All right, folks, today I'm going to talk to you about dice baits. Yeah, dice baits. Now, they're named dice baits because, well, that's what they look like. They look like a little dice. And they got little things sticking out of them. They look kind of weird. And I got to tell you, when I first saw these, I said, "I don't know about this." I had the same feeling when I first saw a Sluggo back in the early '90s, and when I first saw a Senko in the mid, I don't know, '97, '98 when they came out. First thing I thought about those was, "That's a stick of plastic. Why would a fish eat that? I mean, that's ridiculous. It's stupid. This is a gimmick. No one would ever catch a fish on that."
Well, I was wrong about the Sluggo, and boy, oh boy, was I ever wrong about the Senko. So when I saw this, at first I went, "Really? That's got to be a gimmick." And then I went, "Well, hold on. Let's give this a try first before we pass judgment, because you never know." And my buddy who turned me on to this, he's actually from Japan, and he said that these baits were, like, they were tearing them up in Japan with it. He was saying it's the top bait out there. They couldn't keep them on the shelves. So, like, there had to be something to it. So I decided to start fishing them. And I've been fishing them for a while now. And boy, howdy do they catch fish. They really do. It's amazing. I don't know exactly why. I'll get into that in a minute, but they are extremely effective. And I've tried several different ways to catch fish on them, and they all work. So I'm going to go through several different ways that I do this. And then a couple of money-saving tips, because these aren't cheap baits. So let me get into it.
So the first rig that I've been throwing them with is a split-shot rig. Now, I still call them a split shot rig, because back in the '80s, when they first came out, we actually used a split shot for the weight. Now we've got this cylindrical weight here that's pretty much replaced the split shot rig, but it's the same concept. You have a lightweight, quite a ways up the line away from the hook. And this is about like a 1/16 or 1/8-ounce weight. It's not very big. And that's the whole key is a slow presentation.
One thing you'll notice here, the hook is a... This is a Gamakatsu Weedless Wacky Hook. And it's got these titanium weed guards on it. And what that is, is they're actually not as stiff as other weed guards you'd see on other wacky rig hooks from other manufacturers. And at first I was like, "Man, you know, that's going to get hung up a lot." Honestly, it doesn't. And the cool thing about it is because they have a little more give, you get better bites, better hookups. You don't lose as many fish. So it works really well. And when you put this behind a split shot, well, you're dragging it through stuff, and this gets hung up a lot less with this hook.
So you just basically hook it straight through, and it's an exposed hook, and you essentially drag it on the bottom. But that isn't really what catches the most fish. What you'll see here... Look at this, guys. I mean, my weight is way up here. Let me put the rod down here for a second. The weight is here and then a good 2.5, maybe even 3 feet, about 3 feet is where I actually have the bait. Big difference. Most people put, you know, 12 to 18 inches between the weight and the hook, and that's standard for a split shot rig. But what I found with this is something interesting. So how do I explain this?
If you've watched bass in clear water, if you throw any kind of lure that falls to the bottom, a lot of times you'll see bass, they'll follow it and they'll track it, and they'll go right down, nose right down with it as it goes down to the bottom. And when it reaches the bottom or actually near the bottom, sometimes they veer off and are like, "Nope, I'm not going to take that." Or when it hits the bottom, it stops falling like, "Nope, I'm not interested anymore," and they saunter off, but they don't bite it.
What I found back when I was fishing tubes, and I still fish tubes this way with a split shot, is tubes by themselves when they're weightless, they fall at a very slow pace. So what happens is when you throw out a split shot, the tube is, and in this case, the dice bait is falling at the same rate as the weight because it falls faster. These little dice baits fall real slow. They're just painstakingly slow. You got to have a lot of patience when they're weightless. So the weight, it pulls the bait down at the speed the weight is falling. Once the weight hits the bottom, the bait following it stops almost and shifts, downshifts to that slow fall when it's weightless. So there's an actual shift in speed. It's falling, then stops, and then slowly falls.
I found that when fishing with tubes, a lot of fish when they hit that spot, that would trigger a bite because the fish is falling, falling, falling, and then suddenly the bait slows down, almost stops, and it's right in their face, and they got to react. Well, the shorter the length is, the more time they have to follow it, the more time they have to veer off before it hits the bottom. So I found with using a 2.5- to 3-foot-long leader length between the weight and the bait, that stopping action happens sooner. They don't follow it as long, so they're less apt to veer off before that happens. And as soon as that happens, that shift, that's usually it triggers the bite. So why wait for it to get down all the way to the bottom for it to trigger that bite? I just make a longer length so you trigger that bite sooner and you catch more fish that way, I promise you, and it does work.
So it's pretty cool, but you got to be on the alert because you don't feel that bite, you don't detect it, you don't see it really. You have to be very on top of it. When that bait hits, you have to kind of count yourself a little bit and then reel up and feel that tension. And if that fish is there, boy, set the hook because they've got it. They don't mess around with this bait. They've got it. So that's one way how I fish it with a split shot.
Now, the rod and reel and everything, the line that I use with this split shot setup, it's pretty straightforward. I'm using 6-pound Tatsu, fluorocarbon line, straight, no leader, no anything. Just very simple, straight up. I like it that way. I cast a lot further. I don't have to worry about knots. Don't have to worry about braid and all that kind of stuff. It takes a lot less time to rig this up. I'm using a 7'3". This is a St. Croix Legend Tournament Rod, 7'3", medium, light, power, fast action rod. That means I've got pretty good amount of flex and bend on this. And that's great. That's what you want with this lighter line. You want that bend. Plus, it makes it easier to throw out these light baits.
And then the reel that I have, this is an old reel they don't make anymore. But the key thing with that is it has a really smooth drag. So if you've got a reel that has really nice smooth drag, that's what you're paying for when you buy the more expensive reels, is a really nice drag system. That's important because when you got a fish on the end of your line and he starts pulling, especially a good size fish, you want this rod to give. You want the fluorocarbon line. It stretches a little bit, gives a little give. You've got the reel, the drag, everything works in concert to keep that fish pinned and get them to the boat. So that's the rod, reel, and line, everything that I'm using for this setup.
So let's talk about the next setup, which is a drop shot. Now, the drop shot is your typical drop shot. Again, you have the bait. It's hooked. It's exposed. The key thing is I'm using the Gamakatsu Swivel Shot Drop Shot hook, and it's got the Nano Alpha coating on it. So that allows for easier hookups and greater penetration, and it keeps the fish hooked, keeps them pinned. So that's the key here. I've got about 18 inches of line here between the bait and the tungsten drop shot weight here. And same thing, 6-pound line, the same kind of rod, same line, everything. It's all the same thing. It's just the key thing is using this swivel shot. So that, if you can see it or not, but it spins, and that allows this bait to free fall, and it reduces line twists and that sort of thing.
The key thing with using a drop shot with this bait is the drop shot is used to target structure, target specific underwater things, such as humps, such as ledges. You want rock piles, brush piles, isolated boulders, points. You don't use a drop shot to cover a lot of water. That's what the split shot is for, the one I just showed you. You can cover a lot of water with that split shot and find fish. Once you find a concentration of them, switch over to the drop shot, and you can catch a bunch of fish with that. So just targeting that area and slowing down and just picking it apart. So that's what I'm using the drop shot for. And again, very effective way.
This bait is, they've come in the salt and non-salt version, so you can get the buoyant type so it stays up off the bottom. And the key thing with the drop shot is you want to get the weight touching the bottom, and you don't lift and shake and do all kinds of crazy stuff with it. Just let it sit there. The tentacles on this bait kind of flow and move on its own, and that makes it look alive. And all you want to do is just kind of lift the weight. You want to give it a little bit of a shake, but think of it this way. You're lifting the weight off the bottom, not the bait. So you shake the weight, not the bait. Think of it that way. So you're giving it very little bit of movement.
The weight is only 16th of an ounce, an 8th ounce, very, very light. So you're just very, very little movement, not much. You can barely... That's it. I'm moving it with my wrist right now, but you can't even tell, right? It's so minor. But your rod tip is flipping just a little bit. That's what you want to look for. That's all you need, just to give it a little bit of life. Let it sit. Don't move it at all. Sometimes the wind lapping up creates a little bit of waves. It's kind of lapping against your line. That creates a little bit of movement. Your boat, if you're on the water, is bobbing up and down. So just holding it steady creates a lot of movement on its own without you imparting anything more, and that's all you really need for something like that. So that's how this bait works.
Another way to do it is weightless. And that's the same setup as the split shot rig, same hook, still using that wacky weedless hook from Gamakatsu, but no weight. The thing about that is, first of all, it's hard to throw. It's a light, light weight. So you have to use spinning gear to do it. So you could try bait casting if you're really good, or BFS system, you might be able to do it with that. But I use spinning. The thing about it is it falls so slow, and those little tentacles kind of come out and kind of parachute down. If you've ever taken a crawdad and thrown it in the water and watched them fall, it kind of looks like that. It's that same slow speed.
Interesting enough, a Senko falls about the same speed. So does a Sluggo. I mean, you start thinking about weightless plastics, and they all kind of fall at that same slow speed. But there's a reason for that. It triggers bass bite. It kind of looks like natural forage falling through the water. It triggers that bite. So same thing with this, very slow fall. This actually, I feel, falls even slower than a Senko. So you have to have a lot of patience. It's only, for me, 3 to 5 feet of water is the deepest that I'm going to throw it. I personally don't have the patience to wait for it to fall 10 feet. That's when I'll go to that split shot with a long leader so I can get it down that deep, and then it changes that speed direction and goes back to that natural fall. To me, that's far more effective of covering water than waiting for it to fall through 10 feet of water. Up to you how you want to do it, but that's how I've been doing it, and it works really well that way. So weightless is another way to throw this bait.
Now, one of the problems I found with this bait is that it doesn't last very long. It's usually good for two or three fish before a fish rips it off the hook. If that. Sometimes it gets ripped off the hook on the first fish. Sometimes I lose the bait. It tears off before I even catch a fish. These aren't cheap. They come from Japan. They're expensive. So I've been trying to find ways to make them last a little bit longer, and I think I found the trick. There's a new jig head out from Gamakatsu called the Horizon Jig. This is a 3 1/64 ounce weight, very lightweight. But if you notice, it's got these little ridges on it, and it's along the shank, and that's the thing that's unique about this jig. It's actually for hover jig. So they have the weight go further down the shank of the hook, and they've got these little keepers on it.
And I've been rigging it with the dice bait. It looks a little awkward, but I've got the same kind of weight that you would have on a split shot or a drop shot. You can move up to an 8th ounce if you want. But because of those keepers, it keeps the bait on. And I also I'm not threading it through. Like, in one side, and then it cooks around and comes out the top, so it doesn't pull against the bait and rip it out, which is what's been happening with these other rigs. Here, it's just rigged on a jig, and it lasts longer. And it still has that nice, enticing fall through the water column.
Now, it's not weedless, but boy, howdy, does it ever work? Actually, the bait has lasted a lot longer, and I catch a lot more fish on one bait now by flipping over to the Horizon Head Jig. Again, it's got the Nano Alpha hook technology on it, so the hook sets real easy on it. You don't have to yard very hard at all. It's the same setup, again, with that same rod, same reel, same line that I've been using all along. Nothing's different about that. So just try that, and you'll be surprised how well that works. I'm really impressed with that.
But there's even another way to save money on it. So this is kind of cool. Look, these are expensive baits. Let's just be upfront with it. Now, I'm assuming in a few years from now, if not even shorter than that, that a whole bunch of manufacturers are going to come out and be copying these baits, and the price is going to go down. But for now, they're pretty pricey. So what I've done is I've gone to resorting to making my own. What I do is I take a Senko-style bait, and I like the scented kind. So I like the Scentsation Series from Big Bite Baits, or MegaStrike has its version, so does YUM Baits. You know, there's a variety of baits out there that is scent-impregnated, and they last a little bit longer. The plastics are a little more stiffer. They're not as soft as the original Yamamoto Senkos, so they are more durable in that way.
And because what I'm doing here is, you see, I'm actually cutting it into sections. So you don't have to worry about the wiggle action of the Senko here. And then what I'm doing is I've got a needle here. This is a leather needle, sewing needle that I got on Amazon. I just got a package of leather sewing needles, and I picked one that seemed to work the most. Got some rubber skirting from Tackle Warehouse. I got links to all this down below the video here, so you can get to it pretty easily. I cut those skirts in half, and I thread them on one by one using the needle into this chunk of Senko-style bait. And usually eight strands is about what you need. I found that that works just better. More than that is kind of overkill, but it seems to work best with about eight strands. As you can see, you can get about three, maybe four baits out of one of these Senko-style baits. So the cost goes way down when you do that. You save a lot of money.
The scent on it, I think it works. It helps the fish hold on a bit longer. As I mentioned previously, the bite is very subtle on this bait. Sometimes it's hard to detect. And so if anything you can do to get the fish to hold on to it just a little bit longer, seems to work pretty good. So that's why I use those scented baits. It's your choice, whatever you want to do.
But now it doesn't take very long at all to create these baits, and you can get a whole bunch made pretty quick, and you can save yourself a whole bunch of money. So do it yourself first if you like to do that and tinker with your baits. This is a fun way to do it, and it's kind of neat to catch fish on something that you made. Again, that works with all of these configurations that I just told you. So go out, try it. Whether you try the original dice bait or make them your own, these baits work. If somebody tells you that they don't work, they're lying to you.
I got to be honest with you guys. I've been on a lot of boats, the pros boats. The nature of my job, I get to be out on... I've been on Elite Series, I've been on MLF Series, a bunch of pros. They all have these baits on their boats, and they use them to help them round out those limits. It's that good. They all have them. So if somebody's trying to tell you they don't work, they don't want you to know the secret. That's all there is to it. Either that, or they just don't know how to catch fish with it. I can't imagine that being the case, because it's so dang easy to catch fish with these baits. They just work that good. That I think someone, if they tell you they don't work, don't get them. They're lying to you. That's all I could say, because these work fantastic. Go out there, get some, try them, throw them. You're going to find out for yourself. Enjoy it. See you on the water.
