I might have a couple from the perspective of someone that, not that long ago, would rather **** in my hands and clap than fish a ned rig.
Things I've learned about fishing a ned rig (Tip number 4 will BLOW your MIND):
Use as small a hook as you can get away with on the lightest jighead that gets to the depth you need.
For relatively still water under, say, 10 feet, with little in the way of vegetation to get hung in, I just about always use a 1/16oz head with a #4 hook.
In current, or if I'm swimming it, I generally upsize to a 1/4oz head with the same hook size.
If you keep bringing a side order of greens back when you reel it in, just do something else.
It hurts my heart to have to say this to a group of people as learned as the membership of this forum, but the less hook you can get away with using, the better the plastic looks and moves in the water. It defeats the purpose of the presentation to put a 3" piece of plastic on a hook with a shank that's over 2" long. Look at this photo. There is absolutely no way that the rig on the right moves as well as the rig on the left.
Stop worrying about making everything matchy-matchy. I love a chartreuse or red jighead on these presentations because a little bit of contrast gives the fish something else to get interested in.
Don't sleep on the finesse punch rig (patent pending).
Just like any presentation, there are times you have to deadstick it, but stop approaching the presentation as if the only way to fish it is to deadstick it, or hop it like a tiny, stupid shakyhead. Swim it back. Pop it and shake on the way back down. Do...something to make it move. Stop sitting there waiting to get bit and show them something they wanna bite.
Where I fish, the more you let it sit, the more likely it is you ain't getting that jighead back.
Literally any small(er) soft plastic will work. All the finesse-branded stuff from Z-Man is cool. Big TRDs are cool. Bitten-in-half Senkos are cool. Small paddletail swimbaits, tubes, and literally any crappie-size soft plastics are also cool. The back half of a Zoom trick worm is amazing on a small jighead like this. The 4 or so inch skinny finesse worms or curly-tail worms are absolute bangers like this. Go wild. If anybody gives you any trouble, just show them all the fish you've caught while they sat in their mom's basement navel-gazing about the proper way to fish a little piece of plastic on a little jighead.
Hey, that worm ain't purple! You're a big fat phony!
