Fishing a Shaky Head Worm Tips | Bass Fishing

You know, fishing a shaky head worm is a deadly
way of catching a lot of fish, pretty muchyear round. And I want to give you a couple
tips on how I like to shaky head fish. You know, one of the misconceptions with the
word shaky head is that you need to shakeit the whole time. And yes, I do shake it
a little bit and pop it along and hop it along. But really, to be honest with you, I don’t
shake it as much as you think. I really wantto drag that bait like I’m doing right now.
It’s on the bottom, I’m dragging it to me. I’ll stop it, shake it a little bit. But
then drag it again. I’m not shaking it theentire time. At least I don’t. I like to just move it along. And the reason
I like to pull it along like that is thatI start to feel what’s down there. I start
to feel a little bit more rocks or maybe ifthere’s a little bit of grass down there,
I feel a little mushy feeling. So, I’ll move it along, drag it, drag it,
drag it, kind of stop it, shake it a littlebit. But I’m doing probably more dragging
than I am shaking. What is a shaky head? A shaky head is basically
a jig head with a straight tail worm on it. That’s basically what we have right there.
That’s a standard shaky head. When I fish a shaky head, most of the time,
the size weight that I like is up to a quarterounce is about as heavy as I’ll ever fish.
And three-sixteenths, three-sixteenths anda quarter is what I fish mostly. Now, if I’m
fishing around docks, and I’m actually tryingto skip this bait up underneath the docks
a lot of times, I’ll fish like an eighth ounce. An eight ounce skips a lot better than the
three-sixteenths and a quarter. But if I’mjust standard casting like we are here going
down the shoreline, a quarter ounce or a three-sixteenthsis really, really good. The other thing I like to do is I like to
rig it up. For me, I like braid, I like theP-line X-braid. This is 10 pound P-line X-braid,
very sensitive, low stretch. It’s just a fantasticline. And I’ll match it up with a fluorocarbon
leader. This is 100% fluorocarbon P-line,10 pound test. I’ll tie a double uni-knot,
maybe about a 5, 6 foot piece of leader andrig that up on my favorite little straight
tailed worm. That’s a little bruiser straighttailed worm, a little watermelon seed color. When I’m shaky head fishing, most of the time,
I’m fishing in clear water. I like naturalcolors, your green pumpkins, you watermelons,
things like that. I don’t fish black and bluestoo much, unless I’m down in Lake Okeechobee
or maybe a little bit stained water. But that’sbasically my shaky head setup. The other thing is, you don’t have to throw
it on a spinning rod. I throw a shaky heada lot of times, believe it or not, because
I feel good with a baitcaster, I like it ona baitcaster. The trick is, when I’m fishing
on a bait caster, I’ll fish it with straightfluorocarbon, 10 pound test. That’s a little
quarter ounce head. Smaller little finesseform, that’s about a 4 1/2 inch. The other
one was about a 6 inch. So 4 1/2 to 6 inchstraight tailed worm. And again, the trick is, shaky head, don’t
shake it the entire time. Make those castsout there and just drag it a little bit and
shake it, drag it a little bit and shake it. I like to target anywhere from the shoreline
out to maybe 10 or 15 foot of water. You gettoo deep it’s hard to fish it that deep. The other little tip I like to do. Now this
is a really good one here. This will helpyou catch a lot more fish. On my shaky head
hooks, okay, I like to take that hook andI like to open it up just a hair. I’ll bend
it just a little bit. Look at that, I justbent it just a little bit. Now what that does,
when I put that hook back in there, allowsthat hook point to be more coming out. If
it’s flat and if it’s closed in a little bit,it’s not coming out of the worm as much. Opening
it up just a little bit gets that point atthe right angle coming out of that worm so
you don’t have to set the hook as hard. You’regonna catch more fish that way. So again, next time you’re out, shaky head
seems like the thing you need to be doing,fish it, you’ll catch a lot of fish. Again,
drag it, shake it a little bit, try it ona spinning rod, and don’t be afraid to try
it on a baitcaster. We’ll see you guys.