This! My recommendations are that if you are getting bit on a T-rig set it down and pick up a jig. Chances are the next fish you catch will be bigger. I rarely catch one on a jig under 4#

Thanks for the inputs guys.
For river smallies the skirted jig & trailer or spinnerbait hands down!
For LM, a presentation I started catching bass on a few years ago is to swim the jig like a spinnerbait or crankbait. I only use an Uncle Josh pork-frog copy from a plaster mold I use to make duplicates. The tails have just the right amount of flap & flutter along with the pulsation of the skirt.

No point in using a jig for swimming that's over 1/4 oz. The Arkie jig below and trailer have done well when worked mid-depth:


The one on top is size #1; the one below a #11. both do well.

A craw trailer would also do well:

I would reduce its body length by half. Talk about an action trailer whether jigging or swimming the jig!

I don't use a swim jig lighter then 3/8. A 1/4oz has too much lift especially when a you add a trailer.

I've also done well with a 3/8 oz Arkie in water over 9'; the 1/4 oz in shallower water.

TX rig. For some reason, I do not catch fish with jigs or spinners.

Believe me - you would! I wish I'd known the value of jigs and spinnerbaits when I lived in Tx for over 5 years.

I almost always throw a jig first, but typically end up fishing both. If the jig will get bit nearly as well as a soft plastic, im sticking with the jig. Its nice to be able to continuously put the lure in cover and not have to adjust the lure.

Have also seen several days where the jig outproduces a soft plastic in terms of numbers and quality.

Went from having essentially no confidence in a jig to it being one of my confidence baits.

You said it all with that statement. Not only that, but you gave a great example of the importance of versatility and never assuming anything.

This. If they will bite a jig, go with it, if not throw the tx. rig.

Fish both and see what the fish want more that day.

so are you starting with a jig first and hitting those more high percentage type spots, then following up and doing clean up with a t rig? or throwing one or the other until you get bit and try to start patterning that bite?

Im dedicating a lot of my day to fishing big baits....and trying to get a feel for a good progression. Glide baits are good search baits even if you dont catch, so I like the idea of starting with that...but after that I just usually junk fish. instead of just junk fishing i might need to force feed the jig right after i force feed the glide so I can get confidence in it 🤔i know jigs get bit at my home lake. got a friend who has the results to show it! Need to step my game up on that

So I'm clear, what glide baits do you cast? How do you work them?

Sonar can find fish only a small percentage of the time and only those in its field-of-veiw; most of the time our casts are way beyond it and in cover. Using search baits and casting to different area types give me a clue as far as possible patterns. What search baits to try? Depends on past percentage of catches over time vs other more specialized lures (surface baits, drop shot, bottom dragging, etc.) where much slower presentations are the rule. It's nice that search baits can also be used in slower presentations that concentrate casts vertically to specific structure once fish are found.

Small search baits have been my preference in order to catch the largest fish of smaller fish species, knowing that larger fish (7 lb catfish, 3.5 lb pickerel, 4 lb white sucker) can also be caught on them. If I fished bass tournaments like in days past, bass size lures would be the only lures I would cast such as 5 - 7" glide baits.

Stanley Black/ Blue rubber skirt with a black Uncle Josh #11 pork frog... Dan

I usually have both tied on postspawn. Prefer Texas rigs in late summer up til turnover then jigs.

If you are getting bit on a craw and trying to get confidence in a jig just force yourself to put the craw down for good and flip a green pumpkin jig. Don’t put it down.

Unless it is a really odd day, if they are biting a craw, I bet you can catch them on a jig.

Trim the skirt to the bottom of the hook to give skirt more flare when it is resting on bottom and trim the weed guard. Just slow down to reduce snags. You will spend more time with your lure in the water than rigging plastics. I feel I can catch as many or more on a jig.

There are a handful of days it doesn’t work out that way. But you will never gain confidence if you don’t spend enough time fishing them.

I've always been a fan of the 10" t-rig worm or a creature bait. Caught tons of fish on them over the years, including some of my largest. But on my first guide trip back in 2011, Tom Redington told me, "There's a lay-down right there, drag that jig through there a few times." So I pitched in 5 or 6 times with no bites. My dad in the back of the boat had pitched in there 3 or 4 times, and then all of a sudden he sets the hook. By this time I'm pitching at another tree on the creek channel in front of us, so I turn and see his rod still as could be and think, "Wonder how long til he figures out that's a log..." Turn back around and start fishing, but I hear him reeling back there, so I turn around again and his rod is still completely still, and I think, "What an idiot..." Start to turn back to my tree and out of the corner of my eye I see a giant mouth coming out of the water. Tom sprinted back there with the net and got her in, a 10-5 and my dad's first DD (after fishing Toledo Bend for decades in the 70s and 80s), a 10-5 that was so beautiful. I fell in love with jigs and have fished them heavily over the past 10 years. Oddly enough, that was my dad's first and last DD. But he always loved jig fishing.