Ned Rig

Setting an Exposed Hook

The hook rides exposed on a molded head, so there is nothing to pull it through except the fish. A short, quick set is enough. A long sweep is worse than useless, because it moves the bait before it moves the hook. The rod earns its place by reporting the bite at all, and most bites arrive on a slack line as a faint knock.

Fishing it on the bottom means the rod is a sensing instrument for most of the retrieve. Bites arrive as a change in weight or a faint knock through slack line, and a rod that cannot report that is a rod fishing on its own.

That is what the medium-light or medium rating and the fast or extra-fast tip above are for. A bait this light only casts on a rod light enough to bend under it. The fast tip is what shows you a bite, because nothing about this bait pulls hard enough to announce itself. Length lands between 6'6" to 7'6". That is long enough to cast and to move line on the pull, and short enough to stay accurate.

New York's fisheries agency publishes the size, the head weight and how to work it. Ranking it first for smallmouth is our call, not theirs.

• 6'9" medium-light, fast action spinning

  Length

  6'9"

  Power

  medium-light

  Action

  fast

  Casts

  1/16-3/8 oz

  Line

  4-10 lb

  A light-line rod for when fish have seen everything else. Dropping to a lighter bait on thinner line changes how a bait falls and how visible the connection is, and this rod is built to cast that weight without needing to force it. The cost is control: a fish hooked near heavy cover on this rod is a fish you follow, not one you steer. For largemouth in weeds and wood it is the second rod, not the first. For smallmouth on rock it is often the only rod that will cast the bait.

  Not enough power to pull a fish out of grass, timber or dock pilings.

The One Bait Fished This Way

One bait, because the method is defined by it. Here is how to work it and when to leave it alone.

• Ned-rigged soft plastic

  Weight

  1/16-1/8 oz

  Size

  3"

  Hook

  jighead

  Water

  clear

  Best over rock and gravel in clear water, when fish are down on the bottom and will not chase anything moving quickly. Cast it and let it sink all the way down on a slack line. Wait. Then drag it a couple of feet with the rod, stop, and wait again. Most bites come while it is sitting still.

  Poor in wind or current strong enough to push it around, because a bait that will not stay put has lost the one thing it does well.

The One Fish Caught This Way

A method this specific has one target here, and the rod requirement above is really that fish's requirement written from the other direction.

Fished in lake and river water. It is a reasonable first method. The motion is learnable in an afternoon, and the mistakes below are the ordinary ones, not the expensive ones.

• Smallmouth Bass

  Water

  freshwater

  Mouth

  bony

  Fight

  medium

  A small bait dragged slowly over rock looks like the crayfish they are already hunting. It is also the easiest thing here to fish from the bank.

  Ranked first of 6 for smallmouth bass. When it stops producing, tube jigging is the next one to try, and it does not use this rod.

Where It Goes Wrong

Fishing it on a medium rod that cannot cast the bait, then blaming the bait when it lands ten feet away.

Dragging it without stopping, when the pause is when almost every bite happens.

Working it through jagged rock, where an open hook point finds every crack.

Where This Decision Goes Next

• Jighead and Soft Plastic

  Also fished on jighead hooks, so it asks a similar thing of a tip. This is the case where one rod may genuinely cover both.

• Tube Jigging

  Also fished on jighead hooks, so it asks a similar thing of a tip. This is the case where one rod may genuinely cover both.

• Find the rod for ned rig in your water

  Five questions, four of them skippable. The rod requirement above holds for any fish; naming yours, and the water, turns it into a specific rod — and tells you whether one you already own will do.