How to catch big bass

Like many anglers, I thought the jig and pig was a product of 1980’s tournament angling and experimentation in California. Turns out, I was off by a couple of decades. And states. Here’s a great article from Outdoor Life in 1968 that covered some of the local Texas anglers who used jigs, plastic worms, and spinnerbaits to target big bass. Reading the article made me realize that a lot of the “new” and “hot” techniques that we keep hearing about are actually tried and true methods that have existed for over half a century. Jigs and trailers still produce nice bass (I caught some 5+ lbs fish this weekend on them) and it’s cool to realize that the way we fish them today is pretty much the same as these ol’ boys were doing in 1968. Hope you enjoy the read and photos.

That's some good stuff right there. Thanks for sharing.

I don't know when it started actually. When I started bass fishing in 1967 it was already a part of your tackle.
Arkie bucktail jigs were the ones I remember most and a 3/8 oz was about as heavy as anyone was using.
We almost always used pork since the plastic at the time was not as flexible.

We cast them back then. Dee Thomas and Dave Gliebe started the flipping craze in the mid 70's which changed bass fishing.

I always like learning about the history of things and it’s interesting to me that jigs were recognized as big bass baits as far back as the ‘60’s. I only started bass fishing in 1987 and at the time, jigs were being hyped as a new wonder lure for big bass. I guess every generation has to rediscover what the earlier ones already knew.

Nice post. Thanks for sharing.

I got a laugh in the article where he described the spinner bait. Great article. Brought back lots of memories of fishing with my granddad.
Pat Haley