Ok so during a recent fishing trip I wad catching tons of bass both big and small on the ned rig. Half way through the trip I ran out of zman plastics. So I look into my 6 year old nephews tackle box. I found a luck e craft floating worm kit from walmart. I cut off a peice and set it on the hook. Worked perfectly. Highly recommended for the ned. I wont be buying zman until I finish this 48 peice kit. 

 

Was catching a bunch of bass on the Zman jig and TRD. My boat partner had nothing like it so we went to town and all he could find was a 3" Yum dinger and a crappie jig. The next day, he out fished me with it.

I have had great luck with the Arkie Salty crawlin fry cut into 3 pieces, thinking it represents a helgie. Also use an anglers choice wart Hawg cut in 1/2. The true Ned to borrow a line from, @Team9nine, is the Ned is a sub 4" soft plastic on a 1/8 ounce or less small hooked jig. Zman baits work well for it, but they aren't the definition of the Ned Rig.

Be for I heard of z man or the Ned rig I use to put half a cheap stick worm (bigbitebaits)  on a darter or ball jig head and hammer the smallies. Some days the official Ned rig works better some days the fish don't care. The combos are infinite your just mimicking small prey.

Before there was Z-Man and the TRD there was the original beetle that was used, then as more people adopted it the offerings expanded. When the Senko was introduced it became the go-to finesse rig bait, just cut the 5" in half and you had the ultimate finesse rig. I use a bait from a small company called River Rock Baits, they make a worm called a PC Ringer which is a 3" Senko type worm but it is a little thinner than a Senko, I get them with salt and without salt depending on how I'm using them. I tend to use the light heads with a bait that has salt in it for deep water, but if I'm fishing shallow or I'm seeing suspended fish I'll use the no salt bait for that ultra slow fall.

This morning I used a TRD for a trailer on an 1/8 green pumpkin bitsy bug jig and caught a 4 pound bass. All my other friends got skunked.