I think February is a perfect month to fish a jig and crawfish trailer. The water temperature is usually in the low 50s, which is perfect jig weather. It’s a perfect time to catch a big sack of fish in a tournament or catch the trophy of a lifetime. It’s a great time to catch a big fish, and a jig is the perfect bait for a big fish. The two sort of go together.
February and March are prime months for us, and if you keep a jig in the water, sooner or later, you’ll get a big bite.
I’ve fished jigs from 3/16ths of an ounce all the way to one ounce, but if I had to choose one jig, it would be a half-ounce Buckeye Mop jig. I’ve caught a lot of big fish on that particular bait, and I’ve got a few paychecks to show for it.
There are a lot of different thoughts on why big fish will bite a jig. I’ve heard biologists say there’s a lot of protein in crawfish, so it makes sense that a big female bass, with her eggs developing, preparing for the spawn in March or April, would want more protein. If deer can recognize which foods in the woods have the most protein, bass ought to be able to. Eating a big crawfish that’s high in protein would be important for a big, female bass.
I have used a variety of soft-plastic trailers, but right now, my favorite is a Yamamoto Flappin’ Hog II. It’s sort of a cross between a crawfish and a creature bait.
A straight brown jig is hard to beat. I’ll choose the color of the trailer I fish based on the color of the water. If the water is fairly clear, I’ll fish brown/amber or brown/green pumpkin. If the water is a little stained, I might fish black, orange or green pumpkin with chartreuse claws.
Early in the month, you still have a lot of real, cold weather. You’ll be casting to deeper points and roadbeds, those kinds of places. As the month progresses, you find that fish are anxious to move shallow. I really pay attention to the nice, warm rains we often get later in the month. When that happens, you can fish shallow and catch some really big fish. They’re anxious to move up, you get a warm rain and that water along the bank warms up, and those fish will move up a lot quicker than most people think.
I concentrate a lot on rocky banks. It can go one of two ways. It might be because crawfish will be on those kinds of banks at this time of the year, and it might be that bass get on those kinds of banks, and it just happens that the crawfish are there. The two things seem to go together.
One thing I’ve learned that has helped me catch more fish is to pay attention to the kind of rock you’re fishing. The rock on banks will vary from lake to lake. Your lake might have a lot of white, chunk rock or flat slate. Sometimes, bass will get on one kind of rock or the other, and if you realize it, then you’re able to really pinpoint the kinds of spots they’ll be holding.
The guys out in the Midwest, the ones who fish those deep, clear mountain lakes like Table Rock or Lake of the Ozarks, they’ve learned because all of the banks in those lakes are rocky. They know that to really get a good pattern worked out, you need to pay attention to the kind of rock where you’re getting bites. They might be on one kind or rock or the other, or they might be on the transition area, where you move from one kind or rock to another or from a rocky bank to something else.
What you’re doing by taking this next step — whether you’re a tournament fisherman or a weekend fisherman, you’re narrowing down things; you’re keeping your bait in higher-percentage places. We’re always battling time, and in the end, you save time by figuring these things out.
One thing about February is that you can find fish ganged up. I think when they transition out of creek channels and deep water up to rocky banks and points, they transition in waves. If I pull up on a rocky bank in February and catch a 4-pound bass on a jig, there will definitely be another one there — maybe a dozen. You won’t have loners on those kinds of places.
So I’ll spend more time on a single place like that in February — if I catch a fish — than I’ll spend on a single place in any other month.
If you’re casting a jig to a point or a rocky bank, you need a lot of rod so you can make a good swing and a hookset on fish that might be as deep as 15 feet. I will usually cast a jig on a 7-foot, medium-heavy All-Star baitcasting rod. I use a Pfleuger Patriarch reel, spooled with 14-pound test Trilene 100 Percent Fluorocarbon. That might not sound like heavy-enough line to jig fish, but it’s plenty. I’m not flipping and pitching in heavy cover.
So tie on a jig, find a rocky bank that’s full of crawfish, and hold on. It might make February one of your favorites.
Davy Hite is a 43-year-old native of Saluda who lives in Ninety Six. He was the BASS Angler of the Year in 1997 and 2002, and he won the 1999 Bassmasters Classic and the 1998 FLW Tour Championship. He is sponsored by Triton boats, Evinrude outboards, All-Star rods, Pfleuger reels, Berkley Trilene, Yamamoto Baits, Owner hooks, Humminbird depthfinders and Solar Bat sunglasses.
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