Custom Swim Jigs Made to Order / Get Better at Swim Jig Fishing

After you’ve selected a few of the more common swim jigs to try out (see our Top 10 Swim Jigs for some great options you’ll love) you may find yourself in a position where you’d like to dial in even further. Perhaps you’d like something custom made to better match the local forage – or maybe you’d like to ask for advice from people who have spent their lives fishing swim jigs.

Enter Brovarney Baits.

Brovarney Baits

I first heard about Broverney Baits while flipping through the pages of In-Fisherman (Volume 46 // NO.1). Steve Quinn mentioned Dan Brovarney of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and states that he is a leader in the swim jig field with over 20 years of experience.

I get requests from across the country for jigs to mimic a particular baitfish or crawfish, as well as some tied with combinations of color, weight and skirt material they favor. No order is too weird… on East Coast tidal rivers, for example, bass feed on small blue crabs, and my “Blue Crab” color, with blue and pumpkinseed strands in the skirt and a big pumpkinseed grub, is real popular there.

Folks use an incredible variety of soft plastics. Single-tail grubs were one of the first swim jig trailers and remain solid choices, as the rippling tails imitate the subtle tail flicks of small baitfish. Rig them tail down to give the bait more lift to slide over wood.

This is good advice. To date, I have been enamored with thumping paddle-tail trailers. They have worked well for me, but I’ll have to experiment this year because when someone like Steve Quinn or Dan Brovarney mention that something works – it probably stinkin’ works.

Double-tail grubs are another option for trailers. These can stabilize the bait a bit, and also kick off more thump when slow-rolled in the shallows early spring when you’re looking for prespawn females. Dan mentions that a larger, thumping trailer can also cause the bait to roll back and forth a bit. This can be desirable depending on the location or when trolling, but too much rocking leads to more snags.

Seasonal Swim Jig Color Changes

Brovarney also says that certain colors work better during certain seasonal periods.

In spring in big rivers, sapphire blue is hard to beat. Later in the season, orange strands in the jig skirt and an orange trailer can be magic if the water is murky.

Some of their other popular colors include:

You can visit the Brovarney Baits website and view all of their products, options and contact them by clicking here: https://brovarneybaits.com/

Moving Forward

A quick internet search will reveal that there is no shortage of “custom bait makers” out there – but how do you find the good ones? Well, for starters you ask for recommendations or see who pops up in the pages of a magazine you trust.

The same can be said for advice. How do you know if you’re getting good advice or bad advice? Well… you don’t, unless there is a bit of proof that the advice has been put into practice. As I continue to learn more about fishing, I’ll keep sharing it – and post videos like the one in the following section to show what actually worked!

Tight lines!

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