What The Fish Trailer

[Brayan Jacobsen]

Whenit comes to putting a soft plastic on the back of a swim jig, there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of options these days. While in reality, 90 percent of them can be boiled down to two basic groups: a craw-style trailer and a swimbait-style trailer.

When trying to mimic a threadfin shad or herring in open water for instance, it makes since to go with a swimbait. When fishing in thick vegetation however around the boxier-shaped bream and bluegill, it makes more sense to go with a craw-style trailer.

This is where trailer selection really starts getting interesting. Rate of fall, or ROF, is a term used a lot in the big swimbait world. It refers, quite obviously, to the rate at which a bait falls. This factors heavily into fishing a swim jig for suspended fish in open water as well. If you put a craw-style trailer and a swimbait-style trailer on two identical swim jigs, the one with the swimbait will fall faster.

But those adjustments are made more to alter the rate of retrieve. The trailer you choose actually effects the rate of stall of the bait by changing its resistance. A swimbait trailer on the back of a swim jig creates less resistance, so the swim jig comes through the water more easily and can be reeled faster than a swim jig with a craw on the back. Which would have to be reeled slower to maintain the same depth. The resistance and the lift of the claws on a craw would cause the bait to rise higher in the water if you reeled it at the same speed.

Ideally I would have two identical Dirty Jigs No-Jack Swim Jigs rigged up in black, blue and purple with green pumpkin trailers. The only difference would be that one would have a swimbait for a trailer and the other a craw. I would take the swim jig trailed by the swimbait and fire it around the scattered, deeper grass letting the bait get down into the cover. Then I would pick up the craw-tipped jig and use its resistance and lift to fish over the thicker hydrilla in shallower water.

If I were to reverse the two applications, I would waste a lot of time trying to keep the swim jig down with the craw-style trailer and I would have to burn or otherwise constantly snatch on the swim jig/swimbait combo as it would stay bogged down in the denser, shallower vegetation.

I have caught several smallmouth and largemouth bass over the years on spinnerbaits. I often noticed that smallmouth bass would take a spinnerbait much better without a trailer and largemouths usually like one. I very rarely used a trailer for smallies to give them a smaller presentation.

Bass can be selective creatures more and more often on our heavily pressured waters. What if the fish are feeding on crawfish and we cast a minnow looking offering? Will the larger, more cautious bass refuse what we threw?

You can alter dramatically your lures offering by changing the trailer. Say for instance, you have been throwing a green pumpkin chatterbait with a bluegill-colored minnow spade tail trailer reeled in with various retrieves. If you don't get any strikes for a while, why not change to a green pumpkin craw trailer. Slow roll the lure along the bottom and go from a minnow to a craw presentation for in-active bass.

The tail action of your lure just may be the most important aspect of your package offering. I learned an interesting lesson years ago fishing for northern pike during cold water periods in the spring and late fall. I changed my trailers on spinnerbaits and rubber jigs to ones tied with no action bucktails. I was amazed at the number of largemouth bass I would catch on these lures.

While many anglers like to use an action-packed trailer such as a curly tailed grub, a straight tailed one will catch more inactive fish. A Texas rigged worm can use the same principle. A straight tailed plastic worm not only come through cover better, but also triggers more inactive bass as well.

Adding a blade and swivel can change your presentation. You can add this setup to a spinnerbait, swim jig, or even a crankbait. It works on soft plastics as well. This unusual set-up is likely something the fish have not seen much. Try taking the rear treble hook off a hard bait and add the swivel/blade set-up. A wide Colorado blade will help the lure ride higher in the water column. Use a thin willow leaf blade to help the lure run lower or in and around weedy cover.

Early on day 2, with much enthusiasm from our previous day, we discovered we could not buy a bite during the first few hours. I decided to change the jig trailers to an Uncle Josh 101 pork frog. It made a huge difference. We finished the day with another 20-pound stringer of smallies and won the event with a big difference from 2nd place.

I used to fish a spinnerbait a lot, but lately not catching as much and losing some confidence in it.

I have been putting a Keitech plastic swimbait trailer on all my spinner baits lately and am wondering if I should remove that? I see that it causes it to run more shallow and flip over more... Open to any other spinnerbait tips!

I love to fish a spinnerbait. So does Jorden Lee. We just filmed his spinnerbait vs chatterbait seminar this past weekend. Look for it to be released in a few weeks. Typically I fish a spinnerbiat without a plastic trailer. In the early season I love to add those big trailers like a swimbait. The big prespawn females often look for the large profile. If the trailer is causing the bait to roll, you will have to downsize the trailer or step up the weight of the spinnerbait. A couple of my favorite tips for fishing a spinnerbait are using colored blades. A white bait with white blades has tremendous triggering ability over standard gold and silver blades. Another color I was introduced to by JT Kenney is a black spinnerbait with black or purple blades. You can see me using it when we filmed live with Ish Monroe. I was able to trigger the biggest bass of the trip. Paste this link in your browser and start watching at minute 57. -fishing-video/ish-2-hour-5-bass-challenge-frogging-flipping-in-florida

In clear water I never fish a trailer. I want the bait moving fast and the fish not to get too good of a look at it. I fish a heavier head with smaller blades, for the most part. I don't know if this is meaningful or not, but I take a couple of the skirt strands on the inside and pull them back a little further, so they stick out a little, like a trailer, but without the extra drag. In my mind it's a little to "disguise" or "camouflage" the hook. As you stated, swimbait trailers cause rolling when you move the bait fast. I would only use a trailer when I'm looking for a bigger profile, or if I'm fishing dingier shallow water around cover (at which point, I would likely switch to a chatterbait anyway).

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If I feel a need for a bigger profile, especially when fishing around bigger fish, I will use the Strike King Rage Craw because it creates a longer bait and kicks harder. If around really big fish, like at one of the south Texas lakes, I may use the Strike King Lobster Craw which is even bigger.

When fishing around spotted bass in clear water, I will use green pumpkin and a trailer with some flakes that give off sparkles and a little flash. For some reason, spotted bass seem to bite that better.

I bought a perm. Fish house and the guy didn't have any lights on it. So I bought a trailer light kit and wired everything up today. Hooked it up to the truck and I have break lights, hazards and blinkers but no actual tail lights. I am hooking a 4 flat into and adaptor on my truck. So what did I do wrong. Also have the ground wire hooked to a bolt on the fish house hitch. Any suggestions?

I had trouble with my lights as well. The frame is grounded. The tail lights ground to the siding which touches the frame. The siding was not making good contact with the frame due to rust ect. I ran two wires back and grounded each tail light and now it works perfect.

+1. Picked up my Castle this fall and the Trailer brake wouldn't work, truck didn't recognize that a trailer was connected and my Castle lights were acting up. Turns out I had to replace the $30 lighting plug/port on the truck (2011). Thanks MN winters/road chemicals.

Are there three wires coming out of the tail lights? if there is only two of them they are meant to self ground through the light housing, and mounting them to a wood bracket would not work. If there is three wires (brown or black, green or yellow, and a white) you should be fine. Turn signals and brake lights both run through the same wire, and use the same filament in the bulb. They can do tricky things, but im going to guess you have a ground issue as well.

I would agree that you most likely have a ground issue. Lots of time can be wasted chasing the power side when the ground is usually the culprit. Sometimes it may appear you have a ground connection but if it is weak the circuit may not complete itself. I have a separate ground wire from every light to a main junction supplied from the vehicle. This way all the grounds are connected at one point rather than grounding the frame and then the lights to the frame. Junction block is also mounted inside the house to keep it away from all the corrosion.

Well you guys were right! I took the wood plate I built to hold each light on, off,and bought some metal brackets that luckily enough fit the bolts on the back of the lights. Hooked everything up And BAM! Everything works! Thanks for your help everyone!

One of the most underrated techniques in bass fishing today is the swim jig. It is an incredibly effective technique that many anglers use far too rarely or for some, never at all. If you like to throw a spinnerbait, swimbait or bladed jig, the swim jig is something you need to add to your arsenal of on-the-water weapons.

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