John Carroll of Mongo Fishing shares some of his inside secrets landing big bass using artificial worms late in the season. In this video, he share the tips and techniques he's perfected over the years studying how each worm reacts under water.  Check out this video and get a lot more action using worms to catch big bass in colder water late in the season. 

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Video transcript:

John:
Hey, what's up, guys? John, from Mongo Fishing. Today, I'm here on the MONSTERBASS channel to talk to you guys about fall worm fishing. So let's get into it. All right, guys. So like I said, my name is John, from Mongo Fishing, and this is the MONSTERBASS channel. Now, if you are wanting to learn tips and techniques and how to become a better bass angler, make sure you hit that subscribe button right down there, along with the bell notification button so you get notified every single time MONSTERBASS comes out with another video. My channel, Mongo Fishing, will be linked down in the description below. I'm primarily a tournament bass fisherman. I don't really go out and do much fun fishing per se. So my content is mostly tournament footage, but it's honest tournament footage. Whether I do well, or if I suck, I still put the video out. So if you want to see success along with failure, then come check my channel out. I dig it.

John:
But let's get into fall worm fishing. All right, guys. So like I said, I'm primarily a tournament angler, so fall worm fishing isn't a primary technique that I do. It's a backup technique that I do. My primary techniques this time of year are crankbaits and ChatterBaits and Buzzbaits and spinnerbaits and just fast moving stuff. I'm fishing for reaction bites. And honestly, that's primarily what I do year round. I'm not out there to catch 30 fish. I'm out there to catch my best five. So catching a mess of one pounders doesn't really do me much good. If I catch five one pounders, and then start calling up, that's what does me good. So worm fishing, for me, most of the time is a backup. It's not a primary. There are times that it does become a primary, but that's normally in two-day tournaments. But we're going to get into what the stuff that I do in fall worm fishing and maybe you can pick something up.

John:
All right, guys. So the first thing I do with any worm fishing, regardless of the time of year, is I want to learn what that worm looks like underwater. So I grabbed an old fish tank out of the garage, threw it on the boat here so you guys can see, and I have a couple worms tied on. I have the KVD Perfect Plastic Fat Baby Finesse that came in this month's bag. And then I have a Castaic, the CBT five. It's another five inch. So similar size bait as this Fat Baby Finesse.

John:
And I want to show you guys, again, the stuff that I pay attention to. I want to see what the worm does in a fish tank so that I can visualize what it's doing underwater, because just what you think it's doing may not be what it's actually doing. So I tied on a random shaky head and a random Ned rig head to show you guys that depending on the type of worm you're using, you may get different reactions out of your bait. So some baits are neutrally buoyant and they want to stand up. See how long that's taken to fall down? And then it's just kind of hovering right there. There's no air trapped in it. So as you're using that bait, that's a round head. That's just a round shaky head. That's nothing special. But you notice that thing kind of stayed upright.

John:
The Fat Baby Finesse, this is on a Ned head. Did the same thing. It's hovering. That's on a head that's supposed to make it stand straight up. And that's because this is a salted bait. So it's going to want to fall down faster. If you had something like one of these huge worms that came in this month's bag, I don't have one of these rigged up, but these things are just going to sink like a stone and lay flat on the bottom.

John:
(silence)

John:
Know what your bait is going to do underwater, play with it. You can do that next to the boat, do it next to the dock, whatever, and just try to figure out what it's doing, what it looks like, so you can visualize what it's doing underwater. All right.

John:
So where I'm going to throw it. Again, these are not primary techniques for me. So normally, I'm out burning the bank down, whatever, trying to find bites. If I can't do that, then I fall back on this technique. So I'm going to do this. As I'm moving around docks and stuff, I'm paying attention, I'm marking brush piles that are off the ends of docks, road beds, stuff like that. The water temp is dropping, and they're pushing [shad 00:05:07] and all that fun stuff back in the creeks. But they're going to still want to be around hard cover most of the time, with the exception of those frog fish, and that's a whole nother beast. But they're going to want to be around wood, they're going to want to be around rock. So I'm looking for road beds. I'm looking for brush piles. I'm looking for stuff like that.

John:
And then I adjust my worm based on what I have. If I'm working a brush pile, I'm probably going to Texas rig it. If I'm working a rocky shoreline or something like that, or old road beds or whatever, I'm probably going to put it on a shaky head. And regardless, I'm working it painfully slow. I'm not a big fan of trying to work a worm fast. There's no point. I've already slowed down to work this thing, to pick something apart. I'm just going to work it slow.

John:
So with that said, yeah, I will occasionally hop it, as you saw me playing around with the string or whatever. Yes, I will occasionally hop it with my rod to get it to do that. But other times, I'm going to throw it out there, and I'm just going to slowly move the rod tip back, and I'm dragging and counting rocks, basically. I'm just moving this thing ever so slowly. And it's going to get stuck on rocks, I just pop it real quick, and then slowly start dragging again. Stuck in a rock, pop it again real quick. Because I figure, again, if I have to slow down this much to fish this worm, I'm going to fish it thoroughly. Spot-lock the Phoenix, or power pull down, or whatever I'm trying to do for that situation, whether I'm deep or shallow or whatever, and then fish that area thoroughly.

John:
Rod/reel/line, all that fun stuff, the reel is kind of irrelevant. It doesn't really matter on your reel speed, because this is a painfully slow technique anyway. So your reel speed's kind of irrelevant. But your rod, you're going to want to use either a spinning rod, if you're a spinning rod sort of person, or a jerkbait rod, or a medium at the heaviest, a medium fast. A medium light fast is probably better. And again, a spinning rod, something like that is probably your best technique. I, unfortunately, can't pull my rods out to show you. I mean, I have two rigged up right now, because I will always have one rigged up. Like I said, it's not a primary technique, but I'll always have one rigged up. And I have two rigged up right now, but they're in my rod locker. And I put the fish tank on top of them, so there's no wagging them out. But again, I have one rigged on a jerkbait rod, and one rigged on my spinning rod and different colors. Actually, I think I have a [Senko 00:08:00] on one, and a shaky head on the other.

John:
So a Senko is the other technique for fall warm fishing. But honestly, a Senko is a year round worm fishing. Again, it's painfully slow, Texas rig it, you can put it on a shaky head. Again, you need to know what your stick worm does. Is it heavy salted? Because if it is, it's going to sink like a stone. If it's neutrally buoyant, a Z-Man product, Castaic products, stuff like that, Roboworms, they're all pretty neutrally buoyant. Some of them even float. So that helps you figure out, it's going to make your worms stand straight up versus just laying down and dragging across the bottom where you think it's standing up.

John:
Guys, hopefully, that answers some questions. I mean, this is a quick video because it's a quick topic. It's not complicated at all. I mean, shaky heads are probably one of the easiest things to throw. And again, it's not the only way to rig a worm for fall fishing. But if you have to slow down and throw a worm, you should probably be throwing a Finesse sort of worm, at least in my opinion, and not a giant worm. But to each their own. Maybe you're a guy or a girl who likes to throw giant worms. I'm not. So that's why I don't do it.

John:
All right, guys. One more thing, and that's calculating your sink rate. Now, how do you calculate your sink rate? So again, I don't have my rod because it's in the rod locker. So calculate your sink rate by, say you have a seven foot rod, for example, and you have a shaky head tied on, you want to hang that shaky head, point your rod straight up and down, and hang that shaky head all the way down at the butt of the rod. You're going to dangle it over the water and drop it so your rod tip touches the water, so it's just nothing but slack line for that shaky head sinking down.

John:
And you're going to count, one, 1000, 2, 1000, 3, 1000, 4, 1000, whatever, until your line comes tight, then you know seven foot rod, took four seconds for that to come tight. So you're like, "Okay, well, it took four seconds for it to sink seven feet." So just for simple math purposes, we'll say that you're sinking two feet a second. And then that way, you know whatever depth you're fishing, how long it should take for you for your bait to reach the bottom, to reach that brush pile, to reach whatever you're trying to flip up around.

John:
Hopefully, that answers some questions, guys. Hopefully, you can put some of this stuff to use, catch some more fish. Again, if you're new to the MONSTERBASS channel, please hit the subscribe button right down there, along with the bell notification button so you get notified every single time MONSTERBASS puts out another video. Again, my channel Mongo Fishing will be linked in the description. I dig it if you came over and check me out. Again, guys, thank you very much for watching. As always, get on the water, be safe, and go catch a monster bass.