliver great results year round. That’s not to say that other lures won’t perform better in the summer months; the idea is the jerkbait doesn’t need to be boxed-up and stored until fall. My sweet-spot temperature, however, is somewhere in the neighborhood of the low 50s to mid 60s. That’s where I find I get the best performance out of these simple shaped baits.

The jerkbait itself comes in all different shapes and sizes, from 2” all the way up to 6”. Some of them are spoon billed, allowing the lure to be fished for deep suspending bass, while others have the tiniest of lips. This type is just barely a subsurface lure, maybe diving to 4’ at the most depending upon your equipment and line set-up. The keys to this style jerkbait are its ability to suspend with little to no modification, and it’s mimicking of baitfish dying from the winter cold. This isn’t a lure made for cranking. Instead, it’s intended to sit still. Much like Newton’s Law, an object a rest tends to remain at rest until acted upon by some force – you are that force.

Using a 4½” Smitchwick Rogue, get ready to test the limits of your equipment’s casting ability. Use a spool with plenty of line, as this lure wants to be launched. It peels fluorocarbon off a reel like fishermen pull Yum off a store shelf. Flying far through the air and to its destination, the Smithwick will hit the water with a mighty plop. Bobbing up and down as ripples from its splashdown pass, let the jerkbait sit and sink; act upon it not. Instead, wait. Let each ripple pass by until the water looks the way it did before you dropped a 9/16th ounce bomb into it…wait. Once settled, give several hard cranks bringing the lure down to its max depth, and then wait. Wait 5-seconds; wait 10-seconds. Wait as many as 60-seconds if you need to; the fish will tell you the right amount of time. Once you’ve waited so long that you feel you need to grab the reel and start cranking, wait a little more. Now jerk – yank the lure with a fierce burst, thrusting it toward your boat. Then wait.

As shad and shiners start to die off in the winter months, they do this very thing...suspend. They suspend in the water, and every so often give a little shiver and flicker of life. That's when a patient bass makes its move. Like a cat drawn to a wiggling string, the little spat of energy spent by a dying minnow is all it takes to be eaten. The bass waits for that moment, and then strikes with a fury like a pouncing lion. You need to be that baitfish. The more you can make your lure look like the native forage – dying forage - of the reservoir you're fishing, the more you're going to increase your catch. I can't stress enough – wait. Allow a little slack line, point your rod tip at the lure, jerk and be ready. If you're doing this and you've been patient, but the bites just aren't coming, don't give up. Simple modifications to a suspending jerkbait are often all it takes to make slow fishing good fishing.

We've all heard it – bass strike for three reasons. If it's not a reaction strike, then it's an anger strike. If a bass doesn't bite for one those two reasons, it's probably just plain hungry. For the most exciting fishing when throwing jerkbaits, zero in on the hungry bass. To find them, try experimenting with color. Matching the color of baitfish is a great place to start. Keep tweaking from there until you've found a color you can have confidence in the entire day through. But if color isn't getting it done, then it may be time to play with the lures out-of-the-box action.

No dying fish suspends perfectly horizontal. A head weighs more than a tail, and a lifeless minnow will tip downward. You can easily mimic this with a front treble hook change. Instead of relying on the manufacturer's #4 trebles, switch the front hook out for a #2. This will help the nose tip down a bit, allowing your lure an even more natural look.

One more place to experiment to find more hook-ups is with your presentation. There is no exact science as to when a bass will hit these lures, or what part of the retrieve will make them strike. Change things up a bit until you find the best presentation. You may have to do this throughout the day as cover and temperatures change. Vary the length of your pauses, or change up the number of times you twitch the bait before suspending again. There is a mountain of difference between “twitch, pause, twitch” and “twitch, twitch, pause”. The bass will tell you which one is right.

Cool water temperatures equate to hot fishing action. Be patient, wait, and jerk. It's a simple process for catching spring time bass. For even more action, try experimenting with color, hook size, and presentation. Listen to the fish, and they’ll tell you when you’ve found the right combination to land the big one.

Bob Wood