Hey, guys, Bassmaster Elite Series pro, Drew Cook, here, with BassResource, and I'm talking about my four worms that I use in the summertime. So summertime is, you know, they're done spawning. They're, you know, getting offshore. They're on those points, you know, ledges, things like that. You know, they're deeper. They're getting out there into the deep stuff. Summertime fun.
But some things you gotta always have, like the first one here is a drop shot. And this is not a super long drop shot, it's fairly, fairly short. And this is pretty much what I use when I'm fishing for largemouth in a pressured lake, they're on the ledges. I'm gonna use this, this is the new Big Bite Cliffhanger Worm. This is a hand-poured worm. The Sensation, I love this worm, it does really good on drop shot and, you know, a shaky head and things like that.
But I've got it on a number one, finesse heavy cover, straight shank hook from Gamakatsu. And my weight depends on actually how deep I'm fishing. This is a 5/16. But whenever I'm actually casting a drop shot and fishing it, I want, you know, a teardrop or ball-style drop shot. That's so, when you're working it and you're shaking the rod or whatever, it's maintaining contact with the bottom, whereas if you had, like, a cylinder weight, you know, it would pull a lot easier.
So this is gonna have 10-pound Sunline Sniper and 12-pound SX Braid. And, you know, I'm throwing this on the 723 Dobyns Xtasy. We gotta have a 2,500 reel or 3,000 reel, you know, we're making long casting. This is also, like, whenever you're throwing something else and you might be cranking or something like that, and you look down at the grass, and you're like, "Oh my God, there's one right there." Now this is what you grab.
You drop it down to 'em, they follow it down and they bite it, you catch 'em, move on, you know. But whenever the fish get really pressured, you know, this is what you gotta do.
And a lot of times when they get super pressured, you know, you don't actually shake this whenever you throw it out there, you're just pulling it like you would a Carolina rig, you know, pulling it and stopping, and pulling it and stopping, fishing it really slow. But that's when they're really pressured, whenever you have to do that. The other good worm is a shaky head. And this is when they go from the backwaters that are on those secondary points, you know, all the way out to the main lake points to the ledges.
This is what I'm gonna throw a lot. This is the new Skinny Stick from Big Bite and Scentsation line. And this is a Gamakatsu shaky head. And I probably, I don't know, 90% of the time throw a 3/16. If anything, I'll go to a quarter. And you know, there'll be sometimes where you throw a eighth-ounce, you know, very shallow. But this is what you're gonna be using on those ledges that, you know, you don't wanna throw the drop shot yet. If you have to, you will. But this is one that I normally tend to pick up earlier. It's also got 10-pound Sunline Sniper with 12-pound SX Braid.
And this is a little bit bigger rod. This is the Xtasy 753 Dobyns, you know, just a little bit longer so you can cast it and, you know, a little bit more backbone. So, whenever you have that long cast, you know, you can still get a hook in them. And, you know, this isn't just for the points in the ledges, you know, a lot of time in the summer fish get around the docks and this is what I'm gonna fish around those docks, you know, skip around the docks. And, like, where I grew up, the fish don't actually get underneath the docks, like, you fished the outside of the docks, because there was a lot of brush that people were putting. That's where a shaky head is really good. And even fishing dock lights in the morning, I don't know if that's, like, a big deal everywhere, but, you know, around the South, docks that have lights on 'em are really good first thing in the morning, throw this in there and that's what you can get 'em to bite.
Next, we're going old school, the ball and chain, the Carolina rig. My Carolina rig is pretty simple. I've got 20-pound Sunline Shooter as a main line and goes to a 3/4-ounce tungsten weight. I've got two beads. You probably do one bead. I like to have a bead. It protects the knot and it also, you know, makes that clacking noise whenever you're hopping it over stumps and things like that. You got a big SPRO swivel and then your leader... Here's a very important part about a Carolina rig. You want your leader to be smaller than your main line. You want your leader to break whenever you hang it up, not your whole setup. Because, I mean, this is kind of time-consuming. You're tying three knots, you know, and it takes a little bit of time to do it. So, I usually, you know, use 14 or 16-pound Sunline Sniper as my leader. And that just varies on what I'm fishing, how I'm fishing it, what the cover is. You know, if there's a lot more brush and things like that, then I'll, you know, use that 16, if I'm just fishing a shell bed or something like that, that's when I'm gonna use that 14. But one bait that I like to use on a Carolina rig is a Trick Stick, 5-inch Trick Stick, it's, you know, a stick bait. There's not a whole lot of action. But it just seems like that really gets bit and I've got a 4/0 Gamakatsu G-Finesse Hybrid Worm Hook.
And one key thing to note, you're not setting the hook with a Carolina rig, you're pulling more than anything. So, when you get a bite on a Carolina rig, if you got the bite and you feel it, you have this much play, so you don't have a direct contact with the actual fish. So he could bite it down here and start swimming this way. So when you reel down and you snatch all you can, you move the bait that far, and you ain't done nothing to 'em, you're just gently pulling it out, out of their mouth. So whenever you get that bite on a Carolina rig, I always point the reel or rod at 'em, start reeling, and reel as fast as I can, and sweep. It seems like 90% of the time you'll hook 'em that way and they don't come off. That's just my little tip for the Carolina riggers, you know, this is a throw it on a pretty, pretty long rod. You want something that you can whip the Carolina rig out there.
This is a 763 Dobyns Champion XP. It's a medium heavy rod, you know, on the lighter end of the medium heavy. I don't like a big broom handle to throw a Carolina rig with. I want the tip to load up, and for two reasons, to hook 'em, and then when they come up and jump, you got a 3/4-ounce weight that's 3 feet different. So when they jump that weight's going, everything. And you want a rod that can absorb a lot of that to keep the fish, you know, hooked up so you're not losing a lot of the fish.
Last but not least in my favorite of all in the summertime, is a big worm. The BW, this is the B2 Worm from Big Bite, and this is probably one of my favorite colors too. You know, a red bug or a plum apple, something along those lines. This is my go-to. Like, I love throwing this, because you get to set the hook as hard as you can, apply maximum pressure, you got 22-pound line and you're just winching 'em in. And, you know, you're in direct contact with the bait the whole time. This is what I fish a lot around brush piles, and stumps, things like that, where a Carolina rig will get hung in. You know, I throw this on a 754. It's a big, you know, medium heavy, little bit closer to the heavy side, but still you're able to cast it a pretty good ways. High gear ratio reel, like I said, 22-pound Sunline Shooter.
And I've got...I either have a 3/8, and it can depend. I've gone all the way up to a 3/4 before, but a 3/8 or 1/2-ounce weight, just depending on depth. If you're fishing, you know, the 8-foot brush piles, I'm gonna go with 3/8. You know, if you're fishing those little bit deeper ones, 15-foot, I'm gonna do 1/2. And this is a 6/0 hybrid worm hook, it's a big hook. And a big hook for a big worm, for a big fish. But I've got it pegged on a bobber stop. A lot of people don't peg their Texas rig when they're fishing, you know, offshore, or things like that. And there's really two reasons why I do it. One, if your bait's in a brush pile, you know, you're fishing this in a brush pile, and then you come over a limb, and your weight falls down, and then you get the bite, your fish is over here, your weight's over here, and then you're tangled, you got a mess and you're hung up whenever you go to set the hook.
And another reason why I do it is this bobber stop right here, whenever you're coming up to a piece of wood, you know, the bobber stop's gonna not let your line dig into the stump or the brush right here at the weight. And it's gonna give it a little bit of something to keep it, to get it to roll over so it's not lodging in there. And then you have to either go up there to get it unhung and then mess up whatever brush pile you're fishing or stump, or you have to break it off and then retie. So it's not, you know, necessarily for just keeping the weight with the bait, it's for presenting the bait better in a brush pile. That's my go-to with the big Texas rig, the BW. And one thing that you don't wanna forget is lock the drag down, apply maximum pressure, set the hook, winch 'em to the boat, flop 'em in, and put 'em in the live well. But those are my four summertime go-to worms.
