Great article by Russ Bassdozer.
I credit the old timers for shaping my fishing life and for pinning my lifelong success very much solely on the single upright hook of a leadhead bucktail jig and pork rind strip. Since those early days, I have caught more saltwater stripers and freshwater smallies and largemouth on hair jigs and pork rind strips than any other lure I have ever fished in my life.
The very best, thinnest pork has a supple movement and exudes a concentrated scent and saltiness fresh out of the jar. This life-like movement and scent is no illusion to the fish - pork was alive at one time! Plastic can only imitate these life-like properties of pork...
Pork is more fluid and "acts" more nimble than plastic. Most of the delicate, thin-tailed curly worms and grubs on the market today just cannot produce the strong vibrations that stimulate fish to strike like the pork does in current flows.
Pork also is tougher than plastic, which means it will stay on the hook longer - all day or all week - plus the longer you use it, the more fluid and supple it becomes! Another plus is that you won't lose your tail to short-striking fish or to grabby snags that tear the tails off soft plastics.
... Most preyfish are only a few inches long, skinny, and essentially "do nothing" most of the day but float and slowly move along rather uneventfully. They just glide along on hardly-noticeable flicks of their tails that propel them forward in a rather straight direction. Those "hardly noticable tail flicks" are exactly what the pork strip sends out visibly and audibly to the bass.
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