** Video for the Jerk Strip appears below. **
Moving the fly with the rod tip and not just the line hand is a fundamental skill that opens up many presentations that bring trout to a streamer.
Almost two decades ago, I bought Kelly Galloup’s first streamer book, and it changed the way I thought about moving a streamer.
Now, all these years later, the jerk strip isn’t just one way to move the streamer. It’s a technique for using both hands, in concert, and for truly animating a streamer in every way imaginable.
The jerk strip is critical for any serious streamer angler. It’s a must-have skill for animating the fly — for selling the streamer to a fish. And it’s the baseline for what I think of as a jig strip, a twitch strip, a glide strip, a head flip and twitch, a lane change, and much more. At its core, the jerk strip is a hand off from left to right — it’s about moving the fly with the rod tip and then recovering with the line hand. In this way, the jerk strip sets the table for everything else.
Here are a few key Troutbitten resources to further understand the Jerk Strip.
READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamer Presentations
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations — The Head Flip
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Streamers — All About the Head of the Fly
After the video on the Jerk Strip, read through key highlights in the paragraphs below.
(Select 4K or 2K for best video quality)
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Key Points
— The Jerk Strip is a fundamental way to move the fly. Moving the fly with the rod tip is an essential skill that should not be missed.
— The Jerk Strip can happen at any angle. It can happen at any speed. And the fly can move for any distance on each jerk.
— The Jerk Strip is the baseline. After that, tactics like a jig strip, twitch strip, glide strip, head flip and twitch, etc. come naturally.
— The Jerk Strip is effective on a Mono Rig, a floating line or a sinking line. And the movements are the same.
— Animating the fly with the rod tip creates unique motions to the fly, and it gives the fly more grace to breath or undulate in the currents between movements. This is something that cannot be duplicated with stripping.
— Learning the Jerk Strip takes some time. Learn it in slow motion and against the currents before speeding up the process and casting up or across.
— If the fly moves as you strip, that’s not a jerk strip.
— One hand, then the other. The handoff is key.
— Trout love to eat on the pause between animations. And the Jerk Strip accentuates the pause, bringing more trout to the fly, with more commitment.
Once again, full acknowledgement to Kelly Galloup here for his efforts to bring the jerk strip to the masses. This is a necessary skill for all streamer anglers. The Jerk Strip opens a lot of doors and provides a fluid way of fishing streamers.
Fish hard, friends.
Photo by Josh Darling
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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Thanks, going to try the tummy-rub/head-pat. The repeated phrase “jerk-strip” had me thinking, thinking… Then I realized it reminded me of Costanza.
Ha. Good stuff.
Thank you for reinforcing how good this streamer technique is. When I first started applying the jerk strip, I was fishing in an area where I could clearly watch the affect the jerk strip had on getting a trout to eat the streamer versus a standard strip retrieve; the jerk strip resulted in many more hookups and hard hits versus the standard strip retrieve.
NICE. Same here.
The part of the video that really blew my mind was at 0:12 when I saw you using the gas flap to hold your rod against the vehicle. I’ve never seen anyone do that but it seems like a good idea.
Cheers
I had read Kelly Gallup’s book Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout where he describes the Jerk-Strip Retrieve. I have been trying this but your video was truly eye-opening. Your use of the rod tip to move the streamer and the Hand-Off Strip Retrieve that you use really brings Kelly’s method into focus. It is much more violent that what I was attempting. Watching you do the various retrieves and the action it imparts on the fly was extremely helpful. I hope to duplicate this the next time I am fishing streamers. Thank you!!