Ned Rig Vs. Shakeyhead

[Senko lover]

I've fallen in love with the shakeyhead technique recently. Fishing it shallow really suits my style of fishing, not to mention produces lots of chunky bass.

I have a package on the way from TW right now, and I finally ordered the Ned Rig stuff.

So I was curious, how does the Ned Rig differ from, say, a shakeyhead with a 4-inch finesse worm? In what situations would you throw one or the other?

 

[gardnerjigman]

They are no where near the same technique. A shakeyhead, you maintain constant contact with your bait at all times, and always fish it on the bottom. 

 

The Ned is almost dead-sticking. You never feel your bait, if you are doing it correctly. (which is why I think most have issues using it) I use it a lot for suspended bass as well. 

[blockel]

There are several ways to fish a Ned Rig, as there are a typical shakey head, but I simply look at it as the most "finessey" version of a shakey head as possible.

 

The only distinction I can make between when to fish one over the other is related to cover and water clarity, perhaps. If the water is dirty, I might prefer a larger profile bait than a T.R.D for instance. And if there is a lot of cover, more specifically wood and weeds, I'd probably recommend something without an exposed hook, like the Ned Rig.

 

Just my two cents, hope this helps.

[RoLo]

Gardner summed it up well, the Ned rig involves intuition.

It's probably out of print, but Charlie Brewer's book called "Slider Fishing" is the forerunner,

a similar technique that the late Charlie Brewer called "Do Nothing" fishing.

 

Roger

[IDUTBass]

I fished the ned rig for the first time this weekend and I agree it definitely has a different feel to it than throwing a shakey head. I see why people talk about it as a "feel nothing" way of fishing.

[Team9nine]

What you are starting to see is due to the fact that so many people all over the country are now throwing the Ned rig, and subsequently adapting it to their local waters and the way they traditionally fish, you get a variety of answers to questions like this. The posts above have pretty much touched on the differences though. Shakeyhead fishing is what Ned refers to as part of 'power finesse'. Ned writes, "The most important feature of the six retrieves revolves around the concept that we call no-feel. That means we cannot feel what the jig-and-soft-plastic combo is doing or where it is during the retrieve...Often newcomers to Midwest finesse tactics find the no-feel retrieve to be so disconcerting that they quickly give up and resort to using what we call power finesse tactics. In order to feel their baits, power finesse anglers work with 1/8-, 3/16-, and 1/4 –ounce jigs."

 

A comment on "no-feel"; A good many of the Midwest finesse retrieves are based upon keeping the lure off the bottom and swimming through the water column. This is kind of opposite of shakeyhead fishing where you tend to keep the bait always returning to the bottom and feeling for that. The recent off-shoot of fishing Ned on deep, clear Ozark lakes tends to favor keeping the lure on the bottom and barely moving, utilizing the natural flotation of Elaztech combined with the stand-up ability of a mushroom head jig. However, on the more shallower and stained flatland impoundments where Ned developed/resurrected Midwest Finesse, shallow swimming in one form or another seems to be the more dominant (and original) presentation.

 

Another new adaptation is the mushroom head weedguard so you can fish the Ned around weed and wood cover better, more similar to a shakeyhead. Again though, the original Midwest Finesse concept tended to avoid those lairs and instead focus on more overlooked "plain" or "nothing looking" banks where the open hook jighead gets the majority of use.

 

-T9

[Cgolf]

Gardner summed it up well, the Ned rig involves intuition.

It's probably out of print, but Charlie Brewer's book called "Slider Fishing" is the forerunner,

a similar technique that the late Charlie Brewer called "Do Nothing" fishing.

 

Roger

The book is still available on the Charlie brewer site for 6.95, it hasn't gone up at all since I bought it a few years ago. Well worth the cost, and you can stock up on slider heads.

To the ops question, when lake fishing I did well with the Ned rig around reeds/bullrushes while the wind was down, once the wind came up it was unfishable. I stuck to finesse worms on a slider head fished the same way as the Ned at that point, cast to cover, let sink, let sit briefly, pop or twitch a couple of times reel back in slowly. I will say even when the wind was down I don't think one bait had an edge over the other it was pretty equal.

As for detecting bites with the Ned, you just have to line watch and set the hook any time you see the line move in an unnatural way. It reminds me a lot of jigging for deep walleyed with lighter jigs.