Jig power — Tips for fishing jigs for more Atchafalaya Basin bass

You might not get as many bites fishing a jig, but you’re almost guaranteed to catch bigger fish. Follow this angler’s tips to make the most of your time in the Atchafalaya Basin.

“I hate finesse fishing,” the fair-skinned man said with a mischievous look, pausing to wait for my reaction.

Getting none, Billy Billeaud went on.

“I like the Basin. The fish live shallow, and it’s power fishing — braided line, big hooks, heavy rods,” Billeaud said. “Set the hook and horse them in.

“I fish a lot of jigs. They’re good for cypress trees, laydowns, bushes, stumps, water lilies and hydrilla. They are pretty weedless. You can get in and out without getting stuck, and produce a lot of big fish. Big fish tend to be in heavy cover.”

I wanted to learn about jig fishing; the lures have a reputation for being difficult to master.

So here I was, heading for the Atchafalaya Basin during what most years is high-water time. The timing didn’t seem to faze the 54-year-old angler, who told me earlier that you can always find fishable water somewhere in the Basin.

“Stained water is good,” Billeaud said. “We just won’t fish muddy water.”

After launching his boat at the Myette Point landing, the angler didn’t even crank up his big motor. Instead, he started pitching a 1/2-ounce black-and-blue Falcon jig tipped with a blue sapphire Big Salty Chunk trailer.

Within 20 yards of the boat ramp, he wrestled a chunky largemouth bass out of a laydown. He unhooked the fish, held up the lure and proclaimed that it was “pretty much” his favorite bait.

Falcon Jigs are made in Lafayette by Wayne Falcon, but they can be hard to find in big box stores, although Falcon does have a website.

Billeaud explained that, while he likes the banana-shaped head, he especially likes the jig’s highly effective weed guard.

During the day’s tour, Billeaud demonstrated the use of jigs in all of the Basin’s many habitats except the main Atchafalaya River channel.

Unless he was punching through vegetation, he used one of three jig fishing techniques:

1) In what most people would consider typical jigging, he would drag the lure slowly in the spot to be fished until he felt something different.

Then he would slow down and attempt to keep the jig in one spot, twitching it occasionally.

“I think that a bass will swim up to the jig and inspect it,” Billeaud explained. “Then it will pick it up when I twitch it.”

2) He would swim the jig by a tree or other hard cover within the top foot of the water column.

3) Billeaud would use a technique he called “sticking it on the side of a tree.” To do this, he flipped the lure underhand or side hand to semi-wrap the line on a tree trunk.

The jig would hang (“semi-suspend,” he called it). He then shook and twitched the bait while it was hanging in place.

“Sometimes the jig will be wedged tightly on the tree, and a fish will grab it and pull it loose,” Billeaud chuckled. “This works well in heavily pressured situations.

“The fish shut down because of the fishing pressure, while still wanting to feed.”

From the boat launch, Billeaud ran his boat north in the GA Cut.

His choice of waters this time of year is stable water that has very little current. This is the exact opposite of his first choice during the hot, low-oxygen days of summer, when he looks for current.

The Basin was — well, ugly. Everything seemed to be some shade of brown. Even the water seemed greenish-brown.

What wasn’t brown was gray.

“You can catch fish under almost any conditions in the Basin,” Billeaud yelled over the snarling motor. “You just have to get to where the best water is and the fish are.

“Sometimes that is very close to or even on the levees.”

His rationale is that rising, muddy water moves from the river in the heart of the Basin pushes the clearest water farther and farther away from the river. Therefore the last areas affected by muddy water are located along the guide levees.

Billeaud moved into a pipeline to probe it. Pipelines, well-marked on any Basin map, are prime fishing targets.

After picking up a quick fish, he moved to a scattered stand of cypress trees growing in the open water of a lake off of the cut.

“I like cypress trees in lakes with a little current, like Duck Lake or Flat Lake,” Billeaud said.

He worked the trees hard, circling and casting to all sides of each trunk.

“Sometimes, I will circle around a tree with two people in the boat casting, and we won’t catch a fish until the second pass,” he grinned.

While he works each tree thoroughly, he said there are some sweet spots.

“I find fish hold in two places on a tree or stump: the side with the most waves (upwind or upcurrent) or the shady side,” Billeaud said. “I hear people talk about catching bass on the downcurrent side of trees; I don’t find that to be true.”

He moved north to Mud Cove, a lake off of Mud Cove Bypass. He stopped to maul a duck blind before moving back to woodier cover.

“I like wood” he said.

He grumped when there wasn’t any wood to throw at, and he seemed to prefer cover — the thicker, the better.

“Ga-doggit,” he slammed the hook home on a bass.

He wasn’t gentle. He ripped any fish he hooked out of the brush or lilies, and if it was small enough, he bounced it on top of the water to the boat.

On the ride back in, Billeaud called the jigs’ reputation for being hard to fish “unfounded.”

But he admitted that fishermen can go long stretches without a bite on jigs.

“It’s a confidence thing,” Billeaud said. “Fishermen do get fewer bites with jigs, but if they are persistent they will do better with them. They will catch bigger bass — 2 ½ to 3 ½ pounds.”

He recommended anglers stick with the lures until they become comfortable with them.

“The pros use them because they have fished with them enough to have confidence in them,” Billeaud said. “It’s hard to be confident in a bait if you don’t catch a fish with it early on.

“Or it may just be a mystique thing — it can be intimidating.”

Click below for more:

Equipment for bass fishing in the Atchafalaya Basin

How to pick a jig

Billy, bass and boudin

Other great baits for Atchafalaya Basin bass

About Jerald Horst 959 Articles
Jerald Horst is a retired Louisiana State University professor of fisheries. He is an active writer, book author and outdoorsman.