A small (1/64 to 1/16 oz) marabou or hair jig fished under a slip bobber is a workhorse trout setup that catches fish when other tactics don't. Trout treat the slow-fluttering jig as a wounded baitfish or drifting nymph — easy meal, low effort.
Setting it up:
- Slip-bobber rig (see The Slip-Bobber Rig).
- Bobber stop set so the jig rides 1–2 feet off the bottom.
- Jig tied to the line with a Palomar Knot. Black, white, or olive marabou; chartreuse or pink in stained water.
The cadence: dead-stick the jig in slack water, or twitch it every 5–10 seconds in slow-current spots. Watch the bobber. A take is usually a slow pull — the jig is light, so trout don't slam it like a heavy lure.
Where it works: tail-outs of pools where current slackens, soft eddies behind boulders, undercut banks where current breaks. Anywhere you'd dead-drift a nymph fly. A jig fished slowly in good water outproduces a fast-stripped lure on most days.