How to Catch More Bass With a Senko

Hey, if you're new to bass fishing, you've probably heard of the Senko by now. Or a lure that's similar to a Senko.

The Senko style baits that's that long stick of plastic that looks like nothing. It looks like it shouldn't. Work at all, but man they really work really really well they're dynamite and a lot of times when I'm taking someone out fishing for the first time or they they don't fish for bass very often I'll give them a Senko and they catch a lot of fish it's a dynamite lure man.

So there's a couple of different ways though you can fish it to kind of up your game in a couple different ways to rig it, especially if you've never fished one before listen up and I'm going to give you a couple of tips here that even the advanced guys probably don't know about so I'm going to lean in here guys you're going to get. Tips here that. Well, really up your game.

Let's start with the wacky rig. A lot of guys like to fish at wacky rig. Basically what that is is you just take the hook and you hook it right in the middle just like that and it's just the the ends.

What they do is it kind of bows up like a you and the ends just kind of flutter down somewhat. It's kind of bows like this and it flutters down and the ends kind of wiggle and something about it, man. The bass just absolutely love it, man. They go crazy over it.

Now, wacky style is very, very popular for that reason. However, there's a couple different ways to rig it.

Now, like I said, you can rig it right. Just put the hook right through the middle and you're good to go. Couple of problems with that though.

Number one, it tends to tear up the bait a lot because that's where all the pressure is. You catch a fish or two and it rips the bait in half and you're done. So you go through a lot of baits. That can be an expensive proposition if you're catching a lot of fish.

The other is the bulk of the bait, it just it's right there in the gap of the hook. If you use too small of a hook then you don't get a good hook set on the fish and you lose a lot of fish that way, just mainly because that's too much plastic in the way and it can't penetrate the hook. The mouth of the fish and you just don't get a good grip on them and it comes out.

So what a lot of guys do is they use an O-ring, some kind of a plastic ring that goes around the middle, you know it goes around it like that and then you take the hook and you slide it in underneath the skin of that o-ring and that is pretty good.

The bait doesn't get tore up as much. It still gets tore up at that spot. Eventually it might last a couple more bites and there's no plastic in the way of that hook. However, you still got that ring, that little band there and that's, and that does interfere with it a bit and you still can lose some fish.

But that's a very productive way of doing it and that way also. It's it could get snagged on a lot of things. When you're fishing it, the hook is exposed and you can get hung up a lot.

What I like to do is I use this little device by Gee Crack. And it's really cool. It just sticks up through the bait and it has a little hole on top and that's where you slip your hook through and there you go. It works really well.

I use. The Antenna hook from Gamakatsu and that makes it really weedless. And now you've got the best of everything. You don't have any bulk or anything in the way of the hook to get a good hook set. You've got the antenna in there to make it weedless.

And because it's just this little thing that's poking through the bait, it doesn't get tore up as much. It makes it last even longer.

So you know, this is probably the best setup to date that I've seen. And so I've been using that a lot and this is relatively new as I'm making it as of the making of this video.

So give that setup. The best shot and you're bound to catch more fish and you're going to make your baits last a lot longer.

Now, another type of bait that I set up that I like to use is the Texas rig.

And the Texas rig is, is the way we started fishing Senkos right when they first came out. And it's still very productive. If you got a lot of weeds or wood, a lot of things you're getting snagged on with a wacky rig doesn't really work very well.

Texas rig it and weightless, very simple way to do it just like this looks great.

The thing is, if you notice there's a little bobber stopper in the front and the reason I put that there is because you know, if you’re fishing in those weedy areas, especially milfoil and other stuff or you know, or maybe some algae in the water and it clumps up in the front of that bit. It collects a lot of the weeds right there and you're always picking it off before you make the next cast.

Well, put that little bobber stopper there before you tie the hook to it. That kind of works as like a little cone and you'd be surprised you get a lot less weeds. And gunk in the front of that bait.

Especially if you say you've tore it up, this is what happens. You catch a few bass on it and that front starts to get tore up where that where you've Texas rigged it. Well, it doesn't. Don't throw the bait away.

Just pinch off the front quarter inch and re thread. It works great. But now you got a real, you know, front to it, right? It's just a flat nose.

And again, that little bobber stopper in front is going to help reduce it collecting a lot of weeds. Just a little tip, but it works really well.

And. These two types of rigs work really well in a shallow water fish inspection. The weedy water, you know, you can skip that wacky rig up underneath docks and catch a bunch of fish all day long.

You can throw that Texas rig in and around weeds and along the shoreline either. If you're fishing from the shore, that inside weed line, that's where you got the weed line and then the shore, that weed line right there, bass will cruise along there looking for bait fish.

If you're in a boat, you can do the outside weed line and again, that can be very productive area too. The bass will patrol those areas looking for bait fish.

Docks like I mentioned points work really well. Sharp banks can be very productive. Those just drops off in deep water really quick.

If you got chunk rock or lay downs or stump in the water, those are the things I'd be targeting with those two rigs with the Senko.

Now a third way to do it is with a split shot rig.

Now split shot is. You know, it's been around for decades. It was very popular when it came out. It kind of lost popularity and I think because of that it's even better because there's not as many anglers fish in it.

It's kind of my secret squirrel trick. If I'm again brand new guy with me, somebody or my sister that doesn't fish at all, I'll rig up a split shot rig with a four inch Senko on the back of it.

And give that to her and let her drag it around. She can make casts with a spinning outfit, cast it to floating docks, what have you, what's out there. And she'll catch fish with it. She'll catch a ton of fish with it. It's very, very productive.

It's it's a very subtle way of presenting the bait. You're just using a small like 1/8 oz or smaller split shot weight or like a mojo cylindrical style weight. That works even better because it doesn't get hung up as much. You can even do it around riprap. You're not going to get hung up as much. With that little cylindrical weight.

And you can drag it around in deeper water. Here's where you can go in 10 to 15 foot of water and, and just drag it around it cast out over a point and drag it over the top of a point.

If you got some scattered boulders or stumps or any kind of cover that's around there, dragging in and around through that works really, really well. You can target with it.

So you got a specific area like the end of a dock, you can throw it out there. It'll fall down right down the tip of the front of the dock.

Again, the four inch works really well and even go to a three inch if the bite is really off. If you've got a post front conditions or in cold water like during the winter time, a split shot 3 inch Senko can be dynamite. Don't don't underestimate the power of that. You can catch a lot of fish.

As for colors for all these baits. Man, I think there's well over 100 colors that Yamamoto makes for the Senko. And then you've got all of these others, the Yum Dinger and a bunch of other manufacturers that make their own version of the Senko and there's hundreds of colors out there. It can be overwhelming.

As a general rule, it's more about the action of the bait than the color. So don't get too hung up on the color. Pick one that you think will work and you'd probably catch bass with it. I don't think there's a bad color out there, but to give you some. Guidance.

If you're really grasping at straws here, you can't go wrong with green pumpkin. Green pumpkin is a universal color that works pretty much in any body of water, so if you've never bought a package of Senkos, first one should be green pumpkin.

Other colors I'd like to use I like to use watermelon with red seed in it. That that color works really well, especially in lakes that are a bit stained to clear water or even gin clear water.

I like smoke with pepper flake in it. Again, that works universal, especially if it's got a cloudy day. That works really well with a dark, dark day. I don't know what it is with that color, but if I said if it's an overcast day or if it's raining, I throw that color. I tend to do a little bit better with that.

That said, I bet if I could pick any color just a Random with my eyes closed and rig a Senko with whatever color I find, I'm probably going to catch a bunch of fish with it.

So don't get too crazy with it. You don't need a plethora of colors. Find, you know, four or five that you really like, like I just mentioned, and stick with it. And you're going to catch yourself a bunch of fish with it.

So hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.