 Welcome on back to the channel y'all. It is technical Tuesday. So today we're going to be talking about Subject near and near in my heart and that is fishing worms and jigs the full setup Thank you guys for all the feedback on the technical Tuesday videos and go ahead and just comment comment comment down below What do you want to see next? Or if you just like what I'm talking about just give me a thumbs up. Hey, thanks. I like it I like that stuff. I saw a lot of that on the last couple videos Many of you appreciate like the deep dive into it So we're gonna keep doing these throwing a jig and a worm is my favorite technique to do The biggest bass my life the old Bertha sitting right back behind me here. She came on a jig I've caught many my biggest bass on worms and jigs and I just love getting that thump It's that excitement of the hard hit of Especially a jig, but I've thrown a bigger worm as well. You just get those boom those those one hard thumps that you know It's a big bass. It's so exciting But I definitely had a lot of trouble starting out With trying to figure out the gear to get those fish to the shoreline When I started out or into the boat later on the main takeaway from this is When you're fishing a jig and a worm you need to beef up your gear 99% of Anglers that when they get that big thump they're going to unleash wrath on that hook set and it is hard to tone down when you have years of experience and you know when you get that big bite and The fish has probably got it and you don't need to rip the jaws off the bottom of the the lake It can be very helpful to kind of it's like a golf swing You know you need to just tone that down a little bit to To get that ball exactly where you need to be laying up on the green But most of us including myself when I get a big bite I'm going ahead and I'm just I'm ripping lips especially if I haven't got a lot of Worm or jig bites that day or that week or maybe I'm fishing a jig for the first time in March and I've been fishing a whole bunch of different other stuff up through the winter So that's why you need to beef up the year. I've learned this through a lot of break-offs and This is the science behind why you're breaking off on your worms and jigs so when a bass grabs a worm they you know they give it a couple of chomps and Usually they just don't sit there. They start to move off a little bit If you get lucky The hook set is going to go right in the roof of the mouth The line is really not going to touch their teeth at all. You're going to go straight in the nose and You're basically getting the basses jaw straight on a hook same thing with a jig You know your brush guard sweeps through you get that hook set through the nose and you have Zero contact on that line from the fish. You're fighting the pressure The the weight of the fish on the line, but you're not getting any abrasion on your line directly from the fish That's if you get extremely lucky, but usually what happens? Okay, I got a fish. I'm gonna let him have it for a few seconds or oh He's running and then you go and you jerk and that fish a lot of times is moving in a different direction from when He first bit the bait so could bite it and that line is on one side of his mouth You go to set the hook and that line is sweeping across its teeth. It's whole jaw And you're getting a full sandpaper effect on that line And when you do it really hard and really quick it just snaps that line a lot of times even if it's 17 20 it could snap it if you're up close and just putting a ton of pressure Snapping that hooks that real hard so that is important to keep in mind if you can control That muscle memory and you're close to a fish. This is what happens the most is when it's like 10 feet out or under the boat When you have just low stretch and you snap it real hard if you can learn to tone that down when you're close Then you've basically mastered Setting the hook on worms and jigs, but for the rest of us they get really excited That's why we're gonna bump up our line size to at least 17 pound So I really never throw a were a big worm or a jig on less than 17 pound most of the time It's on 20 pound fluorocarbon. So the thing to keep in mind is it's not The poundage of the line and this goes back to like when I was thought the last technical Tuesday throw in top waters It's not necessarily the the poundage of the line when I want to throw 15 pound Mono to get that That top water to float. It's the diameter It's the it's the buoyancy of the bigger diameter that that line size gives It's the same thing on your worms and jigs. It's not that I need 20 pound line to fight a 5 pound bass It's that I need that that extra thick diameter to hold up to the abrasion That's going to happen when I set the hook on that basses teeth and if we're in Mondo land and there's a lot of timber or Structure I need to get that fish out of there quick There's no halfway hook sets and let him run a little bit. I'm going 25 pound fluorocarbon I am bringing the wrath and there is no holding up and that's that's Basically, I've never broken off a bass maybe once or twice in Mexico on 25 where I'm absolutely just snapping the hook set up flipping right in front of me but I Can't I can only count on like one hand the times I've broken off 25 pound test fluorocarbon That is a higher diameter line that the fish can see more But usually if you're flipping that close, it's just coming down with a jig or crawl worm and they're just boom They're eating it on reaction. It's not like a crawling where they have more time to look at it So line size was a big revelation to me when I was learning how to worm and jig fish Because I threw 15 pound on everything. I would say usually you can throw 15 and get away with it on on just about everything but Not with the jig and worm because you need a good hook set You're throwing a thicker worm bigger worm The hook needs to penetrate through that plastic and be able to go all the way through and get into the fish's mouth That's why you need a good hook set The jig is even more so because you're dealing with a brush guard and with that brush guard You just require a big hook set So what is really going to help with that is increasing your rod length and also Increasing your power most of the time when I'm jigging worm fishing. I'm throwing something over seven foot My rod lengthens a little bit over the summertime when things get really hot I'll start making really long casts on Points and you know dragging things a little bit and I go to all the way out to like a seven six But if I'm up close in the spring and post-bond, I'm pitching to timber pitching to docks Where I need a little more control than I'm going like seven two seven three anywhere in that area But a seven foot is just a little short I think overall unless you're doing straight-up dock skipping that seven foot is It's just not as good with getting that hook set the rod is heavy power and fast action That is what I'm looking for on my worm and jig rods if I wanted to throw braid I would go down a power just to compensate for the zero stretch, but I really like throwing fluorocarbon For the tooth reason that I talked about that a brace of resistance Braid is actually worse on basses teeth. I know this is this may seem strange for a lot of people But you will cut braid faster than you will fluorocarbon on that I'm breaking it across their teeth fluorocarbon just holds up better to that. So I got my 20 pound fluoro I got my at least seven foot two heavy power fast action rod. Let's talk about the reel when I started out where I'm in Jig fishing I think Seven to one was like that was the fastest that was out there most reels were in that six to six five category But over the years reels have gotten faster and faster and I would say Go as high as you can on your gear ratio It's not like throwing a spinnerbait or a bladed jig where you you want a certain medium You know slow Cadence or throwing crankbaits or throwing big swim baits where you just need all that gear power You're doing most of the work with the rod tip when you're fishing a worm and jig You're you're bringing it up and you're letting it fall You know, you might be bouncing it You might be dragging it and then you're just reeling in the slack that you've pulled With the reel, but when it comes time to set that hook you want to take in that slack as much as possible So many times this happens where a bass picks up your worm or jig and it starts coming at you So immediately you're not really feeling the pressure So if you have like a six to or even a seven seven to one You're not bringing in that line fast enough to really catch up and set that hook effectively on that fish And even if you do get a good hook set at the beginning that fish feels that pressure It starts swimming out to deep water if you're in a boat and it goes just straight under you and you can't catch up You lose slack or you create slack in the line and then before you know it the fish is off Another thing that I've come to like about the faster gear ratio of reels It's just be able to reel it in real quick and make a long pitch So what I'm opposed to like flipping if I'm making longer pitches That dock posts or you know timber or something like that I can get in it real quick and I can just go to the next one get it in real quick go to the next one It just saves you a couple of seconds on each retrieve. Just makes you a little more efficient angler So I'm talking about jigs and bigger worms. I'm relating to at least three eights ounce and up on jigs and Then you know at least a quarter ounce weight on my Texas rig. This isn't lighter Type finesse stuff throwing, you know little bugs and little things like that. This is I'm expecting to get a bigger bite on these baits This is my typical late season worm setup where I've gotten anywhere from a quarter up to a half ounce Texas rig weight on here got that bobber stop in front And I'm making sure that when I rig my hook in here that everything is going on straight And when I'm throwing a bigger worm like this Mondo worm, I like to throw a five hot hook That's what I use most of the time some sometimes I'll go up to a six But I find that the five just gives a little more action on the body of the tail And I still get good hookups with it rigging up the jig same concept applies with the worm You want to make sure your plastic is going on there straight The way you do that is you thread a little more plastic on there Then you think you would need and then push it all the way up onto the plastic keeper But a big tip with your jig is the plastic and the skirt is going to control your fall You can add more plastic to slow it down. You can add less plastic to make it a quicker more snappy action and usually I like to do that in more finesse scenarios or when it's just hotter and Fish like a little faster action But make sure your skirt material is not interfering with your plastic appendages on your trailer You don't want that to make your trailer not move So usually I'll take some scissors trim it up a little bit and also when you trim your skirt up You can add action to it So when you stop your jig or when it's resting on the bottom that skirt will flare out more the shorter that you cut it So we talked about the gear now. Let me give you another tip on how to break off less when you get these big bites So a lot of people when they get their reels And they're fishing a worm in the jig they just want to Crank that drag down and give it to them But actually I found if you back that drag off to where you can just pull it with a hard tug on the line Right about there where it's going to give a little bit on that hook set So you got that first initial pop surge Hopefully you don't get a pop and lie pops, but you pull back You got that heavyweight surge that first little drag pull and then you get the fish going and You can let that drag work for you a little bit if need be but Usually the where you need that drag to be Perfect is on that hook set and I've found that with spinning as well Obviously a lot different than spinning But when I got this heavier line on here I just want it to pull a little bit to absorb if I over If I power down on that fish, I want that drag to slip just a hair That's something that you guys are gonna have to experiment with to get it perfect for you But I have found if I can just pull out a little bit Then it's it's perfect when I get the hook set. I'm still able to get the fish and I don't break them off Final tip that one with is the actual hook set. So how to get better better hookups It's it's very easy a lot of times as soon as you feel that bite to go straight up with that rod tip But that fish may have moved after it already been sometimes They're swimming away from you and when you go ahead and swing it's fine. The fish is going away. It's adding pressure But usually what happens is they'll swim off to either side and you don't really know they may be coming at you so it is best to Keep your rod at like 10 o'clock, you know work the bait from 10 to to noon and then when you get a bite Real down and I usually like to reel down three or four times Until I get that line tight where I'm pointing more right at the fish And I'll just come up not in a real snappy way But with just a just a lean just a hard lean on them and get that rod tip up and get pressure on them Again what you're trying to avoid is that hard snap Where you're snapping the slack out of the line that fish has got a bait on one side of its mouth And you're just Ripping it real quick to the other side that's usually where you get break off So if you can reel that tip Towards the fish and maybe just move that line a little bit not enough to really move the bait out of their mouth and Just take out the slack and get a hard lean instead of a snap You're gonna break off a lot less. This is hard to do. It is something you got to practice Just get a lot of bites with and figure it out You'll find that once you get like 10 10 of those bites and you get that system down Then you're just nailing them every time but it's when you don't get a bite for four hours You get that one hard thump and you're like, oh man I gotta get them and then you end up setting the hook really hard and you break the fish off or lose the fish or Something that's usually how it works. So the more experience you get with it the better doubt you will be All right, fishing freaks. Thank you for tuning in to another technical Tuesday video Subscribe so you don't miss more and all the other adventure vlogs on this channel Don't forget to comment down below what you want to see on the next technical Tuesday And I appreciate all you guys great feedback on it. So I will see you on the next one