Bass fishing can be very touch-and-go. Sometimes the fish bite like crazy, and sometimes they don’t care about your lures at all! If that lack of consistency is driving you wacky, why not try out a wacky rig. The results will speak for themselves!
Best Wacky Rig Products
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What is A Wacky Rig?
A wacky rig is a method of rigging a fishing lure using a soft plastic worm just like the Senko worm by Yamamoto. This worm is often curled and grooved just right that bass can’t help themselves and just go straight for the bait. As if that wasn’t enough, these plastic worms are well-colored enough to resemble the real thing. It can be further supplemented by different rigging techniques for even greater bass fishing efficiency!
Of course, using a wacky rig setup comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. For starters, a wacky rig is more efficient at fishing on windy or stormy days. They are also very simple to both assemble and use. However, wacky rigs aren’t that great at catching larger fish, and their performance in cold winter months is hampered due to bass being less active.
How to Set Up A Wacky Rig
Once you’ve gotten the necessary tools – your O-ring tool, a plastic worm, a hook (size 1 gap hooks work best for these), and optionally, a wacky rig tool – it’s relatively simple to start your wacky rig fishing.
Begin by using your O-ring tool (after it’s been wet, of course) to slide the O-ring into the middle of your plastic worm. Once that’s done, run your hook under the O-ring so that it supports both the plastic worm and the ring. You can also opt to add a few weights to help your wacky rig sink faster. That’s about it – but before you start, make sure that the O-ring, hook, and worm are nice and snug!
While this is the most basic way to set up a wacky rig for fishing, there are several other methods for soft plastic lure fishing. Use whichever method appeals to you the most; the only important thing is that the bass keep coming!
How to Fish with a Wacky Rig
One of the best things about wacky rigs is their versatility – you can simply toss a wacky rig in the water at any time of the year! Of course, there are a few things you should take into account.
The ideal fishing spot will depend on the current season. In spring, bass tends to gather in shallow waters due to their spawn. In summer, look for shaded zones where fish are likely to seek refuge from the heat.
When using a wacky rig, be sure to cast as far as possible and let the bait sink to the bottom by itself. Any extra movement can and will scare away bass, and wacky worms have plenty of movement on their own. However, what you can do is add some weight if you think the wacky rig is taking too long to sink.
On the other hand, you want to give your rod a few light twitches as you retrieve it, so as to encourage the wacky rig to flutter again.
Mistakes To Avoid
Wacky rigs aren’t the trickiest rigs to work with in the world, but there are a number of mistakes that anglers make when trying out wacky rigs for the first time.
Don’t move the wacky rig too much
For starters, don’t move the wacky rig around too much in the water. Too much action makes the wacky rig stand out, which will cause bass to avoid it. Wacky rigs have enough flutter action on your own, and more often than not, you’ll get bites on slack lines.
Don’t rely on your rod’s movement to detect bites
As mentioned above, most bites happen on slack lines – which means that if you’re using conventional tells for bites, you’re going to miss quite a bit of them. Instead, pay attention to your line’s movement and use it to judge whether you’ve gotten a bite or not.
Don’t obsess about plastic lure colors
It’s true – bass will go for certain colors of lures more than others, but the whole system is a lot more simple than it seems, and you only really need a few colors. You want red for clear or lightly tinged water on sunny days, green for the same water on cloudy days, and black or dark colors for dirty, brackish water. That’s it!
Hooks Matter
While you shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about the colors of your plastic lures, you should definitely take the time to ensure your hooks are up to the task of wacky rig fishing. You can technically use any hook, but I highly recommend getting a hook specifically designed for wacky rig fishing, such as a VMC Neko Hook.
Best Wacky Rig Products
When it comes to wacky rigs, skill is more important than the price you paid for the tools you have. That’s not to say that tools aren’t important though! To help you get started with your own wacky rig fishing adventure, here are some of the products you may want to look at so that you can complete your list of essential equipment.
VMC Neko Hook
Using the right hook with your wacky bait will not only increase your catch rate. But it will also make for a more pleasant and smooth fishing experience overall. If you haven’t gotten a dedicated wacky rig hook yet, you can’t go wrong with one of these 1/0 VMC Neko Hooks.
Jigity 2-Pack Wacky Rig Tool and O-Rings
This package contains the essentials you’ll need to start your wacky rig fishing experience. This pack contains two O-ring tools and 220 (count ‘em) O-rings. This is more than enough to help you get accustomed to assembling wacky rigs, and still have many left over in case of accidents.
Happy customers have noted that Jigity’s O-rings really live up to their claim of being proper fits – these rings won’t slip and slide off your hook and cost you a prize catch.
Jigity Wacky O-Rings
Alternately, if you just need to restock on O-rings, Jigity sells very affordable, high-quality O-rings. You definitely don’t want to be without O-rings as they give your bait the invaluable flutter motion that makes it tempting to bass.
SANTKOL Senko Worms
You can’t go bass fishing without a good set of Senko worms at your side, and SANTKOL’s Senko Worms package offers great value for money – not only is this package very affordable, but it also comes with 30 Senko worms, 10 1/0 Wacky Hooks, and 10 jig mold hooks.
Plussino Wacky Worm Fishing Lure Kit
If you’re willing to spend a bit more and don’t any wacky rig equipment at all, have a look at Plussino’s Wacky Worm Fishing Lure Kit. This product comes with 1 O-ring tool, 30 O-rings, 40 weights, 20 worm hooks, and 32 5.5’’ wacky worms – among other essential wacky rig equipment. Coincidentally, the Plussino’s holistic approach to wacky rigs (and bass fishing) makes this a great gift for any bass anglers in your family too.
Veteran anglers may note that this set comes with its own weights, meaning that you can also convert to using a Texas rig on the go.
FAQs about Wacky Rigs
How heavy should my line be?
For wacky rigs, lines of six to ten-pound tests are ideal.
Up to what depth can I use my wacky rig?
While you can technically fish at any depth, wacky rigs perform best in shallow water. If you’re not getting bites, you can try adding weight to your wacky rig. It will help it sink faster and target deeper waters.
What’s the best size of hook for a wacky rig?
Wacky rigs work best with 1/0 hooks.
What’s better – the wacky rig, or the Texas rig?
You can’t rightly call one rig “better” than the other as they have their own use cases. Wacky rigs are better at Texas rigs in open water or for getting shyer fish to bite. Texas Rigs, on the other hand, are better at fishing in heavy vegetation and luring bigger bass.
What’s better – the wacky rig, or the Neko rig?
Once again, there’s no “better” rigging method between these two. In fact, Neko rigs are almost similar to wacky rigs, except in one aspect. They have a weight attached to one of their ends. This causes Neko rigs to sink more easily in water and adopt a vertical position that looks like a smaller fish foraging for food in deep water vegetation. Thus, you should use wacky rigs in shallow water, and Neko rigs in deep water.
Get that Bass with a Wacky Rig!
There’s no 100% foolproof method to getting fish to bite. But wacky rigging does present a faster and more effective solution to fishing. While it may take you some time to get used to this new rig, I have no doubts that your bass fishing will be even faster and make for a better experience with wacky rigs.