There's one number on your rig that decides more about your catch rate than lure size, colour and rod brand combined. It's the weight of your jig head. Over the years I've learned that two anglers fishing the exact same shad on the exact same spot can have completely different days, simply because one is fishing 10 grams and the other 18. One feels every little tap on the bottom; the other drags blindly over the rocks and wonders why nothing's happening.
Why the Head Weight Runs the Show
The jig head is the engine of your presentation. It dictates how fast the lure sinks, how it behaves in the current, and whether you even register what's going on down there on the bottom. A soft plastic is a dead lump of rubber. It's the lead that brings it to life — and it comes to life exactly as much as the weight allows.
Most anglers I meet on the bank think of depth first when it comes to jig heads. That's fair, but it's only half the truth. Just as important is how you want the lure to behave on the drop, and how much current is pushing against the rig. These three factors are constantly playing off each other, and anyone who only pays attention to one of them will sooner or later be fishing the wrong weight.
The Drop Is the Moment of Truth
With classic jigging and with the lift-and-drop retrieve, the take almost always comes on the drop. You reel the lure up, pause, and the shad glides back down toward the bottom. That gliding descent is exactly what triggers a predator. A zander shoots in when the lure tumbles down enticingly and grabs it before it lifts off again.
The head weight decides how long that window stays open. A light head stretches out the drop — the lure flutters for longer and the window stays open longer. A heavy head yanks the shad straight down, so the phase is short and frantic. On days when the zander are sluggish — say on falling water or through a cooling night — that one extra second of fall time is often what decides whether you get the take. On those days I deliberately fish as light as the conditions will still allow.
But there's the other side of the coin too. When the fish are active and reacting aggressively, a fast, provocative drop can be exactly the trigger. A perch at the foot of a quay wall sometimes doesn't want to see anything slow — it wants a lure that dives down sharp and snappy right in front of its nose. Then I'll happily bump the weight up a touch and play with that more aggressive fall.
Current Pressure: The Underrated Enemy
On a still gravel pit, picking your weight is comparatively easy. You just need enough lead to get the lure down in a sensible amount of time, and the rest is fine-tuning the drop. But the moment current comes into play, everything changes.
Moving water pushes against your line and against your lure. The stronger the current, the more lift your whole rig picks up, and the further the lure drifts before it reaches the bottom. That's why on the Rhine, or on any current-heavy stretch of river, I'll often fish twice as heavy as I would on a canal, even though the water depth is the same. Off a strong groyne edge, the 12 grams that would be plenty in still water can quickly become 21 or 24 grams, just to keep contact.
Current pressure also works against your drop. What would be a clean, controlled descent in still water turns into a long, sweeping arc in current. The lure doesn't glide straight down — it gets carried downstream. If you notice your shad constantly landing behind you and you can barely feel when it hits the deck, then your weight is fighting the current and losing. Step up until the control comes back.
One detail a lot of people forget: your line matters too. A thick braid offers the current far more surface to grab than a thin one. If you fish 0.15 mm instead of 0.10 mm braid on a river, you have to offset that extra lift with more head weight. That's why in current I fish as thin as the size of my target fish and the snags allow — and it often saves me a few grams on the jig head.
Bottom Contact Is Your Line Down
In the end it all comes down to one question: can you feel the bottom or not? Bottom contact is your only feedback on what's really happening down there. It tells you whether you're fishing over sand, gravel or rock, whether an edge is coming up, whether the lure has snagged in a mussel bed. And above all it tells you about the take — that fine tick in the line when the lure doesn't land where it should have.
Too light is fatal for bottom contact. If you can no longer clearly feel the touchdown, if you have to guess whether the lure is already down or still gliding, then you're fishing too light. You're basically fishing blind. Takes that show up as a soft giving-way on the drop pass you by completely.
Too heavy is just as much a mistake — just a different one. A head that's too heavy slams into the bottom, the lure ploughs through the rocks, and you lose exactly that fine action on the drop that gets the fish interested in the first place. You'll also snag up far more often. The sweet spot lies in between: heavy enough to tick the bottom clearly and quickly, light enough that the lure still tumbles enticingly between touchdowns.
My rule of thumb for getting started is simple. I begin with a weight that puts the lure on the bottom in roughly two to three seconds. Just count it out after the lure touches down and you lift it again. If it hits bottom almost instantly, you're too heavy. If you count to five or six, or lose the touchdown altogether, you're too light. Two to three seconds of fall time with clear, feelable bottom contact — for most zander situations, that's the sweet spot.
How I Bring It All Together
In practice, I rarely pack just one weight for a day's zander fishing on a river. I carry the usual heads from 10 to 24 grams and switch through the day depending on the spot. On the calm inside of a groyne, 12 to 14 grams is often plenty for an 11 or 12 cm shad. As soon as I cast onto the current seam, I step up to 18 or 21 grams, otherwise the bottom contact is gone. On the canal right next door, where there's barely any flow, I fish the same lure on 10 grams and enjoy the long, drawn-out drop.
For perch in a deep harbour basin or along the sheet piling, the same principle applies in miniature. There I fish a 7 or 9 cm shad on 5 to 10 grams, depending on depth, and pay obsessive attention to the touchdown. For pike on big soft plastics over current-sheltered weed beds, you can go noticeably heavier again, so that the bulky lure actually sinks under control.
There is no one perfect all-round weight. There's only the right weight for this spot, on this day, in this current. Anyone who takes that to heart and is willing to re-rig several times over the course of a session simply catches more fish in the end.
The Key Points at a Glance
The jig head is the single most important adjustment on your rig. Pick it as light as possible and as heavy as necessary, so that you get clear bottom contact in two to three seconds while the drop still stays enticing. In current and with thick line, go up; in still water and with thin line, go down. And when you can no longer feel the touchdown, it's almost never the lure and almost always the weight. Trust the feel in your line — because that's where everything is decided.