Mrs. Simpson Jig

In 1936, King Edward VIII and Mrs. Bessie Wallis-Simpson wished to marry.  Mrs. Simpson, an American, was divorced with two husbands still living and the English government took the view that she could not be Queen. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, had the duty of informing the King that popular opinion would be opposed to such a marriage. King Edward was also warned that the resignation of the government was a possibility. On 16 November 1936, the King announced that he would renounce the throne. The press had a field day, but to cut a long story short, Edward VIII succeeded to the throne in January, 1936.  In the aftermath, his brother King George VI named him Duke of Windsor.  Bessie Simpson would forever be remembered as the Duchess of Windsor and lived a life of leisure until Prince Edward's death in 1972.  From 1972 until her own passing in April of 1986, Simpson lived a life of seclusion.  Taken in the context of such amazing celebrity, having a jig named after her seems almost inconsequential. But the name makes for a great aura. 





















Lance with a 20" smallie caught on a 1/8oz. Mrs. Simpson Jig.


The Mrs. Simpson is tied in a 'Killer style’ pattern and it produces a large prey image with no bulkiness to cast.  Its large feather body is stacked against the shank of the hook and becomes less compressible and virtually weedless.  This lure was originally intended to imitate a small, bottom-oriented darter baitfish or young-of-year bass.

Here is 9 year old Steven McNeal with his bass he caught using the Mrs. Simpson Jig

The body of the Mrs. Simpson pattern is traditionally tied using a mix of green, brown, and black bucktail to create subtle, but useful, variations.  The ‘Killer’ is a style of tying, like my Booger Jig that simply begs for creative interpretation.  The feathers used on this pattern come from the cape of the cock Ringneck pheasant, a bird that's nearly irreplaceable in the fly tying arts.  Typically tied with the 'church window' feathers, the Mrs. Simpson Jig features the softer green-brown webbed feathers found adjacent to the boldly marked church window plumes to give the jig added movement in the currents. There are so many interesting colors and color patterns in a pheasant (or ruffed grouse, or partridge, or quail) that no one feather quite matches the other in color or pattern.  





















Even in the cold water of Mid-November the Mrs. Simpson Jig produces!

One secret to angling success is to show the fish something different.  So due to the differences in each feather I use, every time you cast a Mrs. Simpson Jig it has unlimited variations in coloration and texture when it ripples through the water column.  So essentially your changing your baits with every cast and maximizing your fishing time!  Pretty cool, right? 

Lance's Mrs. Simpson Jig is looking pretty tattered.  He caught 62 bass on this single jig before he lost it!

The Mrs. Simpson can be fished via casting, trolling and harling (when the boat drifts with the current at the same speed as the lure) the right place for this jig is along the bottom or near weed lines and fallen wood.  When retrieving use a series of short, staccato jerks or try swinging the jig on a dead drift.  My results have been spectacular and I have not been skunked ever when using this 'killer-style' pattern.
























If you want to fish with a little variant to this pattern I recommend a "Mouthy Marge".  It's still a Mrs. Simpson Jig but with an added rattle tied into and hidden within the thread wraps.  So it's a little noisy....   so LD and his fishing buddies coined it "Mouthy Marge" after Marge Simpson from the Fox Network Cartoon, "The Simpsons".