Stand up Specks

New jig presentation has proven very effective on Mobile Bay specks, even during hot weather

Sunday, June 22, 2008

By JEFF DUTE

Outdoors Editor

There was another boat sitting in the spot on the Mobile Bay rig where Yano Serra wanted to anchor at daylight Friday morning, so the local inshore guide decided to fish a different corner of the rig.

While the fishermen on the other boats could be seen hooking live shrimp at the terminal end of their slip-cork rigs, Serra didn't have any live bait on the boat on purpose.

His plan was to work the rig with an artificial-bait fishing system bass fishermen have used successfully for the past five years or so, one he was refining for use on speckled trout.

Before the morning was very old, no less than nine other boatloads of fishermen were on the same rig. While the post-full moon period had slowed down the bite, Serra used his hand-poured stand-up jig to outfish them all.

Birth of an idea

Serra, who lives in Coden and has fished the Dauphin Island area for nearly all of his 41 years, said he first got the idea for making the stand-up jig from his friend Robert Robinson, a professional bass fisherman from Mobile, who showed him a shaky-head jig about two years ago.

"I thought it'd work for trout because it keeps the bait up off the bottom," Serra said.

Serra said he realized keeping an artificial bait off the bottom might be a benefit after watching finger mullet feed in his wife's grandfather's saltwater aquarium.

"When that finger mullet feeds, he's got his head down and he's moving along at about a 60-degree angle nosing along the bottom," he said. "I just thought if I could ever get a jig like that it would work well because trout wouldn't have to stick their nose in the mud to eat it."

The idea was always in the back of his head and he even experimented with existing jigs to try to get what he wanted, but nothing satisfied him. He also has a full-time job as a crew-boat captain and the 14-days-on, 7-days-off schedule limited the time he could develop the jig.

Serra said it wasn't until about four months ago, while reading a story about walleye fishing, that he saw a jig he thought would fit his needs.

After several days of Internet research, Serra found a company that sold the lead molds to make the kind of jig he'd seen in the magazine.

After that, it was just a matter of buying the right hooks, pouring a few jigs and going fishing.

Testing for success

"I swear the very first cast I made out at one of the rigs, I had a Deadly Dudley bay anchovy plastic on it and I caught a trout," Serra said. "I thought, 'Well, that could have been a fluke,' so I flipped it back in there and caught another one."

I've been catching them on it ever since, and it hasn't slowed with the hot weather either."

Serra said on many of his early testing trips he would fish a traditional jig in the same areas as the stand-up and the latter always produced more and bigger fish.

He believes there are a couple of other reasons why it seems to out-catch standard jigs, other than the fact it keeps the bait off the bottom.

"I can work this jig with a faster action that really gets that tail working in a side-to-side motion and I feel that's what entices a strike," he said. "With that flat bottom, it acts like a planner so this bait glides down more on the cast or when it's worked rather than just falling straight down.

"I think that's why probably 90 percent of the strikes I get on it are on the fall."

A salty shake

Working the stand-up jig is different than working a standard jig, Serra said, with the idea being to shake it more than hop it to impart the life-like effect on the plastic.

"I like to use the bigger 6- or 7-inch twitch baits like Sluggos or Deadly Dudleys because you can really get a good action with the longer, narrower tails," he said."I'm still experimenting with baits and which ones work best and catch the most fish."

Another effective plastic Serra has used on his jig with success is a DOA. He removes the stock hook and simply slides it onto the jig head.

After casting, Serra allows the jig to hit bottom, then reel up the slack to see if a fish has hit it on the fall. On starting the retrieve, he twitches his rod hard six or seven times, then lets the bait fall back to the bottom on a slack line. Reeling in the slack, he allows the jig to ease along the bottom with the current for a few seconds before working it again.

"I'm used to it now, but when I first started fishing it I imagined what I wanted the bait to be doing, then working the rod to make it do it," he said. "The main thing is you want it to root the bottom."

Serra said he prefers casting the bait across the current or slightly upcurrent.

"A lot of times, I'll shake it on the way down and a fish will hit it before it reaches bottom," he said.

Because current pulls the line faster than the bait, Serra contends the tension of the line pulling the jig downcurrent keeps it upright.

"A lot of times, current will cause a standard jig to tumble as it drifts. With my jig, I believe that line tension keeps it upright, so it actually works better in current."

He prefers to use a heavy-action rod because he believes he can get the bait farther off bottom and give more action to the bait with each rapid twitch of the rod.

The jig heads can be dyed any color, but Serra said he has found the unpainted heads work best.

The final tally

Serra and his guest didn't slay the specks with his jig on Friday, but combined they landed more fish than were seen caught in two hours of fishing.

Serra brought home four nice specks, including two weighing more than 5 pounds that couldn't be revived despite repeated efforts, and two solid 3-pounders.

None of the other fish seen caught were anywhere close to that quality. Two smaller specks and a white trout were released. Serra said he has also caught several flounder on the jig.

"These fish get pressured all year long out here and they get used to seeing the same old things thrown at them," he said. "Not everything that is different will work on them, but this has."

The jigs are available at Jemison's at the Heron Bay Cutoff on the way to Dauphin Island or can be ordered at www.specktacklelure.com.