(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Kurt Dove started his angling career in the Mid-Atlantic and northeast, so even though he later moved to Texas, the finesse gene never left his system. In recent years he’s worked hard to master new techniques like the Neko Rig and dropshot, but it’s the Ned Rig that has most recently risen to the top of his favorites.
He throws it in a wide variety of cover, any time he’s fishing less than 15 feet deep and the water is relatively clear, especially if the fish are pressured. “The only situation where I don’t use the Ned Rig is in big heavy-grass areas,” he said. “It gets lost in the mess.”
Despite its universal appeal, it’s not a one-size-fits-all technique, and Dove tailors his plastic and jighead to meet specific conditions. His tackle, however, remains largely unchanged. He likes a 2500-sized reel, which allows him to pick up a lot of slack when a fish is moving away, and he pairs it with a 7-foot dropshot rod that allows him to skip a bait a long way, but also has the backbone to set the hook on bigger than average fish. While he’ll use as much as a 20- or 25-foot leader of fluorocarbon on occasion, most of the time he limits it to 8 feet or so, and he uses 30-pound braid with no higher than 10-pound test fluoro. In fact, 7-pound test Toray is his most universal choice, and he said that the similar diameters of his braid and leader make tying a uni-to-uni knot easy.
His two favorite jigheads are the Hayabusa Brush Easy, which features a ballhead shape, and the Hayabusa Baby Shooting Ball, which is more of a football jig. Both feature light-wire hooks, though, which are critical because a hard hookset will lead to disaster. He just wants to pull into the fish and let that super-sharp hook find an entry point. While he’ll go light with the Brush Easy, often a 1/20- or 1/13-ounce head, he might go as heavy as 1/8-ounce with the Shooting Ball, but he also uses his choice of plastic to affect the fall and action of his lure. It could be anything from a portion of a Senko or Ocho, up to the traditional Z-Man TRD.
Around docks, he uses a smaller plastic and smaller head to obtain a spiraling action similar to that of a tube. Around open-water rocks, he likes a larger profile and a heavier head for more of a gliding action. Upsizing his presentation allows him to call fish from longer distances. He also tends to work the lure more in open water as opposed to around docks, although he noted that “99 percent of the bites are on the first drop or on the first hop or two.” The key is to let it fall on a slack line, watching your line all the way, and then when you’re convinced that it’s on the bottom, pick up on it “and feel where he’s at.”
While he doesn’t use it in thick grass, he will use the Ned Rig around grass edges, usually for largemouths that have been heavily pressured, “after I’ve utilized some reaction-type baits.”
If you want to learn some of the other keys to Dove's Ned Rig expertise, including how he decides whether to throw to the edge of a laydown first, or into “the meat” first, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
