Since I haven’t been fossil hunting lately, and my bike rides are the short little rides my knee is restricting me to, here’s a fishing update. I stopped fishing bass tournaments in 2006, and since that time have mainly been a crappie angler. But I’ve been doing more bass fishing the last couple of years, mostly just finesse fishing to suit my aging body. I posted a while back about the new finesse worms I was making and using. On a light shaky head jig, these have worked well late spring post spawn and throughout the summer. But I haven’t had that much success with them in the winter or at spawning time, so I set out to add a new finesse bait to my bass bait arsenal.

I had tried a Ned rig last year. It’s a rig that uses a Finesse TRD bait on a mushroom head jig. I caught some fish on it, but it hangs up so much that it’s really not very practical for Cedar Creek fishing. I read about a new way to fish this same bait, called a “tiny child rig”. This involves adding a tail weight to the bait, and using a Texas rig hook. There’s no better way to test a finesse bait than to watch it and bass’ reaction to it while sight fishing on beds. Lake Fork is a great sight fishing lake that’s not a bad drive from home, so I’ve been making some trips there to test this rig. The results have been pretty spectacular. I’ve never seen as good a bass finesse bait as this. To say I had success with it at Lake Fork is an understatement. I’m looking forward to trying it on Cedar Creek.

Yesterday’s trip to Lake Fork produced three five pounders.

Here are the tiny child rigs I’ve been using. The bait on top is a Zman Finesse TRD. It’s a 2.8 inch bait made of a unique material that’s very stretchy and spongy. The bottom bait is one I’ve started making from a Do-It four inch Senko mold. I’ve been using a tougher plastic than you’d use for an actual Senko, since I want it to hold a tail weight when I glue it in. The color shown has proven to be a good fish catcher, but a perch color I’ve started making has been better for the Fork bed fishing.

Here’s the tail weight I’ve been using. I make them myself with another Do-It mold. Like all the jigs I make, I use a bismuth/tin alloy, and not lead. Most tail weights are just slender weights you stab into the tail of a worm, but these mushroom head tail weights really put the weight at the very tail of the bait, and give a better action in the water. The baits really want to stand up, and with the hook on top while they’re standing, they really hook the fish well. I’ve been using a 1/16 oz weight in these small baits.

The tiny child rig is a unique bass bait unlike anything else I’ve seen. With the hook at the top end of the bait and the weight at the bottom, these are more weedless than any bait I’ve ever used. They also seem to hook bass better than any weedless bait I’ve ever used. And I seemed to be able to catch bedding bass at Fork better than anyone around me, even following others and casting to fish they couldn’t catch. As I said, I’m looking forward to trying the bait out on Cedar Creek.