Best Jig Heads For Skip Casting Jacks, Barra and Bass

It’s one thing to have all the right gear and to put yourself somewhere that there are fish. It’s another thing to have the skill to be able to present the lure to the fish, especially if your target is lurking deep in cover. If you’ve listened to my ALF interviews with Gold Coast angler and Youtuber John Costello, you’ll know what a powerful tool a good skip cast can be. And if you’ve tried skip casting you’ll know that it’s not always as easy as John makes it look!

There are four things you need in your favour for skip casting soft plastics really well, I reckon.

1. The right tackle. I personally prefer baitcast gear, but spin gear can work in the right hands.
2. The right lures, properly rigged. Because when it comes to skip casting, not all plastics are equal.
3. The right hooks and weights…… because unbalanced lures are hard to make skip.
4. The right techniques and plenty of hours of practice. There’s no shortcut here, sorry.

I’ll try and cover all aspects of skip casting eventually, but for today, lets focus on the jig heads…………

What I’d Add To John’s Excellent Skip Casting Tutorial…….

Before I throw my two cents worth into the discussion please understand that my skip casting skills aren’t anywhere near the same league as John’s (the blokes a freak). But over a few years I’ve picked up a few things that work for me – hopefully they’ll help you too!

First, I agree with John that most of the weighted Extra Wide Gape (EWG) worm hooks aren’t well balanced for skip casting. Placing weight further down the hook helps keep the soft plastic reasonably horizontal on the drop, but for skip casting it seems to work better with the weight up front. I also like that the forward weight makes the lure fall head-first on the drop, which I reckon works better for tempting jacks. If you have trouble finding EWG hooks that are forward weighted then stay tuned…. I make my own, so I’ll put up a quick tutorial in the next few weeks showing you how you can do the same.

Second, at around the 7 minute mark of the video, John mentions the importance of stretching the the plastic so there’s not too much flex or wobble in the body of the lure between the hook eye and the bend. I take this a step further by increasing the hook size for lures I intend to skip. For example, a 3/0 size Gamakatsu EWG would be my normal choice for a 4″ paddle-tail but if I’m planning to skip the lure, I’ll switch up to 4/0. The extra length of hook keeps a longer length of the body stretched tight, so there’s less to flop around, a slightly bigger flat surface and the lure skips better.

It’s a small thing, but that’s what one percenters are all about! Lots of small things that add up to something big.

 

 

 

 

Got Thoughts, Comments Or Hacks Of Your Own? Leave Them Below!