Eggs vs. Jigs, Which wins?

Just curious of all out there who likes Jigs and who likes eggs better? Of the two mentioned what makes you pick one over the other?

Keith

Ahhh, time for a good ol' Chevy vs. Ford.....

For me it depends on: what river I'm fishing, what time of year it is, how warm the water is, what height the river is at, what color the water is, what species of fish I'm fishing for,

Most importantly, it depends who's fishing them.

This year in the low, clear water, eggs under a float was the ticket for me, so I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.

Ike

More like the Keith vs. John battle...

Neither of them outfish one or the other.

They work equally well in the right given situation.

Herzog would say to hell with your bait and goofy looking weighted flies and preach hardware!

If you've got the deaddrift presentation down for jigs, but you can't present a cluster of eggs worth beans, then you better stick to your jigs and vise versa.

Just my .02

Harbor-Hog

I would answer that water conditions will make a huge difference. Right, now with our low flows I would be tossing jigs. I know that several top O.P. guides are fishing jigs right now. Why? Because they believe they are the best tool in current conditions.

There was a time when I would have said that eggs would almost always out fish jigs, but not anymore. I have seen jigs outperform eggs on more than one occasion.

The day I truly became a jig convert was on the Kalum about ten years ago. My buddy and I fished spawn bags under a float. Noel Gyger was our guide. Buddy had a bad day. He hooked one while Noel and I hooked about ten between us. The next day, just to give buddy a shot, I switched to jigs and he stayed with the "proven" spawn bags. I landed seven that day he landed one. I also lost perhaps the biggest steelhead I ever hooked. He taught me to only use jigs with strong hooks.

I think the wise man does not limit himself to only one lure or bait.

Not that long ago almost no one was using jigs. Times change, as do hot lures. But the jig is here to stay, because it is almost infinitely variable in size, color and materials. Plus there’s, nothing that says you can’t fish a jig with eggs. I often tip my jig with a very small spawn bag.

True story, conditons are key for most as low clear water and rocky tough drifting conditions make it tough for most.

I know I've tossed jigs a time or two using what I would beleive to be a good looking jig with a great presentation... But I'll tell ya, I felt like a naked man walking through a grocery store. I have to drift a bait of eggs through a hole before I can say the fish aren't there.

Keith

Our count today in extreme low clear:

8 fish landed

6 on shrimp

2 on jig

0 on eggs that took 4 of our 7 fish yesterday

shrimp accounted for 80% of casts

eggs and jigs 10% each

Keep a well-stocked aresenal ... and show 'em all of it when condtions are tough!! My worthless 2 cents

Your dead-on bob...

Keith

The nail's been hit on the head!

Words or wisdom right there.

What worked today, might not work tommorow

Harbor-Hog

If you only fished eggs 50% of the time you may have caught the 6 that passed up the shrimp and jigs...

Keith

Perhaps I should relabel the post Bait vs. Jigs?

Keith

Bob: Looks to me that jigs, which were fished 10% of the time, caught 25% of the fish. Yeah, I know, tomorrow can be different. And it makes a bit of a difference who’s; running the boat and the gear, or so i hear.

that's tuff! I've fished both in gin clear summer water and done well on both. I think it just boils down to finding out what the fish want that day.

I'm fishing jigs a lot more lately, and becoming more dependant on them than eggs. With eggs being the standard go to bait, the fish definitely wise up. I seem to have the best luck with them when them water is ice cold and clear, or just clear.

Keith..........you big egg ho'!

Seeing some of the tailouts filled with summers with you on the Lewis, I know you could do some damage by fishing both eggs and jigs. Drag your bait through the meat of the hole, get the biters out of there, then hold the boat above the tailout and feed a jig down to the ones in the tailout. Double trouble, my man.

We'll do a head-to-head when the summers show up and see how it turns out.

Leave the jigs home for springers though...............there ain't no touching your eggs when it comes to bangin' springers.

As always, fishing the right bait and the right technique of fishing it, depending on the water conditions, is the key...if all you fish with is one type of lure, no matter what the conditions are, well...obviously that's what you're going to catch all your fish on, but you might be missing lots of fish because you're not using the best bait for the conditions.

I use eggs most of the time, and as a consequence, catch most of my fish on eggs...I fish jigs the least, so catch the least amount of fish on jigs. In selective waters, I fish pink worms almost exclusively...so I catch most of my fish on those.

Head to head last week on the Hoh?

I used eggs and squid on the lower river...a couple bumps, one solid whiff on eggs, and no hookups.

I used hardware a bit above...one hookup.

I used worms the most...four hookups.

Didn't use jigs, though if it was cold out, which is how we usually have water this low this time of year, I would have fished them quite a bit more.

With the warm weather, warm water, and low and clear conditions, fishing the deeper slots by "swimming" my worm through them was definitely the ticket.

Oh, and if I have a couple of guys who know what they are doing, and the conditions are just right, we'll outfish everything pulling plugs!

Fish on...

Todd

if there's enough water i prefer to drift eggs, (nothing better than tink, tink, tink, tap, tap, BAM ... you know the rest) runnings eggs properly take more fishin skills to run them right w/o having to re-tie & still gettin down where they need to be...

if water is low then i am forced to use jigs, jigs cover way more water and are way easier to fish, (essentially jigs require little to no fishin skills other than having enough sense get it near the bottom & to put some oil & a shrimp tail on it once in awhile) truthfully, with no animosity in my heart , a 10 year old can effectivelly fish a jig & bobber...

so, while I believe you can cover more water & catch more fish with a jig & bobber, I still prefer to run eggs...

(i guess i'm a hard headed old man) ...


both work about the same

Dave said a wise fisherman wouldn't limit himself to only one bait or lure, so I guess as a flyfisherman, I'm unwise. It's interesting for me to read these experienced opinions. From my years of observation, I really didn't think it matters. It has long seemed to me that an undisturbed steelhead, under water conditions that are neither too high, too low, too warm, or too cold, will strike the first properly presented bait or lure it sees. Are steelhead really so finicky that some park themselves in a tailout, determined to eschew any and all egg presentations because they've got a hunger for jigs or pink worms that day?

When I hook a steelhead on a red fly, I assume it was because I was using a red fly at the time and not because they weren't taking pink or purple that day.

It seems like a change up is most productively served to a steelhead that is already disturbed, and therefore maybe not on the snap. That fish could be in the mode to ignore whatever passes by, . . . and then along comes the chrome doo-hickey with pink spots, and he just has to attack. It seems more intuitive that having a large assortment of bait and lures to choose from increases the odds of luring that otherwise reluctant fish.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo G: I should have said the angler who is intent on hooking the most fish will not stick with only one lure or bait. I too fish steelhead with a fly, not all the time or even most of the time. But I have managed to hook a half dozen or so on feathers and fur.

But when I am fly fishing I am doing so because it pleases me to fish that way, not becasue I beleive it's the most effective way to hook a steelhead.

I remain convinced that the guy who has the most fun wins. For some, the only way to have the most fun is to catch the most fish. For others there are many other variables.

One thing for sure, when you're putting in 55-60 hours a week working it's very pleasing to be out on the river. So at this point in my life it's all about being out there BUT catching is key!!

Isn't that what you mean Dave?

Keith :p

Thanks Dave and Keith. The fun part I understand. I've tried drift fishing/boondogging and found it fun for the first couple hours. After that, it was only fun if I was hooking up every 15 to 20 minutes. The downtime between bites became uninteresting, i.e., not so much fun. That's a main reason why I fly fish for steelhead, because it's fun even when I'm not catching a fish, which is most of the time, regardless of method.

However, I really wish you experts would address the other part of my post, about steelhead behavior and preferences, based on your own years of observation and experience. Are they really that picky? Will they really pass on one bait or lure, only to succomb to some other? And particularly, will an undisturbed steelhead, under favorable water conditions, really not strike the first properly presented bait or lure it sees?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo g.,

Though I'm confident you didn't mean me when you said "experts"...I'll give it a shot anyway!

you wrote:

"It has long seemed to me that an undisturbed steelhead, under water conditions that are neither too high, too low, too warm, or too cold, will strike the first properly presented bait or lure it sees."

I think that the above quote nails it...but I'm going to pick it apart a bit, and see what happens.

"undisturbed steelhead"-we may or may not get to run across many of these over the course of a day...fishing right now out on the Hoh, for instance, the water is so low, and so clear, that unless you are fishing tidewater, you are fishing over fish that have negotiated the nets, and swam past fifty or so plunking rigs, and then withstood a virtual flotilla of driftboats every day for the past month.

An undisturbed fish (i.e., a "new" one) would be awfully aggressive to a wider range of lures, in a wider range of water conditions, than would fish that have gone through the low water fishing gauntlet.

"properly presented bait or lure"-again, agreed, but I'm going to stretch the definition a little, and say that "properly presented" includes "properly selected" lure, too...when the water is low and clear, casting a K-15, or a huge red/white DareDevil, isn't likely to result in much, no matter how well you cast or retrieve it...the fish will be running for the hills.

On the other end, when you are looking at 6" of visibility, with mud and twigs coming down the river, a small jig tied on a size 4 hook, tied in black, isn't likely to get a ton of hookups, either, no matter how well of a caster, floater, and jig manipulator that you are...they'll just never see it.

"neither too low, too high, too warm, or too cold"-this, of course, is the key...and unfortunately, exists a lot less than we'd all like to see. Current conditions are good for expository reasons...we have low, clear, and warm conditions, in the winter. That's screwed up!

I think that if it is mid-March, the water temperature is 44 degrees, and perfect steelhead green, with 18 to 24 inches of visibility, and on a slow, but steady drop, and a good push of fresh wild winter runs has come in the night before, and seen no lines yet...then you could probably do well on almost anything, so long as you do it correctly.

Since those perfect conditions happen about once or twice per year, then the conclusion that you could probably do well on almost anything, so long as you do it correctly, probably only applies a few times per year, too...probably more often than the perfect conditions occur, but not much more.

That's when the rest of this conversation comes in.

I also think that while your thoughts about a "red fly" have application during the "perfect, or nearly perfect" conditions...what about all the other times you're out?

You wouldn't skate a Bomber when there are three inches of visibility on a rising river, would you? Or swim a five inch articulated yellow and red whatchamacallit, tied on a 2/0 hook, through gin clear water? Or fish a floating line for winter runs over twelve feet of water, or a Type IV 300 gr. sinker in four feet of walking pace water?

I think that all of those differing conditions call for different baits, different lures, different line sizes, and different techniques of fishing all the above.

Of course, the thing that overlays this entire discussion is the ability to read the water...no matter how well you cast and tie flies, if you are continually casting them over empty water, you're going to have trouble catching fish...and that, of course, applies to everything.

So, back to the "jig vs. egg" for fish in the tailout example...I won't say that I agree or disagree with the idea that you can catch fish in the tailout with a jig that you would't have caught with eggs, but I will say that fish of differing "conditions", i.e., hunkering down, fresh, aggressive, passive, etc., will definitely tend to hold in different areas of a run, especially if the run is long and provides a lot of different types of structure (trees, rocks, depth, and current)...and fish in different "personal conditions", even though they are in the same "river conditions", may prefer to see different lures, baits, or presentation techniques.

So, there's a long rambling answer to your question, that may or may not have answered anything, but was fun to write anyway!

Fish on...

Todd

It's not that the fish in the tailouts wouldn't take a bait of eggs, but their location makes it difficult to present an egg bait properly without running out of water for the boat.

Some days, sure.

Pink worm!!!!!.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Very well put Todd, glad you took the time to say it all...

Dan, I'll still whoop you with eggs!! It's on buddy, bring your little feathered friends and I'll put you right next to me and you can fish the jig through the holes first, but stand clear cause you've seen some of my hooksets.

I like to leave my shoes if you know what I mean!!!

Keith

You bring that spring-loaded arm, I'll bring the floats and jigs, and we'll see what pans out.

You're still gonna run the boat, right?

Dan, me run the boat... Is that important??

Keith

I'd say eggs, but not UEC eggs.

They'd have to be my messed up goo-ball eggs. I never make two batches the same, and pack them rare and unfrozen in a bunch of borax for the ultimate goo-ball experience.


Got Goo?

It is to the goobers in the front of the boat.

Was I clowning myself there?

No you weren't... I understand where you were headed with that one...

Keith