 What's going on guys? Welcome to another video. Today we're going to be talking about jerk baits. Before I even start this video, be sure to smash the like button and leave a comment below on which bait you want me to talk about in the next video. Last week's series video was over squarebill crank baits. This week's over jerk baits. Before I even walk over to the pond, I kind of want to sit here and talk about the rod and the reel that I'm going to be using and the line as well. So the rod that I have is actually just a standard Akuma Martin APC and this is the TCS series. I have a regular Akuma Helios reel and it's 7-3-1 gear ratio reel. And most of my reels I use, as you guys know, most of my baits, I pretty much stick to one variety of reel and it's either like a 7-3-1 or 8-1-1. I don't usually go down to the 5-1 1-1 gear ratio reel. So I usually just stick around the 7-8. It's more on controlling. I mean it's basically personal preference. Some of you guys are going to want something for throwing a crank bait you're going to want like a 5-1 gear ratio reel just because you're going to be wanting to reel it really fast, which me personally I've got so comfortable with the reels that I use that I've just been going off the same gear ratio reels for pretty much any baits that I throw. Moving on to the line, I actually got 10 pound Seaguar fluorocarbon. You can use, you know, I like 10 pound personally. If I'm fishing in like a deeper lake and I'm wanting to get that bait down there, you know, I'm using a deeper diving jerk bait, not just a super shallow diver. I will stick to around, you know, possibly 8 pound line. And my personal preference is 10 pound line. I usually don't like to go anything below that. That's just me personally. I mean, but you could throw a line all the way up to 15 pound on a jerk bait. But personally, I like to stick around 10 to 12 pound fluorocarbon on a jerk bait. I actually didn't go in specific on the Martin APC rod. So this is an Akuma TCS tournament concept series rod. And it's the Martin APC. That's the name of the style of rod. What it is, this is a 7 foot medium heavy power rod. You can go with a heavy rod. You can go with, you know, a standard medium rod that's going to have a lot of tip. It's all in personal preference. Like a Martin APC is a 7 foot medium heavy. Still got the good backbones, got a lot of tip. That's me personally on a lot of the base I throw. This is usually like the standard rod. I own like 40 of these rods. And 30 of them are 7 foot medium heavies because they're so versatile. And that's what I'm going to be using on the jerk bait today. Starting off with one of the number one things I want to talk about with jerk baits is the color. So you got, you got all these options, you know, you got natural colors, you got whites, you got translucent colors. And personally I use a simple, a simple little thing where I might use it with my top waters as well. If it's super cloudy outside, not too much sun, I normally go to like a bone white color or just a standard white jerk bait. If I'm going, you know, it's a lot of sun outside, I might go with like a natural color. It's got a little bit of that chrome on it. So through the water, when that sun's going to hit it, it's going to reflect very good in that water. That's kind of the rule of thumb that I choose. You know, I will pick a translucent color as well. That's kind of what I'm throwing right now. It's more of like a natural color. It's not like regular bone whites, just a standard, you know, not natural color, but it is translucent. So on a sunny day, that's pretty great. It's going to get a little bit, a little bit of reflection out of that, just like those natural color jerk baits that have a little bit of chrome on it. Just that little bit of chrome when that sun hits it is really going to, especially when you're jerking it, going to flash all over the place, really attract this fish. One other big key thing with the jerk baits is size. You know, should I go with a deeper dive in jerk bait? Should I go with a shallow dive in jerk bait? There's all different options that you can pick. Personally, my homelace Lake Lanier, I'm fishing brush piles that are fairly deep. I'm wanting to get that jerk bait down there, so very clear water lake. And personally, I use a jerk bait that's diving around 8 to 10 foot. Me personally, that's what I use out there. Megabass 110 plus one, that's usually the go-to jerk bait for me out on Lake Lanier, Hartwell, most of those clear water spotted lakes in general. I usually wouldn't throw a jerk bait in dirty water. I've known some people that do. Me personally, that's not my preference. I like to throw it in clear water visibility, you know, normally like a foot. And if I'm going to a clear water lake, I'm definitely going to have a jerk bait tied on. But there's big things with the, you know, people are like, you have to throw it in wind. You know, it has to be wind for this fish to bite it. And me personally, I don't believe that I do think the fish are going to bite the jerk bait a little bit better. If there is a little bit of current, if they're pulling water, if there's wind going by, I do think the fish are going to bite that jerk bait a little bit better personally. But I have thrown it on days just like this, where it's super calm out. And before I even started recording, I actually threw a cast out there and had one on and it came off. And you know, it's one of those things where when there's a lot of wind, they're pulling a lot of water, it's pushing a lot of bait. The jerk bait, when you're working it, it's going to be a little bit harder with the rays of waves and everything for this fish to actually visually see what the bait profiles look like. It's just looking like a little bait fish pushing off. So this fish is easily going to bite it. So if you're in one of those situations, as you guys know, a spinner bait is something that you would throw in dirty water, or not dirty water. You could throw a spinner bait in dirty water, but you would throw a spinner bait when it's windy outside. So a jerk bait I pretty much like to, if I'm going to throw, I'll layer it down. If it's super windy, I'm going to fade towards two baits. I'm going to fade towards a spinner bait. I'm going to fade towards a jerk bait. If I'm looking towards throwing on the bank, very shallow water structure, I'm probably going to pick that spinner bait up. If I'm focusing towards clear water, you know, a lot of current, a lot of wind, throwing this over brush piles and stuff like that, throwing it over some isolated grass, I would definitely go towards this jerk bait, especially in that clear water situation. It's a really versatile bait. One thing I do want to talk about is actually line with the jerk bait. It's, you know, some people were wanting to put 15, 17 pound line on a jerk bait. Personally, I do not prefer that. You're going to want to have that light line. The lighter line you have, if I'm fishing a deep clear water wake, I'm most likely wanting to get that bait down there. Say there's fish around 10 to 12 foot of water suspended. I'm wanting to get that jerk bait down in there. I would normally throw eight to 10 pound line. It's going to be easier for that bait to get down there even deeper for where this fish are at. If I was going to go on the high side of pound test, I would definitely fade towards 15 maximum. Now when I throw a jerk bait, the maximum that I would throw personally is 12 pound. I will throw 10 pound as well. I usually don't go below 10 pound. I usually don't go into the eight pound area just because I'm more comfortable throwing 10 pound line. Me personally just through experiences. So if I had to range through a type of line pound test, I would definitely shoot towards 10 to 12 pound for a carbon. Personally, I love Seaguar. Invisax is really great. I've been throwing it for years and that's the line that I would most likely prefer. One key thing I don't think people really catch on to and they don't really pay too much attention about when I really think it's a topic that people should focus on more is how to retrieve the bait. So the retrieval of the jerk bait, I'd normally just throw it out there depending on the day. You know, if it's really late and the winter is super cold outside, I'm probably going to do like a jerk jerk pause and depending on how lethargic those fish are, you know, I might wait jerk jerk and I might wait, you know, five seconds. This fish are pretty active. You know, I might be jerking this thing a lot. Very fast, very aggressive. You know, it's in the summertime, this fish are very active. They're over here chasing bait or they're eating. They're not really lethargic. They're pretty active. The water temp's high. You know, I will fade towards really jerking that jerk bait around and I won't really focus on a pause too much. And also one other key tip that I don't really think many people use out there and it's been my most successful way of catching fish on a jerk bait and it's probably going to sound crazy because when the first thing you think about as a jerk bait, you're thinking about, you know, you throw a jerk bait out there and you sit there and you jerk it, it's going to twitch side to side. Me personally, a lot of the times, I promise you, I'll caught thousands of fish on a jerk bait and more than 50% of the time, I've actually just reeled the jerk bait. Simple as that. Very slow, just reeling the jerk bait. Every once in a while, I'll give it a jerk probably once, twice a cast. I've been very productive on that. Me personally, most people are just going to sit there and jerk it. You know, some days this fish don't really want that thing moving too much, but it's something that you're going to have to experiment with. But when you're moving into jerking that jerk bait, say I'll throw this thing out here, I'll let it hit in the water and I start the jerking. One big key thing is slacking your line. When I'm reeling right here, you're not wanting to jerk down and have my hand on the reel reeling at the same time. You don't want the trick to getting that thing to flow the best way is having slack in your line. So what I'll do is pretty much pop, pop, pop. I have slack in my line. The only reason you're going to use your reel is to reel that slack up. That's it. Jerk, jerk, jerk. Let it pause for a second, reel that slack up, jerk, jerk, jerk. You're not wanting to sit here and go like this the reel the whole time. That's not the way you're going to want to work a jerk bait. What that's going to do is that jerk bait is just pretty much going to be coming towards you like this. If you had slack in your line, like I just said, it's going to shoot that jerk bait side to side to side, give it more action and want that bass to really come attack it. To sum this video up overall, I mean the jerk bait, it's a phenomenal bait. You know, I'd love to throw it. Most of the time of the year, most people just fade towards, you know, winter time. I like to throw it personally all the time. You know, all the time year round. I usually throw a jerk bait. You're going to have to switch it up depending on, you know, how lethargic this fish are, how cold the water temp is, how hot it is. And if it's hot outside, I'm going to be moving a lot, a lot of movement. If it's cold, I'm going to be waiting a long pause. But this bait is very versatile. You know, you can throw it over some grass, you can throw it around the trees, you can throw it around brush piles, pretty much a little bit of everywhere. And it's just a really good bait all around year round style of bait. One thing I would recommend when you buy your jerk baits, especially with the megabast, this is a $25 jerk bait. And it is my favorite jerk bait of all time is a megabast. They also make Rick Clunn jerk baits. Those are just phenomenal as well. And they're like a quarter of the cost. So keep that in mind. You can go check those out. But one thing is I would change the hooks on these jerk baits. And also be sure to set your drag when you're throwing these jerk baits, because I've had many of times, I fish for spotted bass all the time on Lake Lanier. You know, this four or five pound spots are really aggressive. So I'll throw my bait out there and I'll hook into a fish and he'll be just pulling drag everywhere. If you don't have that drag set right, I promise you these hooks will easily bend out. So be sure to replace this when you get them. Overall guys, thank you guys so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please hit the thumbs up button. Please comment below what you guys want to see on next Tackle Tuesdays. And if you guys are enjoying these, share this video with your friends if they need to learn a little bit more about jerk baits. And also subscribe and hit the little bell next to that so it sends you post notifications. But thank you guys so much for watching. I'll catch you guys and then next time.