A lot of things being missed here gentleman. Let me enlighten, before Vedder gets to this. There are several variations/types of steelhead jigs, each one of them having their own place in jig fishing. First all, do jigs NEED bait to catch steelhead. NO! Steelhead are territorial fish and oftens times strike in defense. Ok, now, lets talk about different types of jigs and cases where bait may up your hook up ratio. The Yarn jig for instances is the most actionless jig one can fish. Steelhead will hit them like they are, but in the case of yarn jig, loading it with the scent of your choice or tipping it with your choice of bait will almost always outfish the straigt yarn jig. Next is the old faithful Palmered Marabou jig. This jig has a lot of action to it and in most cases should be fished by itself for the simple fact is that bait/scent that is applied gets on the marabou and mats the jig down thus taking the utmost important action out of it. If you do apply scent or bait to a palmered marabou jig, just scent up the head of the jig or the chenille body if it has one. If you apply bait like mentioned in an earlier post, just use a thumbnail size chunk of prawn or smaller. If your one that adds sandshrimp tail or eggs, you are killing the purpose of the buggy lookin action packed palmered marabou jig. Might as well just put some feathers in your egg loop with your bait. Rabbit jigs of excellent action as well and will mat up just like the marabou, so with this jig, it is best to fish it without bait and if you want to fish scent, just simply scent the head. Schlappen and hackle jigs are tied in all different ways, some with long tails on them and some short. If tied with a short tail, I like to apply shrimptail or prawn chunk. If tied long and untrimmed, scenting the head shall do just fine. I also like to fish bucktail jigs for steelhead, such as the Macks Lure Rock Dancer jigs. Bucktail is pretty stiff without much action so scenting these should not hurt it too much, but in most instances I find myself just puttin scent on the chenille body or head. Well, with that said, if your stuck on using bait with a jig, use a straight jighead with your bait of choice behind it and my guess is you hook just as many fish or maybe try a jig and worm tail. Just my .02. Good luck.