There we are. There we go. There we go. Come here. I just want to show your face. C'mon. You got a face full of Senko buddy. Look at that. He's got a mouth full of Senko.
Weightless Senko that's what we're talking about today. Not a huge fish but, where do you think the huge fish come? Let's talk about it, weightless Senko's.
Hey, folks, Glenn May here with BassResource.com. Today I wanna talk to you about fishing a weightless Senko. This is what we're talking about right here. Weightless Senko. Now, if you're not sure how to rig it this way, I've got a video on that that's linked underneath this video, that shows you how to rig it this way, but basically I want to take you through the gear that we use, and then how to fish it.
To start with I got a 3/0 hook. This is a five-inch Senko, so we are using the 3/0 hook on it. It's an extra wide gap hook. It's not any special kind of hook. It's not a flipping hook or a superline hook, it's just your standard wired thickness hook, and it's also obviously not a finesse hook, so not a real thin wire hook either. It's just a standard hook size.
And I have that paired with 15lb fluorocarbon line. And there's a distinct reason why I use fluorocarbon line, not monofilament, copolymer, or braid.
Fluorocarbon, it'll sink a little bit. And that sink rate, it won't inhibit this lure as it falls. You want it to fall straight down, and it kinda undulates as it falls. So this line is not gonna impede that action, it's gonna fall with it. If I'm using braid, braid has a tendency to be buoyant, and sometimes, you may have this happen to you using braid or monofilament, or copolymer line, you throw it out there, and the bait will do this, it will actually float away from you at an angle, or it'll fall at an angle. You've probably seen this a time or two. And that's because those lines are a little bit more buoyant than fluorocarbon. So when I use fluorocarbon that's the reason why. I don't want to impede the action or change the action of the bait. That's the exact reason why.
Fluorocarbon also is, you know, it's real sensitive, and since we're fishing this weightless, you're fishing it on a slack line, any little bit of sensitivity that you can gain the better. So, fluorocarbon.
And I'm fishing it on a medium action rod with an extra fast tip. So not a medium-heavy or heavy action rod, but medium-heavy . . . or medium rod with an extra fast tip that helps . . . the fast tip aids in throwing this bait out there. It's a real light weight, so you need that tip to toss it out there again, again bait casting rod.
That's the standard gear. Of course, you can use spinning if you want. That's . . . nothing wrong with that., use an 8lb test, 15lb test line. I tend to throw the bait around heavy cover, and around bushes, and thick weeds, so I'm using the 15lb, that's why I do that. But if you're in open water? Fishing rocky areas, where there is not a whole lot of vegetation or something where the fish can wrap you up, then by all means, go with 8lb test, 6lb test if you want. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just telling you the way that I do it. Okay, so that's the gear, that's how I use it. Now let's go out and fish it.
Okay, so one of the basic ways and the most effective ways to fish the Senko is simply just cast it out there, engage the reel, and then let it sink. Let it do its thing. The Senko flutters and moves and wiggles. The key thing is, when it's falling like that you wanna watch the bait. You wanna watch the line especially. Watch that line to see if it twitches, jumps, flicks, does anything odd, because that's usually the fish grabbing it. So pay close attention that if you see that, then of course set the hook.
Once it hits the bottom, all you're gonna do is just lift it up with your rod tip, and let it fall and slack line. Reel up some of that slack, 'till it's just about . . . 'till you just about have the bait, but you don't wanna move the bait with your reel. You just want it to fall straight down, and that's the enticing . . . it does the work for you. You don't have to do anything. Let it fall. Again, now my line is slack, so I know that it's hit the bottom. I'm just gonna reel it right back up again.
All I'm doing here, I'm fishing an area that's got some rocks in here, and some scattered weeds, and the fish are out here roaming in it, and that's a perfect way to fish this bait. And that is how I do it 90% of the time, how anybody does it, really. You just cast it out, let it fall. A lot of time those bites occur on the fall on that slack line and that's the hard part, it's detecting that bite. So pay real close attention to that line. If you don't and the fish grabs it, then by the time you realize there's a fish there and you set the hook, you might gut hook fish them. It's real easy to do that with this bait, so pay close attention to that line.
I'm gonna show you one other way to retrieve it. Once you've cast it out there, now what you wanna do is kinda bring the rod tip down, just kinda twitch it. And then just twitch it back to the boat. And you can do this at any speed. Here I'm doing it at a moderate, you know . . . twitching. This is like a jerk bait. But one other way to do it is, you can do it really fast. You can do it slow, you can do it really fast. You can make it look like a bait fish just kinda skimming across the surface. Just pop it, pop it, pop it, pop it. And reel it in as you do it. And it looks just like a little bait fish that's trying to get away from something. And a lot of time, especially when the fish are feeding on schooling bait fish, you can throw right into them and pop it like this and you can catch a lot of fish doing it this way.
Okay, very straightforward way of fishing it. One other method I wanna show you here, you cast it out, let it sink, and once it hits the bottom, all you wanna do is drag it on the bottom. And here you are trying to imitate some kind of a bait fish, say a sculpin or something like that, feeding off the bottom. And in that case you just wanna move it with the rod tip. I like to move it to the side. Some people like to lift up on it, but I don't wanna lift it up off the bottom here, I just wanna drag it along. Just move the rod tip, and then reel up the slack. And that's all there is to it. Straightforward Senko fishing. If you fish it like this you're gonna have whole heck of a lot of fun.
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