Telling the untold: Jaye’s unconventional jerkbait pattern

Admittedly, we at FLWOutdoors.com have a pretty standard approach to covering bass tournaments. Following weigh-in, a story is posted each night that includes interviews from the top five pros. In general, this method works as fans are naturally drawn to those who are catching the heaviest stringers. Occasionally, the system fails to capture an interesting story. At Lake Eufaula, sixth-place finisher Kelley Jaye was that interesting story.

Jaye, a second-year FLW Tour pro who is fishing both major circuits in 2013, is known first and foremost for being a straight shooter and secondly for being a bit of a jerkbait specialist. Leading up to the Eufaula event, all the dock talk centered around crankbaits and Carolina rigs on mid-depth ledges as well as some flipping and ChatterBaiting in the grass. It was shaping up as a classic deep-versus-shallow tournament.

Being an Alabama native, I interviewed Jaye Wednesday afternoon at the registration meeting for what would become my preview story the following morning. While most of my interview subjects grinded through subpar practices, Jaye was stoked. He was catching them strong – averaging almost 18 pounds per day in practice with each one producing several dozen keepers.

He wasn’t truly fishing the bank, nor was he out offshore. Jaye said he was targeting suspending fish that were trying to recoup before they went out to their summer haunts. At the time, he wouldn’t reveal what he was catching them on, but if I had a dozen guesses none of them would have been “jerkbait.”

“I tried some blade baits in the grass, some normal stuff, but ultimately I wasn’t comfortable with anything, so I started from scratch and went with a jerkbait,” he said.

Jaye has been fishing jerkbaits religiously for the past 15 years after discovering the pattern on a windy afternoon at a club tournament on Jordan Lake. Ever since, he’s been expanding his knowledge base and narrowing down the finer details depending on the conditions.

“Everybody thinks a jerkbait is just a slow presentation for the prespawn when the water is cold,” Jaye added. “But I love to throw that jerkbait in the postspawn. At Eufaula, the water had some tint to it and that really scared others away from doing it. I had the pattern all to myself and it set up just perfectly for what I wanted to do.”

When the tournament started, most of his bites were coming around riprap, bridges and the backs of creeks, all based on the shad spawn. As the week wore on, the shad progressively went deeper forcing Jaye to move with them – first to the mouth of the creeks and finally to the main run on docks. Using a Smithwick Suspended Limited Rogue (custom paint job) and a 7-foot, 1-inch ALX medium-heavy action rod, Jaye caught 30 keepers the first day, 45 on days two and three and over 50 on day four.

“My hands are just tore up; I was culling constantly.”

Not only is using a jerkbait in mid-70 degree water unconventional, but so is the manner in which Jaye twitches it.

“In the postspawn, I twitch it fast and hard on slack line. I try and work the bait as fast as I can without moving it. When something is darting back and forth in place like that, a bass can’t help but eat it. It was a fun week, but believe me, my arm is wore out.”

Had Jaye not lost a 4-pounder Sunday morning, he may have finished as high as second – more than doubling his paycheck from $17,000 to $35,000 and earning considerable copy in the final story.

“I knew there was no way I could catch Haynes, the leader. But I was on a strong pattern and really was just a few dull hooks from having a great week.”

This was not the first time Jaye has parlayed a postspawn jerkbait bite into a top-10 tour finish. At last year’s Beaver Lake event, he went to work in the Hickory Creek area and finished ninth. Jaye is hoping the same postspawn window will present itself at Grand Lake next week.

“Everybody thinks Dean Rojas is the greatest frog fisherman in the world, but everybody can throw a frog. What makes him great with a frog is that he throws it at unconventional times. That’s basically what I do with a jerkbait.”