Everybody has heard they are a good lure but how many of us have actually taken the plunge and learned to fish a jigging spoon. My day was several years ago during a bass buddy tournament on my home lake of Lake Raystown in Pennsylvania when I was fishing secondary points for bass and I noticed on my fish finder large schools of fish that were sitting in 20 feet of water suspended in the middle of the water column during a crisp day in October.

So I thought about trying a crankbait but that wouldn't reach the bass, so then I pulled out a jigging spoon that I purchased and that wasn't even out of the package and thought to myself What the Heck, It wasn't long after using those words that I was a believer in the jigging spoon. My fishing buddy and myself filled our livewells with 2 to 4 pound bass and snagged almost a thousand dollar paycheck with jigging spoons. What I learned that day was that schooling bass that are suspended love a jigging spoon and I have used them in many situations since then with great success from summertime smallmouth to schooling largemouth in the fall.

So how do you fish a jigging spoon for bass? It's easy there are a couple of ways to fish a jigging spoon one being under the boat and the other which is my favorite I call Cast It, Count It, Rip It and here's how it's done.

Jigging Spoon - Cast It, Count It, Rip It

Just like it sounds you cast out the spoon then count it down to the desired depth and then rip it with a quick and semi hard snap of the rod then let it fail to until the slack is gone and rip it again the whole way back to the boat. The best part of using the Cast It, Count It, Rip It technique is you don't have to be fishing any specific area you can cast the jigging spoon in the middle, toward the shore, in front of you, everywhere. If you fan cast a jigging spoon you will cover a huge section of water effectively looking for feeding bass. When you rip it is when you'll hook a bass they almost always hit jigging spoons when they are failing so that's why it's important to give it a good rip which not only allow your spoon to fail longer but it will also set the hook if one takes it on the fail.

My Favorite Jigging Spoons

• Hopkins - The old stand by the Hopkins Spoon is a classic but it works really well and with the hammered metal it kicks off a lot of flash.
• Luhr Jensen Crippled Herring - This thing is almost magic and looks like a wounded baitfish probably better than any other lure I've casted. The Crippled Herring comes with a single hook and a spare treble. When fishing for bass I'll switch out the single hook for the treble but when fishing in saltwater for bluefish etc.. I'll keep the single hook on it.
• Bass Pro Shops XPS Tungsten Jigging Spoons - A very nice spoon similar to the Hopkins but I believe they are shinier than the Hopkins spoons are. They also come in smaller sizes, which are great for the smallies.

My Favorite Sizes of Jigging Spoon

By far my favorite size is the 1 oz jigging spoon which I can bomb out there with a 7 foot baitcaisting rod and I like the way they fall quickly. I will however move to a smaller jigging spoon like a 1/2 ounce jigging spoon when fishing for smallmouth in the summer and do really well with them.

So what are you waiting for go out get yourself a couple of jigging spoons this year and Cast Em, Count Em, and Rip Em.