How do you work a wacky rig?

[MGF]

13 minutes ago, ironbjorn said:

I cast to my target and let it flutter down. It's all about the flutter. Once it's to the bottom I'll slightly lift up and let it flutter back down again. Once it's a couple yards from my initial target I reel in quickly and cast again, either to the same target/target area or a new one. 99% of your wacky bites come on the initial fall and slowly fishing it all the way back to you is, at the end of the day, a waste of time. Yes, sometimes you'll randomly pick up a fish in a random area slowly fishing it all the way back from your initial target, but not often enough to waste so much time.

As a wise man once said "It depends". I have a pond I fish where I sometimes cast straight out (probably only 7 ft of water) and work it all the way back...or I might cast down the bank and do the same. You could get hit anyplace and I've caught hundred of bass (maybe more) doing that.

 

Then I float our mostly shallow river where, especially in summer the bass could be almost anywhere relative to the bank. There are sections of the river where there are fish holding rocks/breaks all across the river and many are out of sight. I've caught about a million brown bass floating down the river with a wacky rigged worm drifting with the boat just a few feet away. I'll add carpet tacks or pieces of nail weights to get the sink rate I need based on the current. My wife catches a lot of fish dragging it behind the boat.

 

Too many possible scenarios to state hard and fast rules IMO.

[Eddie101]

I guess my post will reveal how wacky I'm, but here goes. I'd typically cast it out to Miami - I'm in MD so that's a mighty long cast - , and sometimes when I'm in the mood I'd count to 10 or however long it takes to hit the bottom then I'll "whack" the hell out of the bait. Then I pause and repeat. At times, I will whack it even before it hits the bottom. I don't let fish tell me what they want. I do what I do when I feel like it, and it works sometimes. I don't usually get bit on the initial fall, but after beating the hell out of the bait, fish will -sometimes - take the bait. I rarely do dead sticking unless I'm fishing in winter months.  

 

It may sound "wacky", - my fishing partner thinks I'm a nutcase - but, hey, I've been catching some nice sized bass so who's complaining. 

 

The proof is in the pudding.

[MGF]

13 minutes ago, Eddie101 said:

I guess my post will reveal how wacky I'm, but here goes. I'd typically cast it out to Miami - I'm in MD so that's a mighty long cast - , and sometimes when I'm in the mood I'd count to 10 or however long it takes to hit the bottom then I'll "whack" the hell out of the bait. Then I pause and repeat. At times, I will whack it even before it hits the bottom. I don't let fish tell me what they want. I do what I do when I feel like it, and it works sometimes. I don't usually get bit on the initial fall, but after beating the hell out of the bait, fish will -sometimes - take the bait. I rarely do dead sticking unless I'm fishing in winter months.  

 

It may sound "wacky", - my fishing partner thinks I'm a nutcase - but, hey, I've been catching some nice sized bass so who's complaining. 

 

The proof is in the pudding.

What works, works.

[the reel ess]

Like a jig, a huge majority of the bites come on the first drop. Lift it a couple times to make it wiggle. If there's no takers yank it out and repeat. I prefer a T rigged one, weightless. For one, it's more weedless. You can skip it into heavy cover with less fear of hangups. And you can work it back and get some bites on the retrieve. And if you let it sink on a slack line, it'll enter almost the same way a wacky rig will. I'm sure there are times either one works better. But they're very similar.

[BrianMDTX]

1 hour ago, MGF said:

Why not work it all the way back if you can cast down the bank (or whatever structure/cover) and be in the "strike zone" for some distance? I've caught a ton of fish that way.

I’ve caught bass that way. One about 6” from the boat. But IMO, at least 85%-90% of my catches are on the initial cast and fall. It’s not even close. So most of the time when fishing cover if I don’t get bit on the first cast, I’ll retrieve it and cast it again vs working it back. 

 

Seems to reduce a lot of fouled hooks, too!

[MGF]

20 minutes ago, BrianMDTX said:

I’ve caught bass that way. One about 6” from the boat. But IMO, at least 85%-90% of my catches are on the initial cast and fall. It’s not even close. So most of the time when fishing cover if I don’t get bit on the first cast, I’ll retrieve it and cast it again vs working it back. 

 

Seems to reduce a lot of fouled hooks, too!

Fishing cover...I tried to carefully describe fairly specific situations. If I were casting to a stump or something I might not work the bait back because I expect the fish to be on the stump. That's not really the norm for me.

 

I never noticed an issue with "foul hooks".

 

 

 

 

[schplurg]

I will let it fall then tweak it a few times before retrieval.

 

I will do a slow retrieve sometimes, but if I'm fan casting an area I see no need to waste time dragging it over the same area repeatedly as it gets closer to my position. One slow retrieval or two per area.

 

I don't retrieve wacky rigged baits super-fast to recast because I feel the bait will last longer and get pulled apart less if I go slower. I usually do T-rigs rather than wacky though.

[ike8120]

Sink, Twitch, Reel, and so on 

[MGF]

8 hours ago, the reel ess said:

Like a jig, a huge majority of the bites come on the first drop. Lift it a couple times to make it wiggle. If there's no takers yank it out and repeat. I prefer a T rigged one, weightless. For one, it's more weedless. You can skip it into heavy cover with less fear of hangups. And you can work it back and get some bites on the retrieve. And if you let it sink on a slack line, it'll enter almost the same way a wacky rig will. I'm sure there are times either one works better. But they're very similar.

There again it depends on what kind of water you're fishing. For the past good many years most of my jig fishing is for brown bass in my shallow river. Sometimes I pitch to isolated cover but most often my cast is angled upstream and the jig bounces down river with the current.

 

 

[the reel ess]

1 hour ago, MGF said:

There again it depends on what kind of water you're fishing. For the past good many years most of my jig fishing is for brown bass in my shallow river. Sometimes I pitch to isolated cover but most often my cast is angled upstream and the jig bounces down river with the current.

 

 

Yeah, I'm talking about largemouth in still waters. 

[BrianMDTX]

21 hours ago, MGF said:

Fishing cover...I tried to carefully describe fairly specific situations. If I were casting to a stump or something I might not work the bait back because I expect the fish to be on the stump. That's not really the norm for me.

 

I never noticed an issue with "foul hooks".

 

 

 

 

I fish mostly in ponds. Wacky rigs worked back in tend to pick up a lot of algae and muck. Your waters may be different. It’s better in my boat. From the bank it’s almost impossible keeping the hook from getting fouled working it back. 

[BBuck]

I do all the same as mentioned above, but this is my favorite thing to use to skip with. I can skip a wacky rig 30 feet under a dock or low hanging limbs. 

[MGF]

2 hours ago, BrianMDTX said:

I fish mostly in ponds. Wacky rigs worked back in tend to pick up a lot of algae and muck. Your waters may be different. It’s better in my boat. From the bank it’s almost impossible keeping the hook from getting fouled working it back. 

I only really have one pond that I fish regularly and it really changes. Sometimes it's socked in with weeds and moss and sometimes it's clean. When the weeds get to be a problem on the wacky I tend to go to something else like a weightless TR.

 

There isn't much contour but there are areas where it drops off a little faster and/or the weeds extend further out. So in some places you might not be able to work it back very far.

 

It just depends. I can't help but think of the river first since I fish it more than anything else. The worm is drifting down the river as it sinks.  Depending on current and depth the initial sink can cover a fair amount of river. Successive sinks (for lack of another description) by lifting or twitching it up may present to a different and different fish without retrieving and recasting. Picture the wiggling stick bait midwater drifting down river. That's the presentation.

 

[MGF]

1 hour ago, BBuck said:

I do all the same as mentioned above, but this is my favorite thing to use to skip with. I can skip a wacky rig 30 feet under a dock or low hanging limbs. 

It's great when the bite is good on a wacky under docks or over hangs. I only mention this because of the current thread on learning to skip but sometimes you do better on a jig or something. I can skip the jig just as far or further.

 

I fish one lake that gets pretty socked in with weeds but docks still hold fish. A frog on braid skipped with a BC is just the ticket.

[Squarebill79]

On 5/1/2021 at 8:42 AM, ironbjorn said:

I cast to my target and let it flutter down. It's all about the flutter. Once it's to the bottom I'll slightly lift up and let it flutter back down again. Once it's a couple yards from my initial target I reel in quickly and cast again, either to the same target/target area or a new one. 99% of your wacky bites come on the initial fall and slowly fishing it all the way back to you is, at the end of the day, a waste of time. Yes, sometimes you'll randomly pick up a fish in a random area slowly fishing it all the way back from your initial target, but not often enough to waste so much time.

This isn't true at all, at least not with my experience. I catch hundreds of bass per year slowing fishing it back to me. It's probably 10% on the initial fall. 

 

I cast it out, let if fall close to the bottom, then give it a few small twitches while lifting the rod tip up. This probably pulls it up 2 or 3 feet in the water column. I then let it sink again. Ive actually tried this in a pool before to see what it looks like. You basically get 4 or 5 "falls or flutters" instead of just the initial fall and then reeling it back in. 

 

Youre increasing your odds significantly when you have 4 or 5 falls compared to just the 1. 

[ironbjorn]

3 hours ago, Squarebill79 said:

This isn't true at all, at least not with my experience. I catch hundreds of bass per year slowing fishing it back to me. It's probably 10% on the initial fall. 

 

I cast it out, let if fall close to the bottom, then give it a few small twitches while lifting the rod tip up. This probably pulls it up 2 or 3 feet in the water column. I then let it sink again. Ive actually tried this in a pool before to see what it looks like. You basically get 4 or 5 "falls or flutters" instead of just the initial fall and then reeling it back in. 

 

Youre increasing your odds significantly when you have 4 or 5 falls compared to just the 1. 

Two years later and it's still a target casting technique for me, all about the initial fall. Likely always will be, and I'm not alone. ?‍♂️

 

From an article that can't be mentioned here:

 

Through my experimentation, most of my bites not only happen on the fall (as we discussed earlier), but they happen on the initial fall. So after the cast, if a bass is going to eat it, I expect action within roughly 15 seconds after I flip my bail over. It’s a target-oriented approach that allows you to hit the most high-percentage spots at a rapid pace.

 

 

[ironbjorn]

Bass Resource has an article that touches on the initial fall of a Wacky Rig.

 

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/falling-bait.html

[Squarebill79]

2 hours ago, ironbjorn said:

Two years later and it's still a target casting technique for me, all about the initial fall. Likely always will be, and I'm not alone. ?‍♂️

 

From an article that can't be mentioned here:

 

Through my experimentation, most of my bites not only happen on the fall (as we discussed earlier), but they happen on the initial fall. So after the cast, if a bass is going to eat it, I expect action within roughly 15 seconds after I flip my bail over. It’s a target-oriented approach that allows you to hit the most high-percentage spots at a rapid pace.

 

 

Everyone is different then, Im just going off my personal experience and I have a huge sample size. I normally throw it in deep water and work it back up dropoffs. 

[ironbjorn]

9 minutes ago, Squarebill79 said:

Everyone is different then, Im just going off my personal experience and I have a huge sample size. I normally throw it in deep water and work it back up dropoffs. 

That, I do not do. I do not ever use a weighted Wacky Rig and I'm not going to wait an eternity for it to flutter down. I exclusively target cast with it in shallow water. So that's not being "not true" or "wrong", that's just a different technique in general.

[Squarebill79]

1 minute ago, ironbjorn said:

That, I do not do. I do not ever use a weighted Wacky Rig and I'm not going to wait an eternity for it to flutter down. I exclusively target cast with it in shallow water. So that's not being "not true" or "wrong", that's just a different technique in general.

Yeah, I should have specified I use it weighted. If its weightless then Id agree you probably will have more success on the initial drop. I dont think I'd have the patience to work it that slow weightless using my technique. 

[Pat Brown]

One does not *work* a wacky rig.

 

Just kidding but all jokes aside I basically cast it where I think a fish is and watch the line.  It's about the most boring way to catch fish of all sizes I can think of but when it's what they want, you can be sure I'll be throwing it. 

 

Caught a 7 lber last May on a wacky rigged yum dinger in green pumpkin with a chartreuse tail and multiple 4-6 lbers, interestingly enough, off of docks while tons of people were also fishing on blisteringly hot days.

 

It definitely catches bass.

[gim]

14 hours ago, Squarebill79 said:

Yeah, I should have specified I use it weighted

It’s not a wacky rig anymore if it’s weighted. It’s a neko rig.

 

I use a nail weight in mine to make it sink faster in anything deeper than 5 feet.

 

75% of my bites come on the initial fall too, whether it’s a wacky or a neko. I do catch some fish after the initial fall, so to me it’s worth popping up a couple times before reeling back in to the boat.

10 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

off of docks while tons of people were also fishing on blisteringly hot days.

I exclusively use weightless soft plastics when skipping docks. Half the time I am using a wacky, and the other half of the time I am using either a tube or something else. No 7 pounders, but usually several 3-5 pounders/season doing this.

 

I am definitely not out there on blistering hot days. But a comfortable sunny 80 degree day is doable.

[bowhunter63]

Cat it out let it drop In the River I like weighted Wacky Rig heads. I snap it off the bottom a little quicker and lift a little higher. With the weighted head it falls a little faster and gets some good action fighting the current 

[RHuff]

I target shallow cover and bluff walls with it depending on the time of year. I like to wacky if can get away with it but if I have trouble hanging up i’ll t-rig it too to keep

it weedless. Make short pitches to the cover and let it fall to bottom. Raise it up and let it fall again. Reel in and repeat. 95% of bites come on initial fall. This technique catches both active and inactive fish. I don’t know that there is a deadlier technique that exists. Once I learned to fish it and confidence grew. The amount of bites I got and the size of my fish both improved. 

[BrianMDTX]

10 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

It's about the most boring way to catch fish of all sizes I can think of but when it's what they want, you can be sure I'll be throwing it. 

I don’t find it boring in the least. When the bite is on, I think it’s a ton of fun skipping a WR under overhanging brush or casting to open spots around sunken logs and watching the line take off. 
 

Then again, I find dragging a TR fun!