The Shakey Jig - How to Fish with Bass Fishing Lures

As the Worm Turns (and Shakes)
New lures, new equipment and new bass-catching technologies are constantly being improved upon. Read any fishing magazine or catalog, watch any fishing show, visit any tackle shop or fishing web site, and we face a never-ending continuum of new offerings that manufacturers roll out in order to help us catch more and better bass.
Despite all the brain power, research, design, field testing, marketing and manufacturing prowess that the fishing industry packs into their latest and greatest bass-catching tools, the fact remains that bass themselves have never wavered in their partiality toward and preference for the lowly rubber worm. Better than anything else the fishing industry can concoct, the worm still reigns as king of all bass lures.
Why do bass love rubber worms so much? Why has the humble worm always been and always will be the number one bass lure? Unfortunately, it is a mystery for which we will never have an answer. In the ocean, it's plain to see that seaworms are plentiful and therefore regularly eaten by many saltwater species of fish. On dry land, we take it for granted that early birds get worms. But I have never seen or heard of too many worms that inhabit freshwater lakes, ponds and impoundments. You can read fishing report after report that state bass are feeding on shad, shiners, minnows, bluegill, perch, small panfish, crawfish, hellgrammites, dragonflies - you name it. But I have never read one fishing report that ever said bass are feasting on worms.
If you place one of the first rubber worms ever made side by side with one of the latest worms produced today, they'd practically appear identical. Although the rubber worm itself cannot be improved upon, new trends and new ways to use worms happen all the time. We can say Gary Yamamoto's Senko is a relatively new method of worming that became popular only within the past five years. Also, the dropshot method of drowning a worm was relatively unknown in North America except within the past five years.

New ways to toss a bass a worm still occur today. Shaking jig worms is the latest trend to begee popular. Top pros on the BASS and FLW tours have used shaking jig worms to win and place highly in prestigious tournaments starting just last year and continuing into the current season. These top pros have brought shaking jig worms into the limelight across North America. The technique is still in its infancy but effective. Most gemonly, a long, slender straight-tailed finesse worm from four to six inches long is Texas-rigged on a round ball jig head. There's nothing extraordinary, except the worm is Texas-rigged on the jig head and the jig hook tends to be a little longer and larger than usual, approximately 4/0 in size.
In terms of action. sometimes the shaking jig worm may spiral as it falls on a slack line, and some anglers may shake it a few times as it falls. When it hits bottom, it does so head first. Depending on bottom geposition, the worm may momentarily stand on its nose before keeling over on its side. The shaking jig worm's greatest merit is (as opposed to traditional exposed point jigs), it is snagless. Just deadstick it and let it lay there for a while, which is often when you get bit. Then shake it, stir it, hop it, swim it back slowly or do whatever works best for you when you worm.

Who knows why bass bite worms, but shaking jig worms has begee the latest and most productive way for top pros to get bass to eat their worms. Keep your eye on this new trend, and see if shaking jig worms won't work for you too.
The Shakey Jig - Chapter Two
Innovation runs rampant in bass fishing, especially in lures. That's not to say lures are the only things being innovated. Rods, reels, line, tackle bags, boats, motors, trailers, electronics and tow rigs constantly get better for us. Yet it is only the lure that the fish has an interest in. The fish has no interest whatsoever in the rest of the stuff. All necessary? Surely, maybe. Yet the fish considers the lure alone, and rewards the angler who presents it in the manner that is most fitting for the fish to bite it.
Only problem is, if you present good lures too many times too effectively, it's possible that bass build up resistance to them. Whether that's true or not, we suspect it.
That's why we jump on what's new, the next hot lure. There's a feeling that bass require this, that old lures lose effectiveness. We say why new lures suddenly work so swell is that fish havent seen them before, so they haven't built up resistance to them.
Therefore we crave innovation in fishing lures. Lately, the pendulum of bass fishing innovation is swinging eastward and to the south. They've got the Biosonix(tm) bass boom box thing blaring out of Louisiana. The Rad Lures Chatterbait(tm) thumps out of South Carolina. The whole new red hook craze - a megatrend - stemmed out of Alabama. It's not like they were the first to put red lipstick on a bass lure. Look at vintage freshwater lures (okay's a good place for that), and you'll see half red, half white lures were very popular back in the early days of bassdom.
With or without red hooks, another new trend that works is the shakey jig, also spawned out of the southeast. The genius of it is to Texas rig a finesse worm on a light jig head, thereby making it snag less. As simple as that sounds, it was not done much before.
Today however, whether in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas or states thereabout, you won't see a savvy bass boater without a 6-8 lb test spinning rod and a little worm Texas-rigged on a jig now. It's the Southeast angler's answer - and upgrade - to Western light line finesse tactics like the dropshot.
The shakey jig is not yet used as much in the North, Central or Western USA but anglers everywhere are increasingly catching on. Do give it a try. It's fun and refreshing to use new methods that work swell.
The concept has been around forever, or at least since the late seventies when Charlie Brewer from Tennessee crafted a slim four-inch straight-tailed worm and jig head for it. He taught anglers to Texas rig the worm on his jig and do nothing but reel real slow and steady with no angler-imparted action. Brewer held a notion the exaggerated wiggling motion of most bass baits was not natural. Skinny minnows, which Brewer felt his small slim worm looked like, propel themselves in straight lines with hardly noticeable tail flicks most of the time. That's a condensed version of Charlie Brewer's Slider Fishing philosophy right there.

Fast forward to today, and the latest word on finesse worms is also a method of Texas-rigging them on shakey jig heads to be snagless. Unlike Brewer, most modern day worm wizards vehemently shake and shiver their jig worms now. Some anglers almost constantly impart action.
That's nice, but it doesn't need to be that way. Even though the very name - shakey jig - seems to suggest something, you can never give two shakes, just let it drop and deadstick it. Drag it, drown it, hop, crawl or swim it.
Think of it this way. A watchful guard dog can't help but bark at strangers. It won't matter whether those strangers are shaking or not. Likewise a bass can hardly help but bite a worm whether it's shaken or not even stirred. It's what dogs and bass do best. So don't worry if your shaking jig worm doesn't shake.
Another thing you may want to try with shakey jigs is to break out of the mindset that it's a light tackle, little finesse worm technique.
Even all y'all in the southeast where the shakey jig trend originated, you do not need to go light tackle and little worms on shakey jigs. Give it a fresh try with some big beefy worms.
Leave behind the 1/8 ounce jigs, 6 pound test and 4" worms. You can use 10 or 12 pound test, 1/4 to 3/8 oz jig heads with hooks manly enough to handle bulky 6 to 7 inch worms. Use as big a worm as you would otherwise Texas-rig with a bullet sinker, except on a shakey jig.
Odds are that you'll get more bites on finesse worms, but a bigger five fish limit on big worms. This is something several top Western pros have learned the last few years they've fished the national pro tour stops in the Southeast - that the bigger average bass in the Southeast ate bigger worms than they used to finesse out West.
In closing, do you really need shakey jigs? How did you and your bass get along all these years without them? And will you continue to be effective against bass if you don't start using them? Shakey jigs are the latest innovation, and bass haven't seen them before. That makes them necessary. If you don't think so, why do so many top pros use shakey jigs now versus one year ago? The answer is, new lures and new tactics are necessary for success. So be innovative. It's not the shakey jig itself these fish desire, it's the innovation.