Wacky Rig...The Most Common Rigging Mistake Even Some Pro Anglers Make With Them

hey everybody hope you're all doing good today uh december 22nd when i'm filming this video and december 22nd is always a good day for me because uh it marks yesterday is the winter solstice shortest day of the year today the days start getting two minutes longer every day which i love because you know i there's nothing more i like than summer time long days shorts t-shirts so bring it on i'm ready for that but um hey i was going to do if you guys saw him in the video yesterday i was talking about you know what age does an angler peak in their fishing and i was going to do a couple more like that but it seemed like it didn't go across with everybody that i mean seems like a lot of people just weren't that interested in it so instead i'm going to sort of refocus a little bit and start going back through some of the comments i've been getting about what everybody's wanting to hear about and a lot of it has been you know a lot of fish and tips stuff and one of them i've been got getting a lot is what's the best way to set up a wacky rig because you know wacky rigs are becoming like one of the top techniques uh it's been around forever but the last four or five years they've really become a top technique because with the heavy fishing pressure we have in our lakes a wacky rig is a real subtle presentation it catches big fish and it's just a really good technique and what i wanted to share with you all today a little bit was was probably there's a two or three mistakes that anglers make when they rig a wacky rig even professional anglers in my opinion and i sort of want to explain why i feel that way based upon my own experience and talking to other people so let's get into it first of all this is how most people rigged the wacky rig they this is a zoom zlinky uh soft uh plastic stick bait most people take the you know the o-ring put it in the middle put the hook in like this and a lot of people even some some people even use like a uh like some type of a snail stipe hug which is terrible you always want to use a straight shank you'll you'll get a lot more better hookups with a straight shank than you will any type of a of a snails type snail type hook on there also it's fairly weedless even though it's an exposed hook but anyway this is how most people rig it even professional anglers a lot of a lot of mo in fact most pros probably rig it like this but i'm here to offer the viewpoint that this is a mistake if you rig it like this and there's several different ways this is the way that i like to rig my uh soft plastic stick baits like the zlinky i just hook it straight through the middle like that with a straight shank hook and there's a couple different reasons why i do this first of all a wacky rig is a sight oriented bait it's mainly for clear water even though you can can't catch fish on them and off colored water but it's a bait that the fish get real close to and they study a lot of bass will get little nose right down on these baits and they really look at it and anytime you've got like the o-ring in there that's just another visual deterrent to the bass if they're really finicky whereas if you just hook it straight through the middle like that you have a lot more natural look and presentation now you know a lot of people say well you know what do you know randy i see pros all the time doing it you know rigging it like this sure fine you can catch fish on it like that but i this this is my viewpoint on it john cox is probably the top wacky rig fisherman in the country he's probably won more big tournaments the last five years on a wacky rig than anyone out there go back and look at some of the videos with john cox john cox rigs his wacky rigs like this he does not rig them like that what happens the reason i like it like this is when you cast it out and has fallen through the water it falls like this and the hook point you know completely parallel the hook point stays up as it's going down the legs wiggle real nice and not only does it keep it more weedless but when that fish hits it you set the hook since the hook point as pimp is pointed like this you get a lot better penetration usually in the roof of the mouth and whereas if you cast this one out there like this with the o-ring it sort of falls at a cock-eyed angles like this down there through there you get hung up with it more and in my opinion you don't have the the best hook angle for hook penetration now a lot of people say well i want to rig it like this because you know i don't want to lose a bunch of these you know expensive soft plastic jerk soft soft plastic stick baits it's been my experience that i lose just as many of these when i've got it hooked with the o-ring when the fish comes up and jumps it'll just come off of there and here's a tip for you on how you don't lose as many hooking it the way that i'm talking about right here when you rig it like this one of the reasons that you lose a lot or anglers lose a lot of baits when they rig it like this is they keep throwing it like this every 10 minutes or so or every five minutes simply take take the hook out and just come through at a different position on the worm and what happens is when you do that you have a fresh piece of plastic in there that's a little bit stiffer and you don't lose the baits like you will if you just keep throwing it so just keep keep taking that thing in and out in and out another thing on here a mistake that i see a lot of people make is they use a soft plastic stick bait like this lengthy or the or the sink or whatever right out of the box and what i do on mine is notice how notice how rough mine is right here it's all gnarlied up and rough like that i take a knife and i'll lay it flat on the table and i rough up the sides with it what happens is that takes and it gets some of the salt to the surface not only does it make it look like more natural and more like wounded but it softens up the bait and makes it more pliable more naturalistic in the water so you can see this one right here you know that i haven't done anything to it and this is the same bait this is zoom's linky and it's the same bait that i've roughed up i roughed up this one right here this one straight out of the package notice the difference on that and that since again since it's a visual type bait little things like that will make a big difference in the presentation with it but anyway that's my two big tips with it like that um just try this a little bit start hooking it just the old style way in the middle straight shank i use the gamakatsu g finesse straight shank a heavy cover flipping hook in it works really good on that i never lose any fish on it it's fairly weedless and just try rigging it the way like just like this without the o-ring and just keep taking this thing in and out every time every 10 minutes or so and you know you're not going to lose many of those things but anyway i think it's going to add up for to more bites for you it's a lot more natural presentation your hookups are better on it it's just a all-around better way to rig the bait but anyway like i said going to get back to some work here um got a lot of still stuff we're doing with with maps on fish the moment we're finishing up our uh the last part of our winter lake breakdowns if you go to fishthemoment.com you can see them we've got a bunch of winter map uh winter lake breakdowns on it we're going to be transitioning into the spring lake map breakdowns after the first of the year so we'll have all your favorite lakes on there and like i said if you've got a lake on there that you like to fish go into our winter breakdown section check them out thank you like that also one again i want to remind everybody january 7th we got our advanced jerkbait seminar uh fishthemoment.com you can sign up there it's going to be like sort of a master's class in jerkbait fish and it's going to be really good with that but anyway that's today's tip hope you guys are doing good keep the comments coming please subscribe if you haven't shoot me some ideas on videos you'd like to see got a bunch of them coming up we got a list a mile long of people of things that people want to hear we're going to talk about so i'll be talking about some tips like this and you know just some old time stories too but one final thing on the uh the you know the rigging like this is you know like i said i'm not telling anybody that you know this is the bad way to rig it you know if you are successful with it like this and you like to rig it like this by all means continuing everything that i do in my tips that i give you all is a matter of my own personal preference things that have worked for me that i'm trying to share with you to try to help you all catch some more fish and like i said it's everybody's got their own opinion on fishing and sometimes one person's right sometimes the other person's wrong you know sometimes so that's just the way it is but anyway this is a tip i think you're really going to like i think you'll you'll probably modify your bass and start doing them like this from now and once you try it so hope you guys are doing good have a good christmas we'll talk to y'all later

Channel: Intuitive Angling With Randy Blaukat

Views: 100,591

Rating: 4.9204245 out of 5

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Id: Zq2vTnvj854

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020