The jerkbait is a bass-catching tool that you need in your arsenal. Learn how to fish a suspending jerkbait for bass to add more fish to your tally this year.
Right now the weather has gotten cold and the winter pattern is starting to set in here in the mountains of Arizona where I live. When the water temps cool my thoughts turn to the jerkbait for bass fishing more than ever.
Get My Favorite Jerkbaits Here:
Rapala Shadow Rap Deep
Rapala Shadow Rap Shallow
Berkley Stunna
Berkley Stunna Deep
Suspending Jerkbaits – Why Suspend?
The amazing thing about the suspending jerkbait is that you can get it to hover over the fish and pause it to allow bass the time to nose up on the bait. As it suspends in the water column it gives the bass a chance to get a good look, then when you jerk or twitch the bait, it draws a feeding response from the bass to kill a fleeing baitfish.
Sometimes you want a suspending jerkbait that simply pauses and sits as naturally buoyant as possible. Sometimes the bass will react to a nose-up slow-rise bait, especially when the water is warmer. Other times, especially in cold water temps, the bass will react better to a nose-down slow fall presentation.
It all depends on what the bass are keying in on and what they react to when you are out on the water. The Rapala Shadow Rap series has an amazing color selection and size variations. They also have slow rise and slow sink offerings that can be critical to suspending jerkbait success. These rise-and-fall actions need to be very slow and subtle to work.
This resembles a dying baitfish at its best. If you have ever seen a dying baitfish they will either slow rise or slow sink, followed by jerky movements. This is what you are trying to mimic when you are fishing a suspending jerkbait for bass.
My favorite cold water suspending jerkbait for bass is the Shadow Rap Deep slow sink. It has an amazing rock and flash when jerked and is very finesse.
How to Fish a Suspending Jerkbait?
When the water is warmer the bait can be casted out, reeled down with a few cranks of the handle, and then fished fast with rapid jerks and very short pauses.
As the water cools and gets frigid the pauses need to be longer and the jerks more patterned. Let me explain, the colder the water the longer the pauses. This gives the fish a chance to move in and take a look at the bait.
In cold water, I typically keep the pauses as short as possible to be efficient, but that can still be 6-20 second pauses. I then work on the number of twitches or jerks that the fish are biting on.
This becomes a pattern game and requires that you pay attention to detail. As you fine-tune the pattern you will see that the fish ate on two twitches followed by a six-second pause. This could also be a ten-second pause followed by one twitch, or three twitches with an eight-second pause.
This is where the refinement of suspending jerkbait fishing comes into play. Great jerkbait fishermen are those who pay attention to detail. Sometimes they like long pauses, sometimes they like soft twitches, while other times they like hard and fast jerks.
The more erratic and hard-hitting jerks typically work in warmer water. As you think about it, fish are cold-blooded and as the water temps fall so does their metabolism. They become more lethargic.
How to Fish a Suspending Jerkbait – Story
Here is a real-time example of what I mean. Today when I went fishing it was 38 degrees with an 11 mph wind. This made it feel like 32 degrees. The water temps have been falling and are cold with some ice on the banks in the mornings.
With a little chop on the water and the chilly circumstances, I opted to start with a suspending jerkbait. I picked the slow-sinking Rapala Shadow Rap with a purple top with the stained water I was fishing in.
I began with a two-twitch and six-second pause approach and that is what seemed to be working. There is one submerged brush pile and every time I came over it I got a hit for the first five or six times. After that, the fishing slowed down, but the two twitch and six-second pause worked throughout my morning.
As the day progressed I tried other baits and patterns, but the jerkbait is all that I had luck on. It was a jerkbait kind of day.
Suspending Jerkbaits – When to Fish Them
I have caught bass in all sorts of situations with the suspending jerkbait, but the best conditions seem to be in cloudy weather with a chop on the water. The most critical of these two factors is the chop on the water. A little wind really helps kick up the jerkbait bite in my experience.
That said, I would try one any time you need a reaction bite. There is a feed response that drives bass crazy when that bait darts off. This requires a split-second decision of whether or not to attack. When they are on the jerkbait reaction bite it can be magical.
Fishing a Suspending Jerkbait – The Equipment
I like to fish mine on a baitcasting setup, but they also work well on spinning gear.
For my rod, I typically go between a 6’9” to a 7’ rod. I almost always opt for a medium action rod while I know others prefer a medium lite.
The length of the rod not only affects the movement of the bait and how far it moves on twitches but also keeps your tip from hitting the water when you are working the bait in.
Because the jerkbait has sticky light wire hooks, a softer rod like a medium or medium lite is the ticket. This allows the rod to load up and keep the fish pinned without ripping the hook out of their mouth. I also fish the jerkbait on a lighter drag so that if the fish makes a big run at the boat they don’t pull off.
Today I was fishing with a 7’ Daiwa Tatula casting rod and a 7.1:1 gear ratio casting reel. This 7’ rod gets a little more distance on the cast but is about as long as I can manage and keep my tip from hitting the water as I work the bait back. I usually keep my rod tip low to keep a bow out of my line and the bait a little deeper in the water column.
Get My Favorite Jerkbait Rod Here
Get My Favorite Jerkbait Reel Here
I like to fish a suspending jerkbait on 10-12 lb test line but will go higher if I’m around heavy cover. My favorite is 10 lb test if I can get away with it because it allows the bait to get deeper and have a better action.
How to Fish a Suspending Jerkbait – Final Thoughts
If you haven’t fished a suspending jerkbait, or have and haven’t gotten good results. When you follow the tips outlined above and pay attention to the jerks and pauses, then you can have some of the best days you’ve had on the water.
If you are in an area where they are eating the jerkbait, but the cover is too thick then I suggest tying on a fluke-style bait on a heavy wire wide gap hook Texas rigged. You can fish it in a similar way but have the advantage of being weedless. This works better in warmer water as the fluke doesn’t suspend like the jerkbait does.
There are a ton of good jerbaits on the market. If you are just getting started the Rapala x-rap, Husky Jerk, or Shadow Rap are good options. You can venture out from there.
To your suspending jerkbait fishing success,
Jonathan Burke