Bait Junkie Jigheads on Summer Pelagics

By Mark Gercovich

Summertime in my area means the opportunity to tangle with light tackle pelagic species which include southern bluefin tuna, kingfish, and Australian salmon. Flat, calm days are spent cruising around looking for indications of these fish on the surface, when they can be then cast at. When you do come across a school you can never be sure exactly how the fish are going to react. Even different schools of the same species can react differently on the same day.

Therefore, a soft plastic is often a great option to throw in. This is due to the one lure being able to be worked several different ways. From burnt quickly across the top, to dead sticking and all sorts of combinations of retrieves in between. Despite this advantage though, I’d usually throw a hard lure first like a popper or a sinking or floating stick bait, even with their specific actions, due to their durability over the soft plastic.

Fishing for these fast-moving pelagic species necessitates quick long casts, followed by often fast erratic retrieves, that may be intercepted by multiple fish in a school at the same time. All these exertions and impacts can have a detrimental effect on the soft plastic staying in place and aligned, particularly cast after cast. Things happen quickly and you don’t want to be trying to adjust the plastic and making sure it’s on the hook well when there’s fast moving fish around the boat.

So, it’s been with great pleasure that fishing the new Bait Junkie Jigheads on the Bait Junkie Jerkshads this summer has proved to be very effective. Sure, being a soft plastic they aren’t indestructible, but I’ve been impressed how well the plastic is held in place by the new specially designed keeper. Even when encountering ravenous schools of big salmon or rat kings the plastic has been holding well on the jighead cast after cast, fish after fish. As said before, long aggressive casts are the norm in this sort of fishing and there’s nothing worse than beginning the retrieve and finding the plastic has slid down the hook after said long aggressive cast.

Another impressive quality of the jigheads is the strength of the BBK hooks that they are built on. They’ve had no worries holding up to the duress of tangling with tuna and kingfish showing no signs of bending even on heavy drag settings. Of course, when selecting the heads for this type of fishing you need the heavy heads. These jigheads are easily distinguishable by the red sticker on the top right corner of the package. The finesse style jigheads have the blue on the packaging size sticker.

So next time you come across a school of fast moving pelagics and aren't super prepared, you know you can quickly slip a bait junkie lure on a new jig head and hurl it into the action with confidence.