Scott Martin Fishing Tips, Reports and Articles

Worm fishing basics; Part two: The wacky rig
Here’s how I fish soft plastics--the most commonly used freshwater lures

Another way I like to rig my soft plastics is called the Wacky rig. It’s a very simple way of fishing soft plastic baits, and the essential need here is to use the right kind of worm. You want to utilize a very straight worm like a Gulp! Sinking Minnow, or some type of long finesse worm that doesn’t have any kind of a tail to it. You basically want a very straight, do-nothing worm.
What I’ll do with that worm is hook it right in the middle in the egg sac. On most worms, there will be a spot in the middle of the worm that looks like an egg sac, and most manufacturers build that into the worm to show where the middle is. It’s kind of like a middle joint.
I’ll rig the hook directly through the egg sac so the worm is dangling on the hook evenly. The hook is totally exposed, and the only problem is it can get hung up in the grass. I’ll throw a hook without a weedguard when I’m fishing in open water. If I’m fishing an area that has a lot of vegetation or stumps or docks, I’ll actually rig it on a weedless hook. Any weedless hook will work, I sometimes even use my leftover 3/0 or 4/0 shiner hooks with a nice weedguard on them.
When you’re fishing a worm wacky style, you want to use a worm that has a lot of weight to it. The Gulp! Sinking Minnow is designed for rigging wacky style, which means it’s heavy which allows the bait to sink down a little bit. Worms that have salt impregnated in them are heavier as well.
If you’re throwing a worm that doesn’t have any salt in it, or doesn’t sink as well as a worm designed for fishing wacky style, you can overcome that problem by placing a little split shot weight on the line just above the hook. Just crimp it on the line right above the knot, and that will add enough weight to the bait to make it sink a little quicker.
Another way to make the worm sink at a faster rate is to thread a little metal washer onto the worm, and push it down to where the hook is placed. If you leave the washer on one end of the worm, it will sink unevenly, and defeat the purpose of rigging the worm with a hook in the middle. You can also thread a small, thin nail into the center of the worm to add weight.
The other key when you’re wacky worming is to throw the bait on lighter line. If you use braided line, you’ll want to use 15 or 20 pound braid that has a very small diameter and allows that bait to sink naturally to the bottom. A lot of times I throw it on 10- or 12-pound Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon, which sinks better than monofilament.
If you throw this bait on heavy line, the line has so much resistance in the water that it takes much more time for the bait to sink, and it doesn’t look as natural as with a lighter line.
I really don’t give a wacky worm much action other than to let it fall and do its thing as it’s sinking. The worm will twist and spin as it falls, and that’s what the bass really like. If you move the worm much, the bass will usually just follow it.
Because I’m throwing lighter line, I’ll often use a spinning rod. I like a 6.5 foot medium heavy Kistler Helium Rod and I’ll match that with the new Abu Garcia 804 reel. I like that reel because it has a tremendous drag system on it. No matter what reel you shop for, pay attention to how good the drag is. When you’re dealing with light line, you want to make sure you have a reel that has an extremely smooth drag that can do the work without you having to worry that it’s going to stick and break the fish off. Then I can let the drag do the work when fighting the fish.
Next week: The Carolina rig