Senkos aren't the only 'sticks' that catch fish

[SPOONMINNOW]

After I caught bass on a 4" Senko it never occurred to me that anything smaller could catch fish or have the same action. Last year I discovered that could. I was fooling around and somehow came up with this 2 3/4" shape and attached a 1/64 oz jig - either wacky rigged or from the front.




But as usual with similar designs and shapes, lure action being similar, even this large white sucker (my first!) got hooked on a Crappie Magnet split-tail hybrid:

 

[Kdog]

good info. Great research

 

[Hawnjigs]

Yup, as I've previously posted bud Jon outifishes me with a 5" Gulp senko style worm cut into 3 stubs.

JiggerJohn designs jigs based on his belief that fish are stupid, and all of his sometimes wacky creations are successful.

 

[Jig Man]

I can see catching a catfish on a plastic worm, but a sucker? Now thats something different...

 

[Hawnjigs]

Since bottom suckers feed on most anything organic that gets into their mouths including small fish and invertebrates, not surprising that they will bite lures if in attack mode.  Some non-game species that bit my jigs are at least 2 buffalo varieties, red horses, quillbacks, grass carp, several kinds of suckers, and of course common carp.  Altho mine are mostly bycatch,  JiggerJohn and his crew actually target carp, and when serious he sometimes cheats with corn tippings.

 

[duffy]

Nice research. I had some grub like bodies that had a split tail that would sometimes work better than the plain tubes for perch ect. Had them for years before the beetle spin came out. Have also caught suckers on shrimp while steelheading, carp and catfish while using a nightcrawler for walleye but I think most of those were opportunity catches.  Allot seems like amount of food for amount of fish. Plentiful food source equals picky fish where as scarce food source with large numbers of fish = more competition. Kinda like what's going on now with the idiot hoarders.

 

[snake River]

I guess I have to get Busy and try this method out.I guess you can get really creative with all the different body styles I have and do a lot of experimenting. I guess you can get really creative with all the different body styles I have and do a lot of experimenting

 

[snake River]

I guess I have to get Busy and try this method out.I guess you can get really creative with all the different body styles I have and do a lot of experimenting. 

 

[snake River]

Ever since I caught my first bass on a GY Senko I wondered why that lure is amazing. I noticed the plastic is of some formula that cause it to sink faster than most any plastic could given the same shape: a thin stick with blunt tips. Gary Y somehow figured out the hydrodynamic properties of the design and made a killing. For a lure crafter and designer such as myself, it opened some doors regarding soft plastic tail designs that took into consideration how lures move differently given different presentations. There is no advantage to having a huge variety of lures that do equally well given conditions, but I can always pretend that many of my creations do well because they are different than most soft plastic sold.

My first grub was a bright yellow Mr Twister Grub given to me by a tackle shop owner. I was blow away by the smallmouth it caught ! You see the tail flapping and figure that fish must thing the grub represents another fish. Course that doesn't explain Mr Twister's Phenom worm especially with a purple body and pink tail. No lure in nature looks nor moves like that! But hey if it catches fish, there's got to something fish are thinking about when they bite certain designs.

But getting back to the Senko. A few years ago I accidentally fashioned a stick-grub by accident and to this day have no idea how it ended up
in my tackle box. But there it was and what the heck - why not rig it on a ball head jig like any other grub. This was the first fish of over two dozen it caught that day:


Now I'm confused ! The tail is blunt, the surface of the lure is smooth as glass and fish blasted it. Finally I watched it in the water using the usual rod tip twitches for finesse lure and DANG if it didn't wag back & forth like a miniature Zara Spook surface plug - except underwater !!
A lure's action speaks louder than words and like all other great lures, lure action is 3/4 the reason fish attack them.

So as is my nature after catching a bunch of fish on a new discovery, I went wild coming up with short stick grubs cut from different sources and added them to 1/16 oz ball head jigs. Here are a few:


Then I figured : why does a stick grub have to have rounded sides ? Enter the stick grub with four flat sides (note the grub holder wire):

It did as well as any other mini-stick.

Last year I started making transparent plastic sticks with glassy smooth sides and blunt tail. They did great in any color water:

Different diameters (above picture) were tested and all caught fish.

But before that I figured - why not make a bullet shaped grub which a call a cone tail grub.
[size=small][/size]
[size=small]It caught this 4 lb catfish and a three other species:[/size]
[size=small][size=small][size=medium][size=small][/size][/size][/size][/size]
[size=small][size=small][size=medium][size=medium][size=medium] ^Even this little guy wanted a piece of one ^ and this bass[/size][/size][/size][/size][/size]


[size=small][size=small][size=medium][size=medium][size=medium][size=medium]Back to short sticks. Again I have no idea how or when I made this 2.5" stick grub, but when I saw it laying on my craft table I figure, [/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][size=small][size=small]why not wacky rig it with a 1/32 oz jig and see how it falls in the water. UNBELIEVABLE ! It had the same tip and body wobble on the drop as a 4" [/size][/size]Senko ! and caught fish the first time I took it fishing. Here is the first prototype:


For a faster drop but with still the same action, a 1/16 or 1/24 oz ball head jig was used.
note: a jig must be used considering the light weight of the plastic in order to start the lure wobble and tip gyrations on the drop.
note: the lure can be rod tip-twitched mid-depth anywhere to the bottom.

I have bags of never used curl tail grubs so I figured: why not cut of the tails and weld the bodies together using a candle flame:
[size=small][size=small][size=small][/size][/size][/size]
[size=small]They all work great ! (Note the different jig rigs in the two photos on the right.)[/size]
[size=small]Don't forget cone tail sticks - another tried & proven design:[/size]
[size=small][size=small][/size][/size]

[size=small]Thanks Gary Yamamoto ! It was a pleasure learning the secret of the Senko and taking it from there![/size]
[size=small]Also, thanks for the digital camera and a place to store photos to transfer from.[/size]

I need to try more of that bait down here in Texas to see if the big bluegill bite

 

[Hawnjigs]

Judging by the pics of catches with every jig different appearance may not matter ?

I've never targeted bluegill but recently about 10 managed to get stuck on a 2/0 EWG T-rig with 3" senko style baits from cut in half 5" Gulp Sinking Minnows which are actually closer to 6". Bass were the target and the BGs were kind of a nuisance.

The BGs weren't very big with 9-10" big enuf for my companions to keep 30 for fish fry.

 

[Hawnjigs]

After a long lifetime of avoiding targeting largemouth bass, finally got serious a week ago acquiring Gamakatsu EWG worm hooks and practicing T-rig presentations. Hooksets remain a work in progress - strike too soon = no set and too late = deep swallow. After losing fish that dove into aquatic vegetation and terminally snagged, bailed on that and switched to open water habitat where a plastic on a jighead could be used.

Point of posting on this topic is that cut in half 5" Gulp Sinking Minnows and 5" Yumdingers have proven to be great bite getters, with the advantage of minimal air resistance long cast capability. In fact, my new bassman bud Bill has switched to these short SENKO style lures when it appeared they were outfishing his traditional 5-7" long bass plastics. Maybe cuz the bass are on the small side averaging 13-15" & topping out at 19".

Formerly an action tail fan for other species now have confidence in what I thought was a do nothing design. Kudos to Gary Yamamoto for designing and popularizing the SENKO.

 

[hookup]

Is SenkoSam now Spoonminnow?

anglers believe fish recognize as a particular prey species.

Believe is the optimal word here. Sure, matching the hatch works, but fish, especially big ones, will hit a lure out of aggression and just because they are the biggest, meanest SOF (son of a fish) in the immediate area.

I'm after the big ones so typically will try to piss the fish off to get him to bite, rather than to grab a snack on the way by.

Until the temperature gets cold, then those small finesse baits can get a cold non-aggressive fish to bite

jmho

 

[Hawnjigs]

Yup, the pick pic clearly shows that disproportionately large fish can be caught on small jigs.

Not contradicting small jig choices, but my ideal size for warm water species 3" or thereabout softies have consistently produced for me max sizes of my target species. Since I mostly fish at night, perhaps larger presence and visibility are optimal to get noticed by predators in the dark.

In the "go figger" category is how well seemingly unnatural colors like chartreuse get bit. Perhaps "irritation" indeed explains that peculiar phenomena.

 

[jiggerjohn]

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that one of Spoonminno's smaller "sticks" caught one of my biggest Lake Erie crappies ever , during its slow ,wiggling drop to bottom, among rocks near a pier. My son and grandson had figured I was a little wacky myself (Well, everybody does!) in hooking that little grub sideways like that ! Later, my then 14 year old grandson, weaned on small jigs since he was 5, had his little lure taken off that same pier ,with the obvious leap coming of a surface rushing, big bodied largemouth bass. We watched huge open lips of what seemed a 5 pounder, but then were shocked to witness "paper lips" followed by an immense speckled body (yep, Lake Erie crappies enjoy leaping!), in what was the largest crappie we have ever seen ! It did fall off during that jump, but we will always have the memory of the monster, high flying "spec", stung on a tiny jig!

 

[jiggerjohn]

Frank, Well YOU're usually with us,via your fine tuned plastic fusions that are on jigs or in the box ready and waiting (and often instantly on when nothing else works!) ! Those new ones ya sent are the perfect size for tipping our smaller mop neck jigs!! Still may get a few spoonies for pike/walleyes in the 4" range, and I'm envisioning your mini stick rigged wacky style on the hind end of a mop jig -certainly would be an unusual sight/actions/vibrations that would stimulate those lunker's investigations !

 

[snake River]

Glad to see that you are still at it are you on here more than the other one now

 

[snake River]

We had a pretty nice down here in Texas for quite a while and then I turned off cold on it but it’s starting to warm back up was in about 42 this morning I’m going to 68 or 69 today will try to be on here more .

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

Since this post in 2022, I discovered so many more great designs rigged on 1/24 - 1/16 oz ball head jigs.
I love it when others catch fish on my designs and I'm willing to send some n/c to anyone that request them.
A buddy of mine that recently started fishing from my boat and has been blown away by the numbers and size fish using my plastics. Of course they aren't the ultimate lures, but still fun to catch fish using them like any lure.

I still take along the baitcaster and some larger heavier lures for bass and pickerel, but most of the time use light action rods and 8# test brad. I like catching numbers of fish no matter the species and less than 50 fish caught on any day is a bad day.
Kids would agree.

BTW, Bob (Snake R.) has some of the finest finesse plastics EVER! If I didn't make or design my own, I would buy from him.