Think you’ve seen it all when it comes to finesse baits? Think again. Tie on a VMC Gliding Jig and you won’t believe your eyes. But the fish will. And they’ll bite it when they won’t hit anything else.“The action that this bait has, I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Randall Tharp, a three-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier and the 2013 Forrest Wood Cup champion.
“It doesn’t fall into any bait category I’ve ever seen. It is, without a doubt, something you need to try for yourself, and you need to see it in the water to see the action that it has.”
Available in patent-pending Oklahoma and Willow styles, VMC Gliding Jigs are finesse baits productive in both deep and shallow water. The Gliding Jig Oklahoma features a slow, side-to-side fluttering action. The Gliding Jig Willow features a fast, side-to-side flashing action.
“It’s part jig, it’s part spoon,” says Rapala Director of Field Promotions Mark Fisher, who designed the Gliding Jig. “You can fish it any place and every place you would fish a small jig, or a ball-headed jig, or a shaky head or a mushroom head.”
Before he even tempted a bass with one, Tharp became a believer in the Gliding Jig after seeing its action in his swimming pool. “It’s very versatile, there’s tons of different ways to fish it — from a slow, steady retrieve to a really fast retrieve,” he says. “I think the possibilities are limitless. Not only in bass fishing, but in any kind of fishing.”
Fisher agrees. “There’s a zillion ways you can fish this bait,” he says. “Fish it alone, or fish it with a trailer. … Just experiment until you find the right bait with the right action.”
Like traditional jigs, VMC Gliding Jigs can be rigged with any number of soft-plastic trailers, including straight-tail worms, ribbon-tail worms and minnow-shaped baits. “It basically changes the action of your bait, depending on what you put on it,” Tharp says. And although there’s “no right or wrong way” to fish a Gliding Jig, Fisher says, “don’t overpower the bait by using too large a piece of soft plastic.”
The most effective presentation for Tharp is a vertical drop in which strikes occur on the fall. “You literally let the bait do all its work by itself,” he explains. “It literally swims in like a death spiral down to the bottom.”
Fisher grabs a Gliding Jig when covering water on outside weedlines and flats. “It’s nice to have the versatility of fishing something that mimics a minnow or goes with the ol’ water-bug appearance,” he says. “So you can really play both sides of it.”
Both the Gliding Jig Oklahoma and the Gliding Jig Willow feature a 1/0 extra-wide-gap VMC hook, a fine-wire double-hook bait keeper and come two per-pack in two sizes, 1/8 oz. and 3/16 oz. Each is available in seven colors: Antique Copper, Antique Gold, Antique White, Candy Black, Candy Red, Gold and Silver.
Watch Bernie Schultz and Mark Fisher discuss the VMC Gliding Jig in this video.