Our take on the Zero One Jig

The Zero One is the jig you reach for when fish are holed up in cover. Its real contribution is the eye set high on the head: on the hookset the jig pivots and the hook drives into the upper jaw instead of sliding. Paired with a 4 inch DoLive Craw, you get one of the most proven combos in Japanese bass fishing.

High eye and oval guard: what you need to know

• Cover style rubber jig by OSP, designed by Toshinari Namiki
• Three weights available: 7 g, 11 g and 14 g
• Tie eye set higher than the centre of gravity of the head, for a hookset that lands in the upper jaw
• Brush guard fitted in a sideways oval housing, protecting the point without penalising its penetration
• Head shape designed to clear every type of cover, where the jig keeps a horizontal position while hanging in wood or vegetation
• Notched worm keeper that holds the trailer without tearing it, including on hard skipping casts
• Profile sized for 4 inch trailers
• Black bass, large perch and pike

In cover, where the Zero One takes over

A cover rubber jig has to solve a contradiction: go everywhere without snagging, while leaving the point enough freedom to penetrate on the hookset. OSP treats the two problems separately, with a brush guard fitted in a sideways oval housing and an eye shifted upwards. The result shows up mostly on the spots you would normally hesitate to attack: sunken wood, branches, dense weed beds. That focus on useful detail runs through the whole OSP range, designed by Japanese tournament angler Toshinari Namiki.

A hookset built for the upper jaw

The tie eye sits above the centre of gravity of the head. In practice, even if the jig ends up lying flat in the fish’s mouth at the moment of the bite, the pull makes it stand up and the point travels upwards. You therefore hook into the upper jaw, the hardest and safest area to hold a big fish all the way to the net. The head shape completes the job by letting the jig stay horizontal while it hangs in cover, which extends the teasing phase instead of cutting it short.

7, 11 or 14 g: setting the fall speed

Weight choice comes down to depth and to the mood of the fish. The 7 g is the finesse option, best in shallow water and on educated fish that a slow fall triggers better. The 11 g is the all-rounder, the one that stays controllable down to three or four metres. The 14 g is there to punch through a layer of vegetation or to drop fast alongside a vertical piece of cover.

The notched worm keeper holds the trailer in place even on hard skipping casts under docks, which matters when you are stringing together low casts. Since the profile is sized for 4 inch baits, the DoLive Craw is the most obvious partner, its claws adding volume and vibration to the skirt. On colours, the Green Pumpkin patterns cover clear water and weedy bottoms, while Amezari takes over when visibility drops.

On paper this is a bass jig, and that is exactly where it gives its best, alongside the rest of our lures for black bass. In practice the 7 g also works very well on large perch, on a slow straight retrieve along the banks, and it usefully rounds out a box of lures for perch. Japanese and European sources also report it taking pike, especially in its heaviest version.