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Video Transcript

Should be an interesting day out here, Troy. We got a little bit of a chop. The wind is blowing in.

We're fishing for postpawn smallmouth bass and actually these fish are dumping out. Should be a really interesting day. You know, over the last number of years have been a really dramatic change in bass fishing.

And what I'm talking about is finesse fishing. And you see this across the entire country. No matter where you go, more people fishing with spinning rods, finesse fishing such as drop shotting senko Fishing Damiki rigging.

Just there's tons of these different finesse techniques, and it really employs using a spinning rod and light line. Today, Troy and I are going to talk about finesse techniques and effectiveness, but focus on one extraordinarily simple technique, and it's known as the Ned rig. Are you about ready, Troy? Wow, he just absolutely crunched know, when you really look at the technique, it seems so extraordinarily simplistic.

And the basic principle of Ned fishing is sort of interesting. And what it is is, first off, a very lightweight mushroom head jig, and it's really small, unobtrusive stickworm. When you really look at it, it really doesn't look like much.

But really there's some really key reasons why this bait is so effective. Number one, that lightweight head, so it slows the drop speed. Number two, the stickworm.

It's really sort of unobtrusive, but it just sits in the bottom and it doesn't look like much. But when you take it and you pull this bait along the bottom, what happens? It actually rolls the tail up and it's just like, waggling like this. So it's really something that resembles it could be a crayfish, it could be a bug on the bottom.

Whatever it is, it's really appealing to a lot of different species of fish. No question about it. There's a number of different various retrieves you can fish with this bait.

But generally what I want to do is make a really long cast. A lot of times what they'll do is just take it and you'll fire it out there and absolutely do nothing with it like this. And particularly if you're in really clear water spooky fish.

I was just at a tournament over in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and that's the way you had to catch them. We're in four or five foot of water. It's gin, clear water.

And the fish were extraordinarily spooky. There's absolutely no cover, a lot of sand and just minimal amount of rock. And what you'd have to do is sit in a fixed position, throw the bait way away from the boat, and more or less cast out and wait for the fish to pick up the bait.

The other option is to actually just reel it in really slow on the bottom and then intermittently stop the bait. The other alternate option what I do a lot with this bait, I make a long cast, but I'll drag it for a little bit, and then I'll just jump the bait up off the bottom. And just let it sit.

And let it sit and let it sit for quite a while. And then repeat the process. You just reel it along for a little bit, pop it up two, 3ft off the bottom, let it sit.

And what you're trying to do is attract the fish. From a little bit of a distance away. On these shallow water flats in here.

The fish could probably see it in here. In this lake. I'm sure the fish could probably see it from 10ft away.

So it's a really relatively simplistic technique, but there is subtleties of being really effective with this lure. It's really intriguing. And I know over the last number of years, how many people have been extraordinarily successful with this bait.

And not only that, it's probably one of the best baits. To teach anglers and new anglers to really garner confidence fishing for bass. I'm not kidding you.

I mean, this thing is just like it's a bass fishing machine. You might ask, well, where do you fish it at? You know what my answer would be? Anywhere. Deep weeds, shallow weeds, rocks, sand, flats.

It doesn't make any difference. I've caught fish all over fishing all different species of bass with this bait. It's really sort of an amazing thing.

In the biggest thing, like, some of the best things in life, simple is better. It's got a buddy with them. James, if you want it's, the bigger one.

A bigger one with it. Is that right? It's right here. The bigger one is yep, kind of.

So, one thing, you can double up on some of these, and most of the time, you hook the smaller one. That never works for me. Too much? Yeah.

The other one was a little bit that's a good one. The other one was a little bit bigger. Yeah.

Come here. I got to be careful here. Come on.

That's easy. Just come up here like this. Give me a little bit of extra slack like that.

Thank you. There again. Most of the time, they're hooked right really easy.

And that single hook like that pins them really well and also makes for an easy release on another. Nice one. That is fun.

Just a light bite. Many times in this. I mean, the bite can be so light, like nothing.

They're just, like, swimming up, and they kind of pick it up, and you kind of sit there. You reel into them. One might think all mushroom head jigs are created equal.

They look similar, feel similar, but in fact, they don't fish similar. The VMC nedrig jig was built specifically for this application. First off, it has a large conical keeper.

To prolong the life of any plastic you put on it. And this is important because you get so many bites. From so many different species on this presentation.

Now, let's talk about the business end. It has a forged chemically sharpened needlepoint hook. The hybrid wider gap maximizes hook sets and the hybrid bend keeps the fish pinned way better than a traditional round bend hook.

Now you're talking. What are you thinking about? We doubled up on the effectiveness of something simple. Wow.

Small stickworm and little ned heads. Unbelievable. I mean, I'm not kidding you.

How many big bass have been caught across this nation with this little simple trick? We'll get these guys back in the water. Them are big, small mouths. They're beautiful fish.

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