Dancing With The Fishes, Jitterbug Style 
By Ron Kruger 
 
It’s about as old as "plugging" for bass, and the crazy dance for which it was named.. 
Jitterbug is a clever name for a venerable lure first offered back in 1939 by Fred Arbogast, and unlike the thousands of lures that have come and gone since then, they’re still making them, and you can still find them on most tackle shelves. 
That’s because this unique bait with its crazy dance across the surface still catches bass as well as anything, especially at night and especially on ponds. 
The term "jitterbug" was popularized by band leader Cab Calloway during the early 20th century to describe the wild and crazy antics of swing era dancers who gyrated across the dance floor in ways never seen before. By the 1930s, jitterbugging was a "hep-cat" craze that swept the country. This was about the time Fred Arbogast started whittling wood with bass in mind. 


In a stroke of marketing genius, Fred printed "Jitterbug" on the back of a lure that gyrated across the surface in a way never seen before. This gave the lure instant recognition and overnight success. Old Fred did a jitterbug all the way to the bank. But the reason it’s still selling steadily 80 years later is because it really works. As lures go, a Jitterbug’s dance across the surface is still rather unique.  As one who devotes his entire life to the outdoors, I not only search diligently for lures that work well, I want to figure out why they work. For many years, the Jitterbug was a bit of a mystery. 

First of all, it doesn’t seem to work nearly as well on big lakes as on ponds. Every other lure I can think of works comparatively well in both environments. Often a smaller version of some lure type works better in a pond, but it’s still the same lure—the same action. 

Figuring that the standard-sized Jitterbug was a pond-sized bait, I tried the bigger "muskie" size versions on big lakes, with only sporadic success. I don’t mean to imply that Jitterbugs don’t work on big lakes. Even the standard size will bring up an oversized bass now and then, but on ponds, especially at night, I don’t think any topwater lure works as well or as consistently. 

It took me decades to come up with good reasons for this discrepancy, and they’re all based upon why this lure works so well in the first place. They’re based upon the differences between the environments and what a Jitterbug’s action represents to a bass. 

A big lake, even at night, is a roiling and noisy environment when compared to the placid and peaceful nature of a pond or small lake. On a big lake, most nights you hear the waves slapping the shore, outboard motors, nearby traffic and such. On a pond, all you hear is crickets and frogs. 
Whatever topwater lures you use on a big lake must compete with these noises, and I think that’s why a noisy buzzbait generally works better on big lakes. A Jitterbug simply doesn’t make that much noise or displace as much water. The sporadic success I said I had with the larger Jitterbugs all came on those unusually quiet and calm nights when the big lakes were as quiet and peaceful as a pond. 

The biggest reason, however, is what a Jitterbug represents as it plop, plop, plops across the surface. This puzzled me for a long time, until one night under a full moon, I spooked a frog along the bank so badly that instead of diving in and swimming away, it resurfaced and literally ran across the top. 
I was immediately struck by the similarity of this frantic frog and my wobbling Jitterbug. In the moonlight, it made the same plop, plop, plop noise and left a similar trail of disturbance on the surface, right up to the point where a loud “kerploosh” put an end to it. 

Awestruck, I stood there for a few moments processing what had just happened. Finally it occurred to me to make a cast. My Jitterbug went plop, plop, plop–kerploosh. 

Maybe frogs dance across the surface often on a pond, though I’ve only witnessed it a couple of times since then. I suspect that most frogs are captured unwittingly, but if they see a big bass coming, I think their natural response is to do a jitterbug across the surface. 
In big lakes, the primary forage is shad, with an occasional crawfish or other creature thrown in, while in ponds, frogs not only are a large portion of a bass’s diet, I believe they love them like I do ice cream. Jitterbugs match the hatch better in ponds than in lakes. 
At any rate, whenever my Jitterbug goes plop, plop, plopping over the ebony surface of a pond, I always figure both the bass and I are ready to dance.