When bass are prowling shallow heavy cover a swim jig will catch some of the biggest bass in the lake.

Story and Photography by Matt Williams

There is no telling how many big bass get tattooed by swim jigs over the course of the year, but it would be safe to say a whole bunch of them do.

Bulky yet weedless, the swim jig is built to go places where a lot of other moving lures can’t. It’s also designed to perform in ways that other bass baits don’t — all-the-while imitating the protein-packed goodies the fat girls like to munch.

Just as the name implies, the jig is fashioned to swim. Unlike flipping jigs, casting jigs and football jigs, which are designed to bump slowly across bottom, the swim jig is built to boogie in the shallows.

The standard drill is to chunk it and wind it at a steady or staggered retrieve through the upper water column, sort of like a spinnerbait, Chatterbait, square bill crank bait or swim bait.

The difference is the swim jig slices though cover incredibly well. In fact, it is so snag-free it can usually be tossed around thick brush, bushes, stumps, lily pads, reeds, hydrilla and other dense cover where the big ones often lurk, usually without much worry of getting hung up or not getting it back.

Catching bass on a swim jig doesn’t require a lot of skill or demand the attention to detect subtle strikes that other jig styles do. That’s because the lure is typically moving when the bass eat it. Often times, this results in the fish hooking themselves.

Plain and simple, there is plenty to love about a swim jig. Here’s a guide filled with tips from pro swim jigger to get and keep you up to speed: