When you can't get a bite while bass fishing, pull out a Ned Rig. Here are the three best ways to fish one.

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Video transcript:

Paul Glass:
What's going on everyone. I cannot wait to talk about this video. It is hot, it is summertime, that means I'm going to get a little bit finesse-y with some of these fish and you know what that means for me, that means the ned rig. Now the ned rig, a lot of people think slow, dead stick, boring. I totally get that. That is a very, I would say, common misconception about the ned rig. Now that's a great way to fish it and a lot of people have been talking about the ned rig lately. It's gotten way more popular, got way more press in the last few years, but it's been around for a while and that is absolutely not the only way to fish with the ned rig. There's a couple of different ways to do it, so I'm going to give you three ways to fish with the ned rig that you may or may not have known about.

Paul Glass:
Now, the first one I want to talk about is of one of my favorite ways to fish. It's the most versatile way to fish it and it's a little bit like, I'm going to call it power nedding or power fishing. And what you're going to do is you're going to hop that thing across the bottom. But what's really important about this technique is maintaining bottom contact. Right now I've got a big open area, but maybe right now I'm looking at some rocks that kind of come out this way and I think there's going to be some fish somewhere along this rock pile. Instead of throwing to a spot, casting out there and just waiting like so and being like oh yeah, I'm shaking my ned or whatever. That's great, that's a good way to fish the ned but a better way to fish the ned, especially I think in summertime, is to check a couple spots at a time.

Paul Glass:
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hop that ned, I'm going to use my braided line and my fluoro leader to maintain bottom contact. I'm hopping, hopping, give it the little pause, wait a second, hop, hop, hop. Pause, wait a second, give the rod a tip, a little bit of a jiggle and what I'm doing is I'm waving that bait in front of that fish's face, but I'm also using it as a search bait. I would call this power nedding. The key to this is maintain bottom contact.

Paul Glass:
Now a lot of people, they'll complain hey, with that open hook, which is I think what a lot of people think of with the ned, open hook like this one on your standard jig. When you're hopping it, EWG is a great way to go. You're getting an EWG ned head. This one happens to be the monster bass saber tooth hook. It's fantastic and they're going to come in those lighter sizes, 1/4 rounds down. You can certainly run a 3/8, but typically with these finesse presentations you don't really need to get super heavy so 1/4 to 1/8th is kind of where I want to live. Now the EWG is going to keep you from getting too hooked up and it's going to keep you catching more fish, which is great.

Paul Glass:
Now let's talk about another way to run another way to run this bait. Another great way to do it, especially I find in the river, is one of my favorite ways to fish in the river, is dragging. So we talked about the hop, hop, hop. This one's kind of obvious and it works really well in current because the current's going to do a lot of work for you. You'll cast out and literally I'm just going to drag it along the bottom. I want to feel every single little bump, every single little tick, every single time I hit a rock I want to feel that contact.

Paul Glass:
Again, braided mainline down to a fluoro leader is going to help you maintain that bottom contact very consistently. And you'll be able to tell the difference between that subtle fish pickup and a rock. Don't get fooled though, you're going to feel every single little rock so do not get fooled. So again, I'm just dragging it, then maybe I'll pause, reel up some slack. Drag it, pause, reel up some slack. It's different than the hop because you got a lot more control. With the hop you kind of need to maintain things but with the drag, again in the river, I think this is huge. You're letting the current do the work for you and then all of a sudden that line is going to stop, you're going to see that line stop, boom. Set the hook.

Paul Glass:
Let's talk about my last, my number three way to fish a ned rig. And this one is probably the one that people don't know about, but that actually has been around maybe the longest. The ned rig was originally called the Midwest finesse rig and a lot of people fished on slack line, but actually a ton of people would swim it, just like you would fish a swim bait. And it can absolutely crush fishing it like this. Again, it's like hopping it, yes, but I'm talking about straight swimming it. Running it just like you would run it like a swim bait. And yes, I mean running a little stick bait, but the ned doesn't always have to be that finesse, Z-Man TRD-type bait, that little tiny three inch stick bait. A lot of times it can be a little bit of a drop shot Weight like this one right here with some action on the tail. Or even this is another Z-Man bait, some with a little bit of extra on there.

Paul Glass:
If you can swim a leach, you can swim any kind of drop shot bait, even a craw that you were hopping that you can swim. It's going to give you a ton of extra action, I'm telling you. If you start swimming the ned, you will start finding fish in places that you never thought you would find fish before. If you dragged and dragged and dragged and you hopped and hopped and hopped and you haven't found them, try swimming the ned just off the bottom. Open hook, EWG, doesn't matter. Give the swim a try and I promise you're going to find some fish that you never found before.

Paul Glass:
All right as you guys are getting into fish in the ned rig, please try one of these three different ways. If all you've been doing is bouncing it, try swimming it. If all you've been is dragging it, try bouncing it. Give it a little more action. These are three of the most standard ways to fish a ned rig and I promise you, if you keep trying them, you're going to find yourself catching more fish. Thanks for checking out this video and hopefully we'll see you on the next finesse bite catching those big smallies.