Mark Rose talks Football Jig Trailers

Here is Rose’s approach to football jig trailers.

To start with the main component of the lure, Rose tends to throw one size, and one color jig for 90-percent of his football jig fishing. For everyday use, he uses a 3/4-ounce Strike King Tour Grade Football Jig. If he is fishing for spotted bass or smallmouth, then he downsizes to the 1/2-ounce version of that jig, and trims the skirt to mimic a spider jig with a short front part of the skirt around the head. If he is fishing for larger than average fish, he uses a specific trailer and upgrades to the 3/4-ounce Tour Grade Heavy Hook Football Jig. He uses the Green Pumpkin Crawcolor nearly all the time.”I really have two primary trailers,” he said. “It used to be just one, but now we have a second model that gives me an advantage in deeper water.” Those two trailers are the Rage Craw and the new Rage Menace Twin Tail Grub.

He prefers the Rage Craw in water to 22 feet, but deeper than that, he has started turning to the Menace. “I really love the action of the Rage Craw, but because it has such a wide stance in the claws, it has a lot of bulk and feels heavy in the water,” he said. “It also slows the fall of the jig down a bunch, which I don’t want in deep water.”

He likes the Menace because it gives a similar action, but speeds the fall in deeper water. “Most people don’t know this, but a slimmer trailer actually helps you recognize bites in deep water,” he said. “The bulkier trailer feels heavier on the jig, and can make you think you’re getting a pressure bite when you’re not.”

For the smaller jigs, he downsizes his trailer to a Baby Rage Craw, and for the larger fish, he actually prefers to match his jig with a full 6-inch Rage Game Hawg trailer. “The Baby Rage Craw matches the size of the jig, and the smaller mouths of smallmouth and spots,” he said.

For the Rage Craws, Rose prefers a standard hop or twitch type retrieve. He said that he pulls the jig slowly and alternately hops them to mimic a crawdad scooting along the bottom. “This is the retrieve I use most of the time,” he said. “In most instances, bass will respond to a standard drag, hop shake type retrieve.”

If he is fishing the Menace Grub in deeper water when the fish are still not extremely active, then he employs the same retrieve. However, when bass are aggressive, but won’t chase a crankbait, he uses a “stroking” type retrieve. This involves snapping the lure high off of the bottom and allowing it o fall back down on a semi slack line.

He prefers to the bigger profile lure moving by sweeping and dragging the lure along the bottom. He said this allows the swimming tails to do what they do and keep moving along the bottom.

“Jigs are great for getting bites from better quality bass, and I’ve really gotten comfortable with a system that allows me to appeal to bass everywhere,” Rose said. “They’ve been a major part of my wins offshore, and they’ll help anglers everywhere do well too.”

a