The weightless wacky rig
A weightless wacky rig is a soft stickbait fished with no weight, hooked through its middle so both ends quiver as it sinks. Rigged weedless through the nose instead, it slips over cover. Either way the draw is the slow, shimmying, natural fall, the presentation bass find hard to refuse in the shallows.
| Component | Spec |
|---|---|
| Main line | Light fluorocarbon, 8 to 12 lb; or a light braid main line to a fluorocarbon leader |
| Hook | Finesse wide-gap wacky hook, size 1 to 2/0: a #1 or 1/0 for a 4" stick, 1/0 to 2/0 for a 5" stick. A weedless wacky hook (with a light weed guard) for the weedless version |
| O-ring (optional) | A small silicone O-ring round the middle of the bait, hooked under the ring; makes one bait last 15 to 30 fish instead of one or two |
| Soft plastic | Soft stickbait (Senko-type), 10 to 13 cm (4 to 5"). Natural tones (green pumpkin, watermelon) in clear water; a darker tone in stained water |
What it's for
Largemouth and smallmouth bass in the shallows and around cover, when the take comes on a slow, subtle fall. With no weight, the soft stickbait sinks slowly and naturally, and that gentle, lifelike descent is the whole appeal: bass watch it fall and eat it on the way down. Hooked wacky, through the middle, both ends quiver and shimmy as it sinks, a soft pulsing action that draws fish in clear and pressured water. Hooked weedless through the nose, the same bait skips under docks and overhanging trees and slides over weed and timber without snagging. It is a finesse rig for spooky, shallow and hard-fished fish, and it is one of the easiest rigs to catch on.
The rig at a glance
Read top to bottom, the way it falls. The main line (light fluorocarbon around 8 to 12 lb, or a light braid main line to a fluorocarbon leader) comes down to the hook. There are two ways to rig it. Wacky: a finesse wide-gap hook is tied straight to the line with a Palomar knot and passed through the exact middle of the soft stickbait, often through a small silicone O-ring fitted round the body so the bait lasts longer, with both ends left to hang free. Weedless: the same hook, or a weedless wacky hook, is pushed into the nose of the bait and the point buried back into the body so it slips over cover. There is no weight on either version. The defining detail is the weightless, slow fall, and on the wacky version both ends quivering as the bait sinks horizontally.
How to build it
- Tie on the hook. Tie the finesse wide-gap hook to the end of the line with a Palomar knot. For the weedless version, use a weedless wacky hook with a light weed guard instead, tied the same way.
- Fit the O-ring (optional but worth it). Roll a small silicone O-ring onto the middle of the soft stickbait. Hooking under the ring instead of through the plastic stops the bait tearing off, so one stick lasts many fish. Skip this and you simply hook through the body, but you will lose baits faster.
- Hook the bait. For the wacky version, pass the hook under the O-ring (or through the exact middle of the bait) so both ends hang even and free, point exposed. For the weedless version, push the hook into the nose instead, run it through and bury the point back into the body. No weight goes on either way.
How to fish it
Cast it to where bass are sitting shallow: a dock, an overhanging tree, a bush, a weed edge, a piece of bank cover. Then let it fall on a slack line and do nothing, because the slow, weightless fall is what gets eaten, and most takes come as it sinks. Watch the line the whole way down: a tick, a twitch, the line jumping or moving off to the side is a take. When it reaches the bottom, give it a couple of small twitches of the rod tip to make both ends shimmy, then let it fall again. That lift-and-fall, with long pauses, is the whole retrieve. For docks and overhangs, skip the bait in low and flat under the cover and let it sink there. The weedless version lets you drop it straight into and over weed and timber. When you see a take, reel down to a tight line and sweep the rod up to set the hook.
Where this rig works
The weightless wacky rig catches bass in the shallows and around cover across the atlas. It is fished on Lake Okeechobee in Florida, around the grass and pads; on Lake Fork in Texas, around docks and laydowns; on the Alqueva reservoir in Portugal, on the flooded trees and shallow points; and on Lake Biwa and Lake Kawaguchi in Japan, in the weedy bays and around the docks. As the atlas grows, every new water that uses a wacky rig will link to this same page.
Weightless wacky rig questions
Fishing a soft stickbait with no weight for a slow, natural, shimmying fall that bass eat on the way down. Hooked through the middle, both ends quiver; hooked weedless through the nose, it slips over cover. It suits largemouth and smallmouth in the shallows and around docks, weed and timber, especially in clear or pressured water.
A wacky rig is hooked through the exact middle of the stickbait with the point exposed, so both ends hang free and quiver. The weedless version is nose-hooked with the point buried, or uses a wacky hook with a weed guard, so it can be dropped into and over weed and timber without snagging. Same bait, same weightless fall.
A finesse wide-gap wacky hook, size 1 to 2/0: a #1 or 1/0 for a 4 inch stickbait, 1/0 to 2/0 for a 5 inch stickbait. For the weedless version, use a wacky hook with a light weed guard. A small silicone O-ring round the bait, hooked under the ring, makes one stick last many fish.
A Palomar knot, tied straight from the line to the hook, for both the wacky and the weedless version. So one knot builds the whole rig. Then hook through the middle of the bait for wacky, or through the nose with the point buried for weedless. No weight goes on either way.
No. The point of this rig is the weightless, slow, natural fall, which is what bass eat. If you want it to fall faster or reach deeper, add a small nail weight in one end, but that becomes a neko rig, a different presentation. For the shallow, subtle fall, fish it with no weight at all.