Shakey Head Tips For Smallmouths

A lot of times I use the smallest one.  I think it's a 3/16th.  It's off the original design.  Most of the time I use a smaller shakey head.  When I work a shakey head, most time back east, or smallies, they tend to not, I don't fish them slow.  I fish them fast.  I'm kind of swimming it.  That 3/16th is real fast, you flutter it, when you shake it, it kind of bounces up and then it kind of falls down slow.  But that's how I fish them back east.  Most time I'm moving them quick. 

But out here, it tends to be a little different sometimes, you know.  You've got to shake them on the bottom and once in a while snap it up off the bottom and let it fall.  But back east, man, a lot of times it's just like, you're hitting the bottom occasionally and you're just kind of swimming the shakey head.  

And I swim my football head out there a lot.  I don't know if you guys have tried that, but that's a good method of catching smallies that I, over the years, have found that just bumping the bottom with the, kind of like swimming the jig shallow with a football head, 3/4 ounce, even one ounce or half-ounce.  Been doing that a lot back east.  Catching a lot of big fish doing that.  But it's kind of like, you bump a rock and it kind of bounces off it and just keep it right near the bottom and just reel it.  It sits there.  It's almost like cranking.  I do that a lot. 

So it's kind of a thing that a lot of guys don't know about.  But you guys don't talk a lot to those guys.  They'll never find out, until they see me on TV doing it.  But it's a good way of catching them, swimming a football head.  I know Fred Roubanis does it a lot.  He's one of the other guys I know that does it.  But you'd be amazed how many guys haven't caught on to that.