Fall Ned Rig ?

[ChrisD46]

While Fall can present less fishing pressure and a great time to be fishing for bass - Fall can be a challenging time of the year to get bit (even watching Pros fail with their favorite 4 or 5pet lure  techniques) . When bass are scattered , not chasing shad and  not biting your favorite Fall baits - it could be a good time to cover water with a Ned Rig (especially post frontal Fall blue bird sky days) . Any thoughts on the above as well as who is having success breaking out the Ned Rig when the Fall bite becomes perplexing ?

[Reel]

I don't know if this applies in your situation but the Ned rig is great for Fall smallmouth.  When the water  temperature drops  under 60 degrees, the smallmouth here go on a goby binge.  A heavy head ( 1/5oz) with a brownish soft bait like a Jackall Yammyfish on the bottom gets you bit.

[galyonj]

I dunno what you're talking about – the bite's always perplexing for me. That's why I carry the kitchen sink with me from spot to spot. ?

 

I was about to say that I don't know how useful a presentation like this is for covering water in search of fish, but then I realized that's exactly what I do with it a lot of times. Last time I went out with @TnRiver46 I basically spent all day switching between lazily hopping/swimming a ned rig and doing the exact same thing with a weighted wacky rig because literally nothing else I threw was getting attention.

 

So yeah, there's no reason it isn't at least worth a shot.

[Finessegenics]

It works all year round for me. It’s not really a fall thing. The key for me is the retrieve, i have to be constantly retrieving but slow enough so that I’m always ticking bottom. It seems like the fish love when it’s deflecting off rocks. I use an unpainted 1/16 oz jighead and a TRD or half of a Zinkerz in The Deal. Looks like a little minnow and it gets bit. At the same time, I have done very well on a spinnerbait in the fall using it in the same fashion. Bumping off bottom and retrieving it relatively slow. 

[TnRiver46]

My river is moving like 4 mph with leaves and grass balls floating down. Ned has been lasting about 1 cast before I lose it here lately . I’m traveling to a slower moving reservoir somewhere this weekend 

[mbleming]

Whenever I have a tough time getting a bite, no matter what the season is I almost always revert back to the ned rig...I can almost catch a fish at my local lake using this technique. If I can't catch one using the ned, I can't catch one that day...it really is my most confident bait to use by a mile. Near the end of August the bite dropped off on almost every other bait, but I could still land fish consistently using the trusty old ned rig. Now that it's cold, fish in my lake just aren't biting much of anything other than the ned...I typically catch dinks with this technique, though I have caught a few decent fish, though most are on the small size. That being said, they're still out there to be caught and the vast majority has been caught using this technique. I love the ned rig!

[roadwarrior]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

My river is moving like 4 mph with leaves and grass balls floating down. Ned has been lasting about 1 cast before I lose it here lately . I’m traveling to a slower moving reservoir somewhere this weekend 

I'm saving what I have left for a trip somewhere else. Ned rigs

are the favored forage for Tennessee River rocks!

 

[TcRoc]

Was slamming them on the Ned rig a few weeks ago.. not so much since.

[MAN]

45 minutes ago, mbleming said:

Whenever I have a tough time getting a bite, no matter what the season is I almost always revert back to the ned rig...I can almost catch a fish at my local lake using this technique. If I can't catch one using the ned, I can't catch one that day...it really is my most confident bait to use by a mile. Near the end of August the bite dropped off on almost every other bait, but I could still land fish consistently using the trusty old ned rig. Now that it's cold, fish in my lake just aren't biting much of anything other than the ned...I typically catch dinks with this technique, though I have caught a few decent fish, though most are on the small size. That being said, they're still out there to be caught and the vast majority has been caught using this technique. I love the ned rig!

What did you do/use before the ned rig came about? 

[TnRiver46]

47 minutes ago, MAN said:

What did you do/use before the ned rig came about? 

I was under the impression that no one ever caught a bass before the ned rig came out............

[TOXIC]

Went out to the Rappahonock River Wednesday in the pouring rain and threw cranks, neds and sliders.  My most productive was the slider with one of 3 baits......a 3 inch Senko, a 4 inch Senko and a 5 inch Pro Senko.  No big surprises there huh??. Too many floating leaves for a crank and I would upgrade to the 4 inch Senko if we were on a current heavy bank and use the 3 inch in eddys and slack water.  Caught a little bit of everything largemouth, smallmouth, crappie, blue gills.  Of course I am a finesse fisherman 99% of the time.  
 

 

[WRB]

The new GYCB / Daiwa Neko Macho 4 1/2 Seiko with a bulbous tail wag should be a killer.

Tom

[MGF]

I've been trying to stay away from the NED rig this year. It's been so good for us the last couple of years I start feeling dependent on it and get the urge to use something else. My wife has still been using it but I've been using other baits trying to catch as many fish.

 

It's not easy. In our shallow river that floaty TRD on a 1/20 oz head can be just the ticket. It's just the right size and when the weight is right for the depth and the current it kind of floats down the river just barely ticking the bottom.

[mbleming]

4 hours ago, MAN said:

What did you do/use before the ned rig came about? 

I used to rely on the wacky rig before I discovered the ned rig...I did pretty well with the wacky rig, but I've had a lot more catches using ned. I also enjoy fishing it more than the wacky as I fish it a little bit faster. 

[ChrisD46]

Favorite Fall retrieves for the Ned Rig - or do you bother changing anything at all ?

[Elkins45]

19 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I was under the impression that no one ever caught a bass before the ned rig came out............

 

I didn't catch nearly as many.

 

In an effort to save money I've been casting my own heads and I'm experimenting with a Mister Twister 4" grub instead of a TRD. You can get 20 Mister Twister grubs in a package for around $3 so it doesn't hurt quite so much when I leave one on the bottom, but I'm not 100% convinced yet that it's as effective as the more buoyant Z man plastic.

[Steelhead]

3 hours ago, Elkins45 said:

 

I didn't catch nearly as many.

 

In an effort to save money I've been casting my own heads and I'm experimenting with a Mister Twister 4" grub instead of a TRD. You can get 20 Mister Twister grubs in a package for around $3 so it doesn't hurt quite so much when I leave one on the bottom, but I'm not 100% convinced yet that it's as effective as the more buoyant Z man plastic.

 

I've been using the Zman GrubZ the last few weeks and it's been out fishing the TRD. Smoke hologram in 3.5" size has been producing the best.

[Cgolf]

I did a late September trip in northern Wi and the bite sucked because after a cold week we hit a warming trend, which long story short acted like a cold front when we are up there in June. Couldn’t buy a bass on a plastic including a Ned rig once the warmup started. Finally got it in my head to treat it like June’s cold fronts and tossed a spinnerbait on the last time out and caught a bunch after struggling to even get a bite the previous 3 days. 
 

Now if a Berkeley power wiggler on a 1/64 ounce lead head under a bobber counts, I did catch a very solid bass on that;) I was surprised that a finesse bait like a Ned didn’t trigger them. 

7 hours ago, Elkins45 said:

 

I didn't catch nearly as many.

 

In an effort to save money I've been casting my own heads and I'm experimenting with a Mister Twister 4" grub instead of a TRD. You can get 20 Mister Twister grubs in a package for around $3 so it doesn't hurt quite so much when I leave one on the bottom, but I'm not 100% convinced yet that it's as effective as the more buoyant Z man plastic.

I haven’t used Zman plastics in a couple of years for my Ned presentations and feel the effectiveness is equal or better. Since I have a lot of backstock on Ned sized baits, durability isn’t a concern for me. 

[Kdizzle]

Ball head, football head, and mushroom head jigs, with any sort of short stick bait, be it elaztech or traditional plastic threaded on to it, is a fantastic year round lure to throw for any river bound fisherman.  Its a technique that should be in any river and creek fishermans tacklebox. 

 

Now throw in a little slider head and texas rigging action of same short stick bait, to avoid the frequent snagging that can come along with said technique, and you're just getting nasty good sir. Sexual if I may be so bold.

[Bluebasser86]

Skipping a Ned under docks has been killing them on the lake by my house.

[ChrisD46]

11 hours ago, Bass_Fishing_Socal said:

Fall transition here, small shad everywhere, a lot of boiling in early morning. Match the hatch? Does this consider as Ned? I don’t know but at least I got two bass this morning before I lost the rig.

*You get a passing grade from me - nice thinking out of the box ! I'd say (and Ned himself would concur) that essentially any soft plastic under 3.5" with a 1/16th oz. jig head , #2 or #4 size hook qualifies as a Ned Rig . I'd twitch your minnow / chartreuse jig head set up just above the bottom occasionally letting it kiss the rocks and then - hold on !  

[MGF]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:40 AM, Elkins45 said:

 

I didn't catch nearly as many.

 

In an effort to save money I've been casting my own heads and I'm experimenting with a Mister Twister 4" grub instead of a TRD. You can get 20 Mister Twister grubs in a package for around $3 so it doesn't hurt quite so much when I leave one on the bottom, but I'm not 100% convinced yet that it's as effective as the more buoyant Z man plastic.

I was putting small plastics on a small lead head jigs back as far as I can remember. That's pretty close to what a ned rig is.

 

My current favorite NED version is what they're calling the "tiny child rig" With a screw in weight in one end and a texas rigged hook in the other end I don't think the buoyancy of elaztech really comes into play.