You just crawl it on the bottom.”Īshley said one of the key benefits of this presentation is that it puts a novel spin on a proven technique - dragging a football-head jig. You just throw it out there, and it’s kind of like slow rolling a spinnerbait.

“You can actually cover a lot more water with (a big worm on a swing head). “It acts kind of like a football-head jig with a bigger profile. “A big worm also works well on a swing-head jig,” Ashley noted. He’s fond of this bait for offshore structure and, like Dudley, he knows the value of giving the fish a different look. He’ll rig a ribbon-tail and a straight-tail worm on a football head and mop up a few more bites with a big target that rumbles across the bottom with less imposition than a crankbait.īassmaster Classic champion Casey Ashley said he fishes a Zoom Old Monster Texas-rigged with a 5/16-ounce weight and a 5/0 Gamakatsu round-bend hook about 90 percent of the time, but he also entertains creative options. When the deep crankbait bite slows, FLW Tour pro David Dudley switches to a 10-inch worm to clean up the area. Casting - The Bassmater Elite Series pro uses a ¼-ounce weight, 20-pound fluorocarbon and a 10-inch mag ribbontail when he’s tossing the big plastics.This is Tietje’s favored big-worm technique, and it’s all about driving that lanky bait through hydrilla or weed mats to irritate bass below with a large profile intruder. Punching - The setup includes a ¾-ounce weight, 30-pound braided line and a 10-inch ribbontail.Here’s a look at Tietje’s favorite tactics for the lanky plastics:

The latter’s known for creating more motion to attract fish in cover, while the subtlety of the former serves well when the fish are pressured or clear water makes them edgy. We don’t want to oversimplify, but for the sake of this discussion, he pointed to straight-tail and ribbon-tail designs. Like most bait categories, big worms come in several different designs, but Tietje recommended keeping it simple. This means that, while bass would rather sit somewhere cool and deep and gobble the occasional hefty meal, theirs is a swift response to the appearance of such offerings.

Indeed, consider the combination of feeding competition and overall summer lethargy.

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