Innovative anglers have come up with dozens of techniques for fishing YUM soft-plastic lures, many of which work wonders under certain conditions. Drop-shotting (how to make a drop-shot rig) and split-shotting get the job done when the bass get fussy, and at times it’s tough to beat casting a weightless YUM Houdini Shad over a hump and allowing it to sink freely through the water column.
Too often, however, anglers get so caught up in what is new that they forget about classic approaches, like Texas rigging Yum Lizards and Ribbontail Worms and casting them toward the bank or to visible targets like flooded trees, dock pilings and weed edges.
Alton Jones’ fishing turns almost completely to simple worm fishing late in the spring, Texas rigging YUM 7-inch Ribbontails and 6-inch RibWorms and casting them around shallow-water targets. He has enjoyed tremendous success with this elementary pattern from late April through early June and has found that it works all around the country.
Keys to effective worm fishing this time of year are keeping the bait in the strike zone and covering a lot of water. Bass will be tight to trunks of trees, not 10 feet away from them, so there’s no reason to work a YUM Lizard all the way to the boat if you’re casting to specific targets. Exceptions include sloping riprap banks, where the rocks run 25 or 20 feet out, banks that have laydowns stretched out from them and slopes that have stumps scattered across them.
Cast or pitch to the cover. Let the bait fall to the bottom, work it by lifting the rod tip and then letting the offering fall, and then crank it back once it’s away from the cover. When you feel a strike, let the bass have the bait for just a moment and then set the hook hard.
While the basic tactic remains unchanged, old-fashioned Texas riggers can benefit from some recent innovations – one in the specific way anglers rig; and a few in the tackle available for Texas-rig worm fishing.
On the rigging side, most bass pros now “Texpose” hooks, meaning that instead of burying a hook back into the middle of a worm they push it all the way through and then barely put the hook point back on the opposite side. The bait is still weedless, but hook-up prospects increase with less plastic between the hook point and the bass’ mouth.
Gear improvements include the development of Silver Thread Fluorocarbon, which takes stretch out of the equation and increases sensitivity, Excalibur Tx3 Point Wide-Gap Worm Hooks with their three-sided cutting points, and Excalibur Tg Weights, which get down into the cover more effectively than lead weights because of their smaller size and slick sides.
Not to be forgotten, old-timey plastic worms have been replaced by YUM baits, all complete with Live Prey Technology. More bass bite YUM Ribbontails than other similar-shaped worms, and the fish hold onto the baits, allowing far more strikes to be converted into landed fish.