When we think of the first modern lures that really broke through in France in the 90's and paved the way for countless others afterwards, we spontaneously think of the Twist Mister Twister or the Sandra Delalande for soft lures and of course the Original Rapala for hard lures, a lure that is nothing other than a jerkbait minnow. This means that jerkbait minnows have been on the French market for a long time!
Caption of some references from the 90's appearing on the picture:
1 and 2 - Original Rapala 3 - Husky Jerk Rapala (my first jerk minnow suspending!) 4 - Crystal Laser Yo-Zuri 5 - Smithwick Deep Suspending Rogue
What is a jerkbait minnow?
A jerkbait minnow is a hard lure with a slim and elongated silhouette reminiscent of a small fish. It is available in many sizes ranging from a few centimeters to 13 cm for the vast majority. Considering pike fishing, we will focus almost exclusively on models of 10 cm and more. I sometimes downsize and go down on jerkbait minnows of less than 10 cm to check out the prey coveted by pike, especially in the summer when the fish can focus on the fish of the year.
Jerkbait minnow, Medium Runner and Longbill
As I mentioned, a jerkbait minnow is a bib lure and it is the bib that will determine its swimming depth as much as the subcategory of jerkbait minnow to which it belongs.
The longbill minnows (Deep Runner) are jerkbait minnows characterized by a long bib allowing them to evolve deeper, up to 3m generally, while a classic jerkbait minnow will evolve rather towards 1,5 m of depth.
Another sub-category exists, it is the Medium Runner, in other words jerkbait minnow swimming at intermediate depths, between 1.5 m and 2.5m. They are equipped with a bib of intermediate size between a "standard" jerkbait minnow and a Longbill.
In this report, no distinction will be made between a jerkbait minnow, a jerkbait minnow Medium Runner and a Longbill minnow since the 3 types observe the same mechanical behavior and can be animated in the same way.
Animation in Jerking
It is the type of animation to be printed on this family of lures and which gave it its name, namely the Jerking, this animation pattern characterized by wide and dry strokes of scions having for effect to make the lure twirl from right to left in an erratic way. The idea is to simulate the attitude of a small, sick fish. It is a very productive type of animation on predators whose mission is above all to eliminate weak fish in an environment. We will see later that this is not the only animation that can be used with this family of lures, far from it!
Floating, suspending and sinking
Another characteristic of jerkbait minnows is that they are offered in 3 different densities: floating, suspending and sinking. Most of them are suspending, which means that after reaching their swimming depth on retrieve, they will stay suspended, motionless in the water column during the pause phases because of their density equal to that of the water. This is by far the version I use the most, as this characteristic allows the jerkbait minnows to adapt to many different fishing situations and therefore makes them extremely versatile and versatile. Most of the time I will only play with the size of the lip and therefore the swimming depth of my pike jerkbait minnows.
French regulations on hooks
Let's address this point right away. Most jerkbait minnows over 10 cm, because of their elongated silhouette are equipped with 3 treble hooks. French regulations limit the use of lures to 2 hooks, so when fishing in the public domain, it is mandatory to remove one of these hooks and keep only 2. This is a real problem when it comes to jerkbait minnow suspending, as it directly affects this characteristic... You can limit the loss of material, and therefore weight, by cutting the tip of the hooks for example. You can also make them inoperative by twisting the shanks inwards or remove a hook and use systems to add weight like tungsten pellets to stick or with the addition of a small paddle for example... Adrien had discussed this point concerning the balance of jerkbait minnows in an article available HERE .
A lure that holds many surprises!
Finally, to close this presentation and to start convincing some skeptics of the effectiveness of this lure on pike, even if we consider only jerkbaits minnows over 12 cm for the specific search of this fish, they remain lures that are not completely selective and which may interest other species of carnivorous fish, large perch in particular! The followers of this technical approach know it and do not count any more the big perch taken "by mistake"...
And then, being globally underused for pike stalking, they are a very effective alternative on environments undergoing a certain fishing pressure, the metered pike above caught with the Magsquad 128 SP Illex at the beginning of the season on a particularly coveted spot is there to prove it!
