Big Rubber Skirts for BIG
Jigs, Spinnerbaits and Buzzbaits
by Russ Bassdozer
This shows and tells product photos, product descriptions and
information for the lure models and colors that are (or have
been) available at BassdozerStore.com. Not all models and colors
shown are currently available, and exact specifications are
subject to change.
Note: Some of the following configurations may not all be
currently in stock. Some may be sold out at this time. Please
check online at www.BassdozerStore.com
for current availability of specific items below. Thank you for
your business.
Big Rubber Skirts for BIG
Jigs, Spinnerbaits and Buzzbaits
Perfect for Big Bass
and Pike
These 'Big Rubber' skirts are seven inches in
length with forty-five extra long, super thick, "double wide
cut" strands of silicone rubber.
Big rubber is something that local anglers in South
Carolina turned the world of fishing onto a while back. This type of monstrous jig - about the size of a softball has been associated with Clarks Hill Lake in Georgia where
big rubber jigs have been a local custom since at least the early
seventies, almost forty years ago. If you are planning to win
a tournament around there on waters such as Murray, Santee,
Hartwell and Clarks Hill, you need a big bait, and the big rubber
jig is something local anglers came up with to do that. The key t the success of these big jigs is simply this - the big rubber
produces about a four pound average fish, and there aren't many other lures that will do that. You're going to fish
for five to seven bites are all, but they're going to average
three to five pounds apiece, on up to ten and eleven pounders. The original locally-made jigs from that area were all
tied with extra long, super thick strands of latex rubber.
Note the Big Rubber skirts in Bassdozer's Store
are not latex rubber. Instead they're silicone rubber, not latex. I call them 'Big Rubber' since
they are remindful of the original big rubber jigs from that
region.
5 Big Rubber Skirts ~ Green Pumpkin
5 Big Rubber Skirts ~ Black Blue
Make no mistake - these are big skirts!
Photo above shows how to achieve two different looks:
- Layered Look (shown top).
Install with the short strands to front to achieve a little
longer body and tail effect - more like a big baitfish.
- Full Look (bottom).
Install on lure with long strands to front so all strands end
evenly when folded over. A little shorter and bulkier look.
3 Big Rubber Skirts ~ Chartreuse White Bone
3 Big Rubber Skirts ~ Rainbow Trout
Handy size comparisons of standard 5" skirts versus Big
Rubber skirts.
Rigging Methods
There's a wise and oft-proven saying that five
bass caught on jigs will be bigger than five fish caught any
other way. A Big Rubber skirt simply supersizes a jig - and the
fish caught on it.
Size comparison of Big Rubber skirts versus standard 5"
skirts on Bassdozer's Multi Jig heads.
The Big Rubber jigs in Bassdozer's Store are
unique creations. It's a true original jig design based on an
understanding of what's needed in order to run a big rubber jig
through heavy cover without snagging or bogging down in weeds,
and with a tendency to stand up when it comes to rest - without
quickly falling over or getting lost in the bottom debris.
I just took what I knew from my own experiences at fishing big
rubber jigs with good results for a few years, and then worked
with the moldmaker on what a big rubber jig head ideally needed
to accomplish, and here's the result. It's very stable, available
with either 6/0 and 7/0 hooks with either 3/4 oz lead head or 1/2
oz high-floating tin head (coming soon).
In thick weeds, stroking a Big Rubber jig can be very
effective. The stroke is somewhat like setting the hook.
It's remindful of ripping a lipless crankbait through the grass.
Envision it as more of a horizontal sweeping, bursting, fleeing
movement. A startled critter that suddenly jumps up, shoots
several feet through the grass and tucks back down into hiding.
You tend to get hit on the falling movement or during the pause
after the powerful stroke.
Big Rubber skirt with Yamamoto 8" Big Grub.
Big Rubber skirt with 7" Yamamoto double tail grub.
A soft plastic trailer is elevated above the Big Rubber skirt
on a corkscrew keeper clipped to the hook eye of the Multi Jig
head, making it weedless.
With the trailer raised above the skirt, the trailer is never
lost in the skirt, and not lost in the dirt and debris on the
bottom. The elevated trailer gives fish a strike target separate
and apart from the skirt. The trailer is what they lock their
sights on. That's the prize morsel. The skirt is just a backdrop.
The big rubber brings them over from a distance. It's the
attraction at first. But when a bass sees the succulent trailer,
the skirt becomes secondary. One way it helps to think of this
thick skirt and raised trailer combination is that you are using
the skirt as a picnic blanket spread out underneath in order to
attract a big fish over to the trailer.
In recent years, 10-inch worms have become tournament-winning
tools for top pros in the USA. Many big 'kicker' bass have fallen
to 10-inch worms, and combining such big worms with Big Rubber
jigs simply supersizes the 10-inch worm presentation. It's still
the same 10-inch worm presentation - just bulked up with the
skirt to appeal to even bigger bass.
Big Rubber skirts with 10" Yamamoto Kut Tails are a handful.
Although the photos here primarily show big trailers, some
days small trailers work surprisingly better. Think of a small
trailer as a finesse approach. The skirt is adding bulk and
visibility that a small trailer alone does not have. A big fish
may not have otherwise bothered with or not have found the small
trailer, except for the skirt used to attract a big bass over to
sample the small trailer. Again, think of the skirt as an
attractive tablecloth with a tasty yet small snack (the trailer)
laid out alluringly on top of it.
Also note that combining a big jig with a 7" Yamamoto
Senko (shown below) is the hottest big bass tactic on certain
trophy lakes in Mexico in recent years, but no one is using this
killer combo anywhere within the USA yet. In Mexico, the
presentation is often a deep one, probing humps, ledges,
drop-offs and other deep water breaks that go from shallow to
deep. Usually, the biggest fish are on the deep edges. Do try it.
"Quite simply, big bass want a big bulk. The more bulk
and the more movement, the bigger the bite," explains Terry
Hollan who operates a world-famous fishing lodge in Mexico at
Lake Baccarac.
In the information below, note that Hollan refers to using
standard 5" skirts. However, 7" Big Rubber would
arguably produce even bigger bass! Do try it.
"A few years back when you can say we first discovered a
big jig bite on Baccarac, we had just a naked jig for starters,
and we did get some fish. What we found was the more bulk, the
more and bigger we could make the jig with a trailer, the bigger
the bite. Well, it wasn't long before we amped up to tipping the
big jigs with the big 7-inch Senko, and that is the best trailer
choice we've found so far for trophy bass," admits Hollan.
"Today, you can't get one of my guides on Baccarac to
toss a jig unless it has a 7-inch Senko trailer. No guide here is
going to fish a jig here without a 7-inch Senko on it. That big
Senko trailer has become the 'trademark' of how big jigs are
fished on Baccarac," says Hollan.
"We use these big jigs both shallow and deep. By that I
mean there are so many humps and hills and slow rolls on the lake
bottom, that shallow and deep water are practically synonymous.
On this kind of rising and falling structure, you can be fishing
both shallow on top on the structure and deep at the base of the
structure on each cast. However, most of the big bass on Baccarac
come from the deep sections of these structures. By deep, I mean
anything over 18 feet is deep."
"The big jigs get down fast, they stir up the bottom, and
with the 7-inch Senko, you have the added visibility of that big,
long trailing bulk with movement. It's hard for fish not to see
that big, waving Senko tail sticking up, and they react to
it."
Big Rubber skirts excel on big spinnerbaits like these 1-1/2
ouncers above - for trophy bass or pike.
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