“Oneness is a pursuit of perfection.”
That's what Ned Kehde told me. You’ll recognize his name as the leading pioneer in today’s finesse craze, coined “Ned Rig” fishing for good reason.
Kehde is not the originator of the technique, by his own accord. He is, however, the most knowledgeable angler I’ve ever interviewed in terms of finesse fishing and its evolution into a mainstay of today’s bass culture.
I’d talked with Kehde in preparation for a feature piece in Bass Fishing Magazine, to appear this fall. My notes covered 11 pages.
I’m given quite a bit of liberty in my writing within the bass fishing world; my editors long ago giving up on any attempt to fit me in the mold. I don’t do hype and often get lost in the aspects of fishing that casual anglers can’t understand. No, to me the secret of bass fishing lies in the intimate details one could only recognize as a result of tremendous time on the water. The internal struggle and pursuit, perhaps, of perfection.
Of course, we’ll never get there. No one will ever perfect bass fishing. If that was the case, Kevin VanDam would have ended things long ago. Instead, our sport forces us to always just try to get close. Do our best to come up with hard and fast rules in an otherwise rule-less game.
In Kehde, I see a man trying to come up with guidelines of his own to fish by. And that’s what I like about him.
This, again, can only be accomplished by thousands of hours of testing, unaffected by daily trends. Kehde has taken this practice to the extreme. For over 50 years, he’s tested and recorded results on bass waters all across the country, concentrating his efforts in the Midwest. His logs, as described in the upcoming feature, include tens of thousands of fish catches.
“I’ve always been a numbers guy,” he told me. Later, I’d wonder: Was Kehde referring to the number of fish he caught, or the numbers in his log books? Those same bass becoming test subjects to prove or disprove his latest hypothesis on how to catch more.
Kehde’s remarkable records are surpassed only by his memory. In an off-the-cuff conversation, he can recall unimaginable specifics. “In 1970, we relied on a jigworm made with a blue Fliptail plastic worm that was dyed in red ink to create a specific roo tbeer hue.”
Statements like these are common, and come one after another when interviewing Kehde. They’re all factual truth, backed up in his logs.
Through his decades of learning, Kehde credited numerous influential teachers. Bill ward, Guido Hibdon (Sr. and Jr.), Drew Reese, Shin Fukae.
All presented Kehde with a clue. Here, it’s important to recognize this aspect of advanced learning in fishing. The greatest subjects often pick up a single detail from numerous instructors.
Many of us have this in some aspect of our fishing. Maybe it’s a technique like cranking. The best anglers will spend thousands of hours defining their own technique, rather than following in the track of others. They won’t listen to the rhetoric, whether that be rules on glass rods or wide-gap hooks. Those same obsessive anglers only grab a component when they see it work in action. Then they test and re-test before deciding on a rule.
This repeats itself. Slowly, a recognizable guide appears describing the formula. The house odds, if you will. Rods, reels, line, hooks, technique and more. It’s David Fritts’ cranking or Denny Brauer and the Rattleback. More recently, Stephen Browning and the Jack Hammer.
Occasionally we come across an angler who is able to repeat this process across numerous spectrums. Most of the big name pros are close. But sometimes there’s a subject that seems to immediately eliminate the wasted aspects of learning and tune right into the secrets from the start. I’m told Aaron Martens was this way. I know Bryan Thrift is.
For the rest, the best we can do is work on what’s right in front of us. Sometimes this aspect of learning will change with our attention. I’m guilty of that; practicing one aspect of fishing for a while, then losing interest. Friends are always surprised when I exhibit no desire to catch smallmouth bass. It’s just something I’m done with. But I can spend hours, days even, experimenting with a box of frogs.
The best info comes from those who stay the course and adapt with the changing times. The Ned Kehdes. Fliptails to TRDs. It’s these anglers who we learn the most from, because they’ve perfected their technique as far as humanly possible. They’ve done the legwork.
“The absoluteness I give this started as an old man,” Ned claims. But that’s not true. It started as a pursuit. One that seemed weird to many and obsessive to some, but later vitally important as we all sling Ned Rigs around and can’t believe the fish they catch.
And we get to do so without first spending 50 years in a boat.
I hope you can join me in the near future when we learn more about Ned. His fascination is fascinating, and led to a fantastic revolution of finesse.
(Joe Balog is the often-outspoken owner of Millennium Promotions, Inc., an agency operating in the fishing and hunting industries. A former Bassmaster Open and EverStart Championship winner, he's best known for his big-water innovations and hardcore fishing style. He's a popular seminar speaker, product designer and author, and is considered one of the most influential smallmouth fishermen of modern times.)
