Drew Benton’s Go-To Fall Finesse Setup | Bassresource Tips

Hey guys, Bassmaster Elite Series pro Drew Benton here with bassresource.com to talk to you a little bit about worms and worms in the fall.

You know the fall time frame for me, I'm actually done with my tournament season. I'm geared up getting in the woods, deer hunting. I don't spend a lot of time on the water, you know, but the fall is a great time to get on unpressured lakes because a lot of people like me are transitioning in the hunting season. There's a lot of great places to fish, but they can be a challenge sometimes.

You know, fall is a time of transition. You got lake turnover, you got the baitfish factor where they're moving back in the pockets, they're transitioning off the main lake in the pockets and a lot of fish are following that bait. You have scenarios where they've seen baits all year long, they've been beat up. They're tough to catch and one set up that really excels when lakes are tough and the bite is really, really tough is a Neko rig.

And funny story about this Neko rig. A lot of us southern boys have called it the Neeko rig. And I was just told today it's actually Neko. Neko is a Japanese word for cat. And like a cat toy, you know you're trying to trick these bass into biting and a Neko is a fantastic way to do that.

I offer some sort of finesse worm. I feel like a finesse worm on a Neko is the way to go. It has a little bit more action as you're twitching it along and I put whatever size nail weight for whatever depth I'm fishing. I'll go anywhere from a 1/64th if I'm super shallow to a 1/8 if I'm a little bit deeper.

This is a unique way that I've been trying here lately. This is a Geecrack product, not a sponsored product, but it's called the Neko Hack. A lot of us call it the Neko Hack. It's basically a little plastic spike. It's got a T on the back of it. And that spike, you just stick it through your plastic and it's got a little loop that you can stick your hook through and clip off the top of it. And it really is an invisible presentation and it keeps that worm on there really well.

You can use an O-ring. There's a plethora of different little rigging hacks to fish this Neko or rig this Neko that you can't go wrong with. I'm trying a lot of them because it's become a staple on the tournament scene here lately. The Bassmaster Classic was just won on this bait.

This is the weedless version of the Gamakatsu Stinger hook and it's got the nano coat technology, so it's real mute finish smooth, is not going to rust and on a long cast this hook just drives home. It's got a good size barb on it and I paired that or I tie that to 10 LB to 12 LB leader. For my leader I use Seaguar InvizX. I use Seaguar InvizX on all my fluorocarbon line so whenever I go to a leader it's hard for me to get away from that InvizX line of fishing lines that they make because it's so strong. Has the perfect amount of stretch and you know, it's just never failed me.

So I've never changed the new PE 8X braid. I may be saying that wrong, it might be PEX 8 braid, but the gist of it is 8 strand braid. It's super thin diameter so I can get away with 16 to 18 LB test braid, but it's the diameter of 10 LB test line so I can make extremely long casts. It's super forgiving. It's a bright pink color, so when you're throwing it and you're watching your line, you can see that line jump really good.

Again, it's just a fantastic setup. I throw it on a 7 foot medium heavy Phenix MBX rod. Again, this is a graphite rod in their Phenix lineup. I can feel the most subtle of bites and the way you're fishing this thing, you're casting it out and as it sinks, it'll resemble a shaky head because you got that nail weight in there and it sinks just like that and it'll actually stand up kind of on the bottom, similar to a shaky head.

But the whole magic of this rig is whenever you're twitching it back to the boat instead of it hopping like this like a shaky head, it's almost like the mixture, the perfect mixture of a shaky head and a wacky rig all in one and it's a unique action these fish haven't seen all year and it's going to get you those extra bites in the fall.

And that's the reason why I opted for the most, I think the most effective finesse bait that we have right now that's, you know, all these baits go through fads. They go through times where they catch them and I think it's because, you know, like when the spinnerbait came along. Fish had never seen it. People just destroyed them on a spinnerbait. And then as time went on, they saw more spinnerbaits and you don't catch as many fish on them.

And I think baits do the same thing. They go through these fads because they've seen wacky rigs, they've seen shaky heads, they've seen Texas rig worms. And this is the hot bait right now. Is this a Neko. And that's the reason why I chose it for the fall. And that's the reason why it just simply gets bit.

Next time you're on the fall, you find yourself in a tough fishing situation. Or anytime of the year you find yourself in a tough fishing situation where they're not biting, that Neko rig will just simply get it done.