Tube & grub fishing for the (hyper) active angler
Personally, I prefer to fish spots by casting. I only drift and drag when someone forces me to. That’s why I like snap-jigging so much when tossing tubes and other jigs.
Things are rarely boring with this aggressive retrieve. It doesn’t work just on active fish either. Smallies especially are like cats when resting – they can’t help but take a swipe at something that jumps past them.
Often, the main trick to getting smallies to bite is just getting their attention. Snap-jigging really gets their attention – sometimes so well that they virtually ignore other nearby lures. I’ve out-fished anglers many times with this varied technique.
Along these lines, consider the weight of the jighead also since a heavier jig will fall faster and possibly trigger more reaction strikes. You can hook bonus bass out of schools this way after you get the initial strikes from the more active bass.
One thing my underwater camera has taught me about smallies in particular, something I was suspicious about, is that there are almost always more bass on a spot then what you catch.
The trick is to figure out how to get them biting again after the bite slows, especially during those times when they aren’t biting everything that passes by. I use various snap-jigging methods for this often. It works and it keeps me on top of my game too.
There isn’t a single retrieve that I call snap-jigging, but any active, aggressive tube retrieve. The one I use the most is simply to let the tube with a ¼ oz. jig fall to the bottom and sit for a couple seconds. Then snap your rod up from 9 to 11 o’clock to pop the tube off the bottom. Let the tube fall back to the bottom on a semi-slack line. Watch for line jump signaling a strike. Let it sit on the bottom for a couple seconds again and repeat the snap. Watch for followers. I catch many smallies right under the boat this way.
