I recently had the, “If you only had to pick one lure…” conversation, and it really got me thinking, “What would I choose?”

This lure would need to appeal to a wide variety of species. It would have to be effective from the minute the ice goes out to the last day, when that first crust of ice shows up overnight, concluding the open-water season. It would need to work in weeds or no weeds. And this is where it would get tricky. It would have to be effective beating the shore anywhere from a foot or two of water to working a deep weed line in 15 to 18 feet of water.

There were a lot of candidates that rolled through my head: The paddle-tail swimbait. The tube jig. Some type of spoon. A tail spinner. All good choices that have caught bass, pike, walleyes and even muskies, but they each had a minor flaw that took them out of the running.

That left one lure and technique that met all the criteria—the swim jig; aka swimming a jig.

Let me define that because those terms can be confused with a lot of different things. The swim jig is a jig that normally has a line tie near the tip of the nose. This is to make it come through cover easily. It may or may not have a fiber brush- or weed guard. If it has one, I cut it off. I pour all my own these days, so I never use a weed guard. They don’t help all that much in weeds and they may interfere with strikes (my personal opinion).

On the back is a rubber or silicone skirt. The colors can vary depending on what you are trying to imitate. In some areas, you will see a lot of white or yellow if you are trying to make it look like baitfish. If you want to imitate a bottom critter like a crawfish, then more earthy colors are available. A compromise for me is a watermelon or black and purple mix. These can look like a bluegill or some type of bottom-dwelling creature, all at the same time.

On the hook, most people add a soft plastic trailer. This, too, will vary by what you want to imitate. A 3- to 4-inch paddle tail is a common trailer that has the swimming action of a baitfish and adds a little body to the skirt. Other options are creature-type baits or craw baits. These would normally be meant to imitate crawfish, but not always.

A lot of anglers add a white or yellow creature bait to a white swim jig and throw it at shad-eating fish. It works! Pike and muskies also like a brighter trailer, so don’t always think that your trailer must match the hatch. Sometimes you just want to add some thump or color to a combo. A Senko-type worm can act as a trailer, and it really doesn’t do much at all but is great in a finesse situation. Generally, I like a paddle tail slightly longer than the skirt.

The 1/4- to 3/8-ouncers are my workhorses. If I had to only use one, it would be the 3/8-ounce. I can swim that on a shallow flat with the rod tip up, or I can work it on the base of a weed edge in 15 feet. I carry them from 1/4- to over an ounce.

When a lot of anglers put a jig on their rod, they want to jig it. Nope, not here. This is a swim jig. You swim it. The best way for me to describe it is, think of it as a spinnerbait…without the wire or blades. You cast it out, let it get to depth, and wind it back. Add a stop-and-go, or a quick pump to get the skirt to flair, or kill the retrieve and let it drop for a second or two and then kick it back into gear. This is not a bottom-dragging method. That is what a football jig is for, and that is a completely different technique. Think spinnerbait!

I like to have my retrieve about three seconds off the bottom. What that means is, if I kill the retrieve, it takes about three seconds to hit the bottom. That’s about two to three feet off the bottom. But if you can follow a contour down a slope, you have mastered the swim jig. At times, I will retrieve it over shallow weeds, then kill it at the weed edge and let it plummet. Then continue along the deep edge. That’s why I think of it as such a versatile lure. In one cast, I covered water from 3 feet to 15 feet. You can’t do that with a lot of lures.

I prefer a medium-heavy baitcaster for swimming jigs, especially the larger ones. The smaller 1/4- to 3/8-ouncers can be fished on spinning tackle if you prefer.

The swim jig is a no-brainer for bass, pike and muskies. It’s a sleeper for walleyes, especially at night. A black swim jig with a black paddle tail trailer is deadly on Wisconsin walleyes, especially on weedy lakes where they cruise weed tops and weed edges at night.

So, whether it’s ice-out, the middle of summer, or the waning days of the season in November or December, swimming a jig will catch all the inland species of fish in Wisconsin. Don’t overfish it or overthink it. Cast it out, reel it in and good things will happen.

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