 Fishin' freaks, welcome home back to the channel. We are middle of the fishing season. It is time to get out there, get the rod bent. And today I wanted to sit back at the local small clear pond here, aka my parents pool. And I wanna go over my top three types of jig trailers because the jig is one of my favorite lures of all time. It is accounted for some of my biggest bass of all time. And even though it's been around for many decades, it still is a big fish catcher. First of all, let's just start with the basis of a jig and why I like to fish it. In my box here, I have multiple different kinds of jigs. I've got flippin' jigs, I've got casting jigs, I have swimming jigs, and I basically use a lot of these same type trailers and switch them around in different scenarios and we'll go through that. But a jig is essentially a hunk of lead. It's got a hook on it with a weed guard and it's got a skirt. By the way, all these are Guggen jigs. I helped design these jigs. There's a lot of great aspects that I do love about them. And if you wanna get any of the trailers I'm gonna show you or the jigs, there's a link down below, googgesquad.com. You can use my promo code LFG, save 10% on any of this stuff I'm gonna show you and everything else on the website. So my personal thoughts on why I think a jig is effective is it has a lot to do with the skirt. And it does something that a lot of other baits don't do. It flares out when you stop it. That flare kind of has a, like when a crawfish raises its pinchers or when a bluegill raises its spine, it's kind of like, hey, I'm here, I don't wanna get eaten, but I know you're present. It triggers every action in these fish a lot of times. And it just creates a bigger profile as well. So throwing it just a standard Texas rig, yeah, you're gonna get a ton of bites doing that. I feel like a jig, you don't get as many bites at times, but you do get bigger bites. Another thing that I love about a jig versus fishing a Texas rig most times is when you stick them on a jig, they're getting in the boat. I mean, 90% of the time, unless there's just something bad that happens, you get a break off, or the fish is just jumping like crazy, you usually get them in the boat. They're stuck really well on a jig versus a Texas rig where your plastic can sometimes get bound up. You've got this exposed hook. It's got a weed guard over it, but you got an exposed hook that equals hookups. So less bites, but when you do get those bites, you're getting them in the boat. So let's start with my first jig trailer of choice. And this is going to be my favorite of all times for all conditions. If I was just going to pick one, if I could only have one jig trailer, this would be it. And this is a creature style bait, a beaver style bait, and specifically. And this is the Bandito Bug. And this is our best selling soft plastic bait. This bait is just known to catch fish, whether it's on a jig or whether it's a Texas rig or whatever, this thing just catches them. But I'm going to show you how I modify this and use it as a jig trailer and why I like to use it as a jig trailer. The reason that this is my number one is because of the subtle action. And I usually start throwing jigs when it's cold. So I usually don't throw a whole lot of soft plastics in the cold months. The winter, the early spring, but this is an exception even to Texas rigging, but on a jig as well because of its action. It doesn't have a ton of heavy action. There's times where you want that. There's times where you don't want that. So traditionally I would throw more of a chunk. I used to just throw like chunks, like your traditional pork chunk, the old like zoom, just regular style chunk. That's what I would throw in the early season. When beaver style baits, creature baits came out like this, that's when I started going to these and I kind of just skipped the chunks. But the chunks have been amazing and they're still good because they don't have a ton of action. And that's what you want when the water's cold because things are not moving very fast in the water. The trailer is not doing a ton of the attraction. It's really the jig profile. This just kind of sets it off. It's the perfect size, but I'm gonna show you how I modified a little bit for fishing it on a jig. So the first thing I'm gonna do is actually take the front two appendages off. I think the skirt material interferes with it too much anyways, so I just pinch those off. So then you just kind of see this sleek look to it, but it's still just a touch long. So I'll take a pair of scissors or if I'm on the boat, I'll just bite it off, you know. Love the smell of it anyway. And I'll go to about that first or second rib, maybe the third, just depending on the size jig that I'm using, and I'll just slice that. Go right up the middle, a little change in the ridge right in the middle so you can know when your hook's just dead center. Our jigs have a double plastic keeper right here too, so once you put it on there, it's pretty much stuck. So another thing that happens when you take a plastic like this and you push it all the way up on the plastic keeper is you're actually pushing that skirt material out at the base and making almost like a shoulder. It makes the skirt wanna flare out even more, so make sure you push your plastic, whatever plastic you're using, all the way up on the head like that. Now I'm not gonna get into colors too much because it varies everywhere you go, but this is a color that I use everywhere. It's called natural. It's a really awesome color. It represents bluegill extremely well, but I've just had luck on it everywhere. It's really my go-to color. Keep that one on your radar, try it if you haven't already. So I have this on a three eighths ounce flipping jig. This is our thick jig. Let's see what it looks like in the water. Keep in mind, this is a flipping style head. This is what I'm gonna use to throw it. Dock posts, standing timber, flipping the grass, all that kind of stuff. I want you to notice how that jig is falling over. We're gonna do something here in just a second. So the action on this is pretty subtle. See how it has that flap? But on the fall, it's just got a nice little subtle action to it. Now that is just asking to get tattooed by some jaws. So let me throw this on a casting style jig and show you the difference. Now let me show you why I like casting, like it on the casting jig as well. Because with a casting jig, I'll flip it a lot of times, but I'll also just drag it. So when I get around a good stump or a dock or something like that, I'd really like that. There's a big female maybe coming up to just kind of warm up on a stump or just vertical cover. I'm gonna throw this out there and I'm going to drag it. Just kind of bounce it off the bottom and I'll flip it a little bit too. But I really like to do this right here. Just go slow, especially when it's cold. And you see how it just changes the profile of the jig. You got that bug on the back that's sticking it up. Sticking it up like, ah, I don't want to get eaten or I'm just here, I'm pinching things. Don't mess with me. It's beautiful. The Bandito bug, ladies and gentlemen, as a trailer. That is my number one. Coming in at number two, my top three jig trailers is going to be a craw. Now, in specifically like your traditional moving craw, it's got the pinchers that really flap. I do like a smaller size, the junior size, especially if you are moving that thing slow. The little junior crack and crawl right here, this thing will move just at any little bump that you're doing. I do like the original size for, you know, heavy summer fishing, I'll just glue it in my face. I fished the bigger one a lot too, flipping heavy stuff, but I love the junior on a swim jig, so I'll see you guys in a second. That's my top. That's my top on swim jigs. Comes through cover really good. Swims really good. Red wasp. I got him, boys. It's more aggressive in that tail section. See when I just lift the bait up slightly, how it kicks? That is way different than the Bandito bug. Bandito bug will just sort of flap. When I lift it up on a short little pop, this thing is really kicking. So you gotta think if you're fishing colder water, may not be as attractive as just that little flap. But when that water starts heating up, things are moving, plus maybe you have dirty water. You want more of a, more for presence. This thing will do it. And just any kind of movement with this little junior crack and crawl will get this thing going just really well. Swim it. Obviously it swims nicely. And I'll show you what it looks like on a deep fall. So you get a lot of action on that deep fall efficient standing timber, docks, anything like that, where you're just, you're getting your bite on the haul. Okay, let's bust out a swim jig. Now my favorite weight to throw on a swim jig is a three eighths. That's what I throw probably 75% of the time. I cast really far with it. That's one thing I love about it. I'll go lighter than that. I'm fishing really shallow, shallow grass down to like a quarter. So I've already got that just rigged up with that junior cracking. But a three eighths, I love the action on it. And my favorite trailer, like I said, is that junior crack and crawl. Some of you have probably seen this in my videos. If you haven't, you may laugh at me, but I actually throw a white, quite a bit. I'll throw a white crack and crawl. There's my next bait I'm gonna show you as my other favorite bait for, as a trailer on here. But just to keep it traditional, not to scare ya, I'll put this black and blue on here and you can see it. By the way, if you're not throwing black and blue on a swim jig, you should try it. Now a swim jig is different than other jigs because it does not have a heavy hook on it. It doesn't have a heavy weed guard on it. It's kind of designed to fish like a spinnerbait or a vibe jig or the fish just kind of grab it, you pull into them and you'll get them. And the head design is completely different. It's designed to be narrow, go through the cover and slide through things. And some swim jigs have really light wire hooks just fishing in Texas. I like a little beef here. You know, I like to fish mine on braid as well. So I like a little more meat on my swim jig hook. And I've caught some really big ones on this. Fantastic. And just by the way, fishing a swim jig is probably one of the easiest things to throw. Just reel it in basically, but I like to add little starts and stops to my, with the reel. That's about all I do. Some guys really like to shake it and give it those shakes. That's too much work for me. I just kind of start and stop my reel a little bit and usually on a pause, fish will swim. Geez, swimming. That's all you gotta do to reel this thing. And it's not very wide. So if you're going through really thick cover, that trailer is not gonna snag up on anything. Really excellent for that. I hardly ever throw like a little swim bait behind it. A lot of guys do, it can be effective. But for me, I just like this little brawl. Just gets it done. So if I'm fishing around like just a ton of shad, clear water, I may switch to like a shad, shad style in the back. This right here for me, it just gets it. Now, whether there's a dirtier water situation that I really wanna throw a swim jig, I'll show you my next bait. That is my third favorite jig trailer. So this next bait is made specifically for jigs. Really don't know anybody that fishes it, not on a jig. The other ones I've shown you, they're popular standalone plastic baits. But this next one is called the rattle and chunk. And I love that rattle in the early season. It's an extra bonus on the swim jig because when you're fishing that swim jig and you're coming through the cover, you're popping it through the cover and then you're doing your starting stops or your Twitch or whatever you like to do, you're getting that additional rattle in there. So excellent for getting that aggressive bite or early in the season, that's when I like rattling baits. So like a lot of vibration. When we get into later season, they've kind of seen it hurt at all. That's when I like to go more quiet baits, more subtle approach. But I'll throw this on my flipping baits or on my flipping jigs. I'll throw this on my casted jigs. I'll throw this on the swim jig as well. And it is wider and it's kind of replaced a grub for me, like a twin tail grub. I love those for fishing like football jigs. That would definitely be my top five. But this has kind of replaced a twin tail grub for me. It's real wide aggressive action and it gets outside of the skirt, the body of the jig itself. So it is not as good as going through the cover. But when you got sparse stuff, man, this thing's just, hello, hello, come eat me. Another added bonus about this bait as a trailer is, it's more plastic, it's heavier so I can get better distance on it or throw it in the wind, which is, seems to be every day in the spring in Texas. It's just windy. Look at this thing, look at this thing. Oh, even at low speed. So lastly, I'll just throw this on our traditional style, flipping jig, because having that rattle in there is really nice where you don't have to add rattles to your jig itself. This just comes in the package ready to go. So I'm gonna use a half on this bait because it does have more drag on it. Man, there's just nothing better than throwing a half ounce jig on any kind of cover. Just getting that, suck that jig into the mouth, it's so nice. So I went ahead and trimmed up the skirt first and I'm gonna take this blue baby and we'll go up through there. There's a nice little line before that rattle. Rattle is in the tip, put that on our plastic keeper. This thing is gonna be aggressive and wild. It's gonna draw a bass away from that cover. All right, let's see what this thing looks like. It's just got a lot of pull. I can feel that pull, pull, not that pull. You see, even though this is a half ounce, it's slow in that bait now quite a bit. There's something that I am curious about that I've never experimented with is if the sound, if there is sound in that bait, it's moved by. It's aggressive, I just heard a turkey gobble. Tell me you guys heard that. See anybody got, see anybody got camo right now? Set up behind this thing over here, see if we can get this guy. I see him coming. Old strut, he wanted me boys, what could I say? The old mouth call, just bringing him in. I think I was just, he wouldn't come into anything. I was talking right here and I heard him gobble across the fence, gave him a couple of little eek eeks and he came right in. Bow range, pretty awesome. It's the great spring debate. Do you pick up a blaster or do you pick up a caster? Right now you all know about the caster. If you like the tips that were in today's video, if you like this style, I haven't done one of these. I don't know, it's probably been over six years. So I wanted to kind of circle back on some of this stuff. Many of you have not seen my older videos and jigs and trailers and all that stuff have evolved since then. So if you want to see more of this type of thing, let me know in the comments. So I hope these tips helped some of y'all today. All this flipping in the pool has got me, is it a bird? Is it a bluebinder? All this flipping in the pool has got me itching to get an actual thump. So I got to get out there. So subscribe to the channel so you don't miss a single outdoor adventure. I'll see you guys on the next one. All right sweetheart, go make some big babies.