Since the 2009 fishing season has come to end I thought I start writing about some of the things that I used in 2009. Let’s start with the shaky head rig. The shaky rig is not a new rig but with the success that pros like Kevin VanDam, Skeet Reese, and Michael Iaconelli have had with this rig, it’s hard not to give it a try.
For those of you that don’t already know what a shaky head rig is I will briefly describe it. The shaky head is a very basic worm and jig head combination. With this rigs growing publicity came a large selection of jig heads made specifically for this technical. My personal favorite is a 1/8 oz football head with the pigtail wire holder that the worm screws on to. There has also been a ton of different styles of worms made for this technical, my favorite would be the 5” Berkley Powerbait Shaky Worm in green pumpkin. I fished this rig on a 7’ medium action spinning rod with 8lb Triple Fish fluorocarbon.
I wouldn’t say this is favorite way to fish but the shaky head gained my respect as a great way to catch fish. I used this technique as more of a fallback rig when the fishing got tough. I will tell you that it works very well when the fishing got slow. My favorite areas to fish the shaky head was a hard bottoms such as, roadbeds, creek channels, rocky bottom, or rip rap. A majority of the fish I caught on this rig were in the 12-14” range but I was able to get a few nice ones as well.
I found this video which does a great job of showing the action of the 5” Berkley Powerbait Shaky Worm.
That is a great video that shows how the tail of the berkley shaky worm stands up and moves during a veritcal tank presentation. You can just imagine putting some current in that water and letting the worm and current make its own action without moving the bait. My advice is to try the 4 3/4″ slim shaky worm that berkley makes. Green pumpkin is always a killer and try dipping the tail chartruse.