Dirty Jigs
Finesse
Swim Jig
Dirty Jigs
No-Jack
Swim Jig
Dirty Jigs
Swim Jig
(standard)
John Cox
Cox prefers a swim jig that can be retrieved through grass and
wood or flipped in shallow cover. His choice is the series of swim
jigs from Dirty Jigs that includes the Finesse Swim Jig, Swim Jig
(standard) and No-Jack Swim Jig. Each has what Cox calls a bullet
or cylinder head design with the line tie angled up a bit, rather
than straight in line with the hook shank.
“If I’m fishing down a bank and come across some brush or a
bush that I want to flip in, I don’t want to waste time picking up
another rod rigged with a different bait to do it,” Cox says. “You
can’t do that with a lot of swim jigs. A bunch of them have the bul-
let-style head, but they all work differently. Some [with an in-line
eye] might be a little more weedless than the Dirty Jigs, but you
can’t flip them very well. The heads can be similar in shape, but
the angle of the line tie makes a huge difference in what you can
do with it.”
Head Size
A 1/2-ounce jig is Cox’s first choice since it’s a good size for flip-
ping, too, but he’ll use swim jigs as light as 1/4 ounce. He bases
the choice on cover density and how high or low he wants the bait
to ride in the water column at a desired retrieve speed.
Head Design
Thin It
Cox says the fewer strands in the
skirt, the more movement a trailer will
have and the better the jig will stay
down in the water column. He’ll some-
times pull out strands or trim the skirt
short to make a standard swim jig look
more like a finesse model and to cre-
ate what he thinks is better movement.
Conversely, leaving it thick makes the
jig ride higher with a larger profile.
JULY 2017 I FLWFISHING.COM
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