Fishing Heavy....Naked

Year in and year out there our different trends in the fishing industry, specifically bass fishing. There was the tungsten craze, the drop shot frenzy, and the west coast infiltration of swim baits. Each one of these new techniques generated a boom and anglers everywhere flocked to purchase the right gear and set out to master the hot new technique in hopes of catching a bunch of fish or, even win a tournament.

I always have my ears open to new ideas, and when a good one comes along I usually to try learn about it just like everyone else. Sometimes, however, there is just a refinement on an old method that can be just as successful.

I like to fish jigs. They catch a lot of fish, and big fish at that. They are also an amazingly versatile lure that can be flipped, pitched, punched, swam, dragged, and hopped. There is one problem with jigs however, in the very thick vegetation, fishing them can be a nightmare. While the invention of weed guards and wedge shaped heads have helped, they still tend to get mired down in heavy vegetation.

Fast forward to the fall of 2009. I was fishing coontail and vegetation so thick that a jig was not getting to the fish, just staying mired in the middle of the vegetation. As the old cliché goes, then a light bulb went off. I decided to make a weedless jig that could be used to punch through vegetation. Using a Naked Bait Co. Skirt weight I made up skirts in colors that I knew would produce. I went on to catch several nice bass between 3 and 4 pounds testing my idea and a new type of specialty "jig" was born.

Now onto the good part, what was I actually doing? The idea is remarkably quite simple in design. Here is the design:

Step 1) Make a skirt using the Skirt Expander and material from the Naked Bait Company

Step 2) Fasten the Skirt on the Naked Bait skirt weight by sliding the o ring into the groves of the weight. Cut the tag ends. (You will now have a skirted weight.)

Step 3) Run the line through the fishing weight and tie on a fishing hook appropriately sized for your soft plastic trailer. I like to use a Poor Boy's Baits Bertha Bug.

Step 4) Rig your plastic weedless with the hook buried in the plastic.

Step 5) Catch fish!

Why does this work? Simple. I can put a jig "profile" in a place where a jig would be a ineffective to fish. It is the most weedless way to catch a bass in this situation. It will take you about a minute to make this set-up. But, if you fish a lot of heavy cover as I do, it will save you hours of pulling vegetation from your lure and trying to muscle a stuck jig back to the boat.

Lee Hillman puts Bass 2.0 in the top 2

Lee Hillman finished in 2ND place in the first ever Louisisana Fishing Buddies tournament. Held on November 28Th on the East Pearl in Slidell, La. With 5 fish going 10.49 lbs Lee was only missing a kicker to put him over the first place team who had 5 fish going 12.29 lbs. Lee had his 5 fish limit in the first 1 hour of the tournament. Lee said " I was fishing a ditch off the river and stay there for 4.5 hours catching about 45 fish in the same spot. I must of had over 4 limits of weigh fish. Its was unreal. I started off using a June Bug Zoom trick worm with a 3/8 oz weight and was catching them every other cast. When I didn't get a bite I picked up a 1/4 oz Red eye shad trap and was catching them almost every cast. I was fishing a ditch that went from 3 feet to 8 with under water grass just before the drop off. I would cast into the shallow water and let it sink down the edge. If they wouldn't hit it on the fall they sure would crash it slow rolling it back to the boat. The water temp was 54.5 and the air temp Early was around 44. The falling tide with water rolling out of the ditch played a key part. After the bite slowed down and I wasn't culling I decided to flipping a 3/8oz black and blue jig. I did some running and gunning to see if I could find a kicker in the last 2.5 hours but was only able to get 4 more bites and none would help what I had already in the live well. The winter time is when I love to use them r-trap baits. I have won alot of money in the winter time with those baits. This is just one more of them outstanding days. Its not to often you can catch a limit in the frist hour. I did try tossing a bigger trap to see if the biger fish wanted something bigger but, never could get a bait with the bigger trp. I guess its true size does matter. Only thing is in fishing the winter you want to down size and thats where the bites came from a smaller size trap." Congrats on a job well done and putting Bass 2.0 on the board.