River guru Bill Lowen loves to swim a jig for shallow water bass. His favorite D&L Swim Jig, which he had a hand in designing, has played a key role in his Elite Series success in recent years. He likes to keep it simple, utilizing a ¼ ounce model perhaps 75 percent of the time, switching to a 3/8 ounce version only when he wants to keep the bait a little deeper, out of sight.
His trailer choices are simple, too. While he’s been known to hit the outer ends of the color spectrum on occasion, most of the time he tries to stay in a very basic range of hues.
“When the bite is really on, I usually have three rods with three different colors on the deck of my boat,” he said. Each one gets a matching Double Diamond swimbait on the back. “I try to keep everything in the same color spectrum.”
The first is a black/blue flash jig, black and blue skirt strands with some blue tinsel mixed in. That usually gets a basic black/blue Double Diamond to match.
His second option is a shad imitator, a white jig with silver tinsel. That gets a pearl shad Double Diamond on the back. If there are smallmouths around, he’ll occasionally pair it with a gaudy pink swimbait, and noted that bright yellow or chartreuse would also work for the bronzebacks, but day-in, day-out, simple pearl gets the nod.
His third go-to swim jig color is known as Green Crystal Craw – it combines green pumpkin and root beer flakes with a dash of gold tinsel. Again, a matching Double Diamond does double duty here. Straight green pumpkin will work, although red flake and/or a chartreuse tail sometimes get called up to the majors.
“If fish are going to eat a swim jig, they’ll eat one of these colors,” he concluded. “Sometimes it’ll change in the same day depending on the situation. It may go from sunny to cloudy or from clear to stained. That’s why you need all three.”