The Red Dawn of Swim Jigs

On the eve of this year’s Bassmaster Classic I went to Guntersville Tackle and Outdoors and eventually made my way to the Z-Man Jack Hammer section, which was amply stocked except for the pegs marked “Fire Craw.” I asked the clerk if he had any more and he responded, “We got 72 of them in this morning and they all sold out. We may not get any more until June.”

I may have had to take my shoes and socks off to do the math, but 72 times 16 bucks apiece is over eleven hundred bucks in Chatterbaits that day, not including any other colors they might’ve sold. I’m not sure what the margin is on them, but that’s a pretty healthy amount of cash changing hands, especially when they’re selling other things, too. Indeed, the racks of squarebills, lipless cranks, and especially Rapala DT6’s in the “Demon” color had been picked pretty clean.

Red, it appears, is the new black.

Which got me to wondering: If it’s so good for other springtime baits, why do I never hear about red swim jigs? I’d conservatively estimate that I’ve interviewed 812 certified bass pros about swim jigs, and 99% of them have said you only need three patterns: something that represents a shad (usually white), something that represents a bluegill (usually green pumpkin or watermelon) and black/blue.

So I reached out to my guru of all things swim jigs, Dan Brovarney from the State of New Glarus, to ask if he tied red swim jigs. I might as well have asked him if he breathed air, because nearly instantaneously he sent back a pic of the bags of red and orange models he was preparing for customers.

“It’s the hottest custom right now,” he wrote. “Playing ‘match the red trap’ game is keeping me young.”

Apparently, after all of these years of trying to simplify and downsize my tackle options, I am once again thwarted. You might as well order some of Dan’s jigs for yourself, before the pegs run empty.