3/0 Hook for Senko Fishing

[Moto]

Well thanks everyone for all your help! Took the rig I described at the beginning, and so far caught 3 bass on it today! 

[Jaderose]

3/0 Gammy EWG weightless here.  I toss these on a spinning set up.  A full size Senko can be thrown on a baitcaster with relative ease, though.  It's kind of a heavy bait.  Do more of a lob cast rather than whipping it.  Try it without the weight.  Dam near guarantee you'll catch more fish.

 

[Basseditor]

Congrats on your catch. Don’t take this wrong. Here’s some of my tips:

 

The beauty of Senkos is the slow, shimmering fall. No weight, unweighted hook, 3/0 hook (but I use 4/0 skip gap hook), no swivel, just tie straight to the hook. Minimum 15-lb flouro. Or, you can fish a Senko like a worm with an eighth ounce tungsten bullet weight and do pretty good.

 

For the 6-inch Senko, I use a 5/0 skip gap hook in open water and a heavy 6/0 hook in heavy cover. 20-lb flouro. I pitch the 6-Senko in heavy cover where many people pitch a jig. I’m amazed at how many 7-10 pounders I catch going behind guys pitching jigs.

 

I’m fortunate to fish areas that have big bass so my experience will be different than others.

 

I fish a lot of Senkos! It’s my main technique. In fact, I’ve ordered a custom color of Yamamoto Senkos in large lots (35 bags of 50 count of one color when you have to buy the whole run). Ha

[Jack M]

I hate to burst y’alls bubble but listen to the first 30 seconds of this video lol

 

A senko on a barely weighted hook looks KILLER, still falls pretty slow with a great shimmy, but is much more versatile.  It’s almost like a way to have a senko and fluke tied on at the same time, and the weight even adds an ever-so-slight swimming/glide bait action on a crawling retrieve.  You can do almost anything with it, even rip it across top. The beauty is you can do a hundred different techniques with it, and when you get bit it’s a hint to what the fish are keying in on, and then you can adjust your rigging or lure selection accordingly.  If they’re eating it shallow on the fall, then maybe I’ll tie one on weightless, but if they’re eating it while I rip it across the top I might switch to a walking style bait.

 

This all might sound silly to you guys who have 10 rods pre rigged and a dozen tackle boxes in your boat, but for me as bank fisherman, versatility and multi-purpose techniques are EXTREMELY important.

 

It’s a great do-nothing bait but don’t let that overshadow that it CAN do anything!

 

A few other things that work great using a senko: 

-split the tail in two with scissors and now you have a great spinnerbait/chatterbait/scrounger trailer

-screw lock from the senko to a swivel then screw lock from the swivel to a paddle tail, now you have a super weedless whopper plopper 

-fish it like a jerk bait/fluke, the wobbling action on the pauses is DEADLY.  You can do this at any depth, depending on how long you let it sink after the cast and in the pauses

[NeroXyn]

On 6/21/2018 at 11:58 AM, Comfortably Numb said:

I understand you are newer. Almost all newer fisherman use a snap swivel on everything. You really need to get away from this, especially fishing soft plastics. There are plenty of simple knots that tie fast such as the Palomar.

This is partly short-sighted, especially when 90% of newer fishermen are pond and shore fishermen.

 

Of course, there are rigs that you can't get away with snaps such as drop shot, but any kind of ewg texas rigged senko (e.g., superline or even twistlock), you can get away with snaps.

 

Coming from a pond fisherman myself, the reason for having snaps (almost) all the time:

1. Time itself on the water. Shore fisherman in general have limited reach given their lack of mobility from boating. With that kind of situation, it is natural that shore fisherman spend very little time in the water. Personally, the average time I spend on a pond is only 1.5 and 2 hrs.
   
   Hence, having to change lure quickly is very, very critical. Unless you are 70% familiar with the body of water, adapting quickly is super important. Every time I go out fishing, I have to think to allocate how much time do I need to spend of power fishing and finesse fishing until I know power fishing works on that day and sticking with it.
    
2. Where do you even store the cut line from re-tying? There is an inconvenience for pocketing the cut line and waiting an hour then put it in trash. You can't just throw it on the ground like you would on a boat.
    
3. Unless you just catch a big bass, you needn't to retie. One exception is if you know your line is rubbing constantly on wood or hard structure.
    

Apologize for ranting, but finesse aficionados are often toxic with any kind of altering the traditional ways of rigging, and I had to somehow justify the other way.