 Today we're going to be talking about how to catch 10 times more bass any time of the year. I'm talking all 12 months. It doesn't matter when you use these techniques. It could be in a pond, it could be in a river, it can be in a lake, it can be in a big lake with a big boat, it can be in a stock pond. Anything, all these techniques are going to apply. So we're going to go ahead and hop into it from basic techniques all the way to tips with the rigs, all the way to colors of baits, depending on what type of fishery you're fishing. So let's go ahead and hop into it. Since we got that out of the way, let's go ahead and look at what I just picked up from the tackle shop. So let's go ahead, slide down here. I actually went by Bass Pro and picked up a few things. I actually have a tackle box. This is actually my own tackle box. I didn't pick that up from Bass Pro, but I did pick up a few things in here and I want to show you before we get deeper into this video. Only 27% of you all watching these videos are actually subscribed. So if you could take the time at the subscribe button really helps the channel. I'd appreciate it. This first rig that we're going to talk about is pretty sweet and basic. It's going to allow you to catch a lot of fish, but as we get further on into the video, I have a couple rigs later on that you guys need to hear. It is going to help you catch fish anywhere and everywhere. And I'm telling you, they cannot just not bite the bait. Like you're going to catch fish on these rigs. So the first thing that I want to talk about is the bait that we're using. This is actually a Strike King Ocho. So this is pretty much a standard Sanko, but it is slightly different. Now let me let me show you why. Let's go ahead and get this bait out of the package. So right here, we got technically a standard stick bait. But what Strike King does is they make their baits a little unique. OK, and what they do with it, when you have a standard Sanko, it's fully rounded, just fully cleared on the edges. This one is actually like a octagon, as you guys can tell by the front of the bait, it's got sharp edges and pretty much what that allows you to do. So say we let's just say, for instance, we wacky rig this bait just like that. It's going to allow this bait to twitch more as it falls. It's going to have more of a tighter motion of it wiggling as it falls to the bottom. So that's something that's really cool about the Strike King Ocho and what makes it different than any other Sanko. But we actually have another Sanko bait that I wanted to show you all. So this bait is pretty cool. So this is called the Zero Z2. So a different Strike King line. This one, as you can tell, it's just basically shredded and rounded around the edges, standard Sanko. But looking at this bait, you'd be like, OK, this is just a regular stick bait. But the one cool thing about it is one, it's got a lot of flexibility there, as you guys can tell. And two, if you guys are somebody who doesn't want to spend a lot of money, you're on a budget, you don't want to run through a bunch of soft plastics because I promise you guys, after watching this video, you're going to catch 10 times more fish. So guess what? You're probably going to go through 10 times more plastic. OK, and that is why I brought out the Z2 today. So let me show you guys, you guys see how flexible that bait is. I mean, I could do anything. I could jump rope with this thing. I'm telling you, this thing's got a lot of stretch. Therefore, it's going to last through a lot more fish. Obviously, when I stretch it out like this, it's going to mess with the color a little bit there, but that can I can pretty much show you how much stronger that this plastic is. So Strike King partnered up with Z-Man, but their last tech technology and pretty much made this bait. If I grab an Ocho, it's going to be a little softer. It's going to be pretty tough. But I mean, I could pretty much break that bait. OK, so the cool thing about the Z2, a lot of flexibility. You're not going to be going through baits as much as one cool thing to check out. Before we talk about the rigs, I want to talk about the rod that I have this on today. So this is actually a kick in their bass TV, ex-lose combo, kicking their bass in my brand, partnered up with Luz. And we came out with a beautiful kicking combo. And this is a combo that is affordable. One is $150. We also have spinning combo is 110. My main goal with this combo was to one, make a combo that's affordable and two, make a combo that's versatile. This is a seven, five to one gear ratio reel. This is a rod right here that you guys can throw pretty much anything on. You could throw a spinner bait, you could throw a chatter bait, you could throw a crankbait. We've even thrown, you're not really supposed to, but we've thrown 10 XDs on this rod. It's handled it just fine. You can throw top orders on this rod. You can throw any soft plastics. That is the reason why we came out with the kick in their bass line of bait casters and spinning commas, because you can throw just about anything on it. So if you guys would like to check these out, kickintheirbass.com, I have them linked down below. So now that we talked about the bait and also the combo we're going to be putting it on, let's go ahead and talk about our first rig that we're going to be doing today. So this rig is pretty cut, sweet and basic. I have a couple of rigs towards the end of the video that I really want you guys to go try. It's going to help you catch a lot more fish. Not only will this rig catch you a lot more fish, let's say it's probably the most basic that anybody can go out and do, which I really like. OK, so first thing we're going to talk about is a basic Texas rig right here. We have a four-ot extra wide gap hook. And right here we've got a three sixteenths ounce bullet weight. This is actually a lead weight. You can go with tungsten. I will say tungsten is going to be a little more expensive. Your lead is going to be a little cheaper. And I know you guys are probably saying that's a painted lead weight. And it is. It actually looks pretty slick. It's just a simple lead weight, though. It's not a tungsten. But all you need for this rig, extra wide gap hook, bullet weight, obviously your Sanko. OK, so let's go ahead and tie this on. So while we're about to tie this up, I want to talk about line. That's very important for this simple Texas rig. I would suggest anywhere between 12 and 20 pound. If you're going to go up to 20 pound, I'd say you're fishing some very heavy cover, some thick trees. My personal preference is 17 pound. That's always what I stick to. If you're fishing somewhere with a little more clear water, maybe you can back down to that 12. But at the end of the day, I think it's personal preference. The cool thing about, you know, watching somebody and how they fish is that there really are no rules to fishing. Guys, I like to say that a lot because I don't go by the basics. I like to fish in my own way and learn different things. And the cool thing about it is you can have the most experienced fisherman in the world come watch this video or any other video on YouTube and possibly learn something because everybody does things in a different way and that's the glorious part. So what we're going to do with this rig, we're going to get our bullet weight. This needs to go on first. We're going to put it on our line. Make sure that tip is faced upward. OK, now we're going to go to our extra wide gap hook and we're going to go ahead and tie this on. OK. And the knot that I use is actually a uni knot. I'm not going to go in depth in this video on it. But if you guys want to check it out, just go on YouTube, type in kick in their vast TV knot, the video will pop up for you. Once we have our knot there, we're going to wet our line. Since you're tight, boom, we're going to take our pliers, our scissors, cut off our tag and boom, you got this cone point facing upward and got on your extra wide gap hook. OK, now's the next step is to rig up our bait. You have your hook, you have your ocho. You're going to want to put the hook through the center of the ocho and just know that this is the flat end. You have a pointy end. You don't want that. You want the flat end going in. OK, you're going to put it right there to right where it's going to bend and right where it's about to bend, you're going to break that hook back through. OK, once you do that, you're going to slide the front of your bait all the way up the hook. See, that's your eye. Rotate it, slide it all the way up. OK, now your bait is laying like this. The next thing we have to do is I like to lay my bait in this case, my Sanko, on the backside of that hook. And I can see right where this end part of the hook's at. That's exactly where you're going to want to penetrate the point. OK, so we're going to go slide this bait back. Boom, bring the hook through the soft plastic. And another thing that we're going to want to do, you're going to end up getting this hooked up on whether it's grass, whether it's any vegetation in the water lay downs, you're going to end up getting hooked up. So what I like to do is I pull my bait up just slightly and I bury that hook into the bait. So right now that is weedless. As you can tell, I'm rubbing my hand in front of it. It's not hooking me because that point of the hook is buried into the bait. And I know you guys are probably asking, is that going to hurt your hook up ratio when a fish bites it? It will not. It's this this plastic is very soft. As you can tell, right when I push that, the hook popped right back out. So just know that you can bury that bait. And you can get this thing through a lot of cover a lot easier. OK, to conclude this rig, I want to talk about how to fish it. So we're going to throw this bait in the water. I'm going to talk about a couple of different ways to work it, possibly ways that you guys haven't seen before. And then after that, we're going to hop on to this next rig that I'm so excited to show you guys about. So we've got our 17 pound line, got it paired up on a kick in the best TVX loose combo. Got our Texas rig with the Ocho on the end. It's time to cast it out. So out here in this pond, it's pretty shallow water. You've got about three to four foot right here. And right here in this little pocket in this corner, there's actually a bunch of submerged cover. So you've got a bunch of little lay downs right out here. So we're going to cast our bait. We're going to let our bait hit the bottom. Just know that when you're fishing this bait, when you're fishing this Sanko, you're going to want to work this on the bottom, this is a bottom bait. So once our baits hit the bottom, we're going to reel up our slack as you guys can tell out there. Reel up our slack. Then we're just going to drag the bait. OK, once we drag the bait, we're going to lower our rod tip. OK, bait's just chilling on the bottom. We're going to wait a few minutes, not a few minutes, few seconds. OK, reel back up our slack. We're going to drag again. I'm filling all that cover down there. I'm bringing it over these branches. Now we're just going to lay a rod tip down, let our slack line out. Wait a couple of seconds, reel up again, continue that process. That is one simple way to work this bait. And I'm going to tell you, not every day they're going to eat it like that. And that's why I want to show you guys a couple of different methods to work this bait. So since we got that one down, that's pretty much a simple drag and pause method. There's some days I'm going to move this bait a little bit more. I want to get a little more active with it. So I want to kind of pop my rod tip like that. All I'm doing is kind of popping my bait, pop, pop, pop. You don't want to go too regressive with it. You just kind of want to give it some pops off the bottom. So what's the last doing is that bait's just hopping now. Instead of more of a drag, that bait's hopping. Boom, let our bait hit the bottom and do it again. Pop, pop, pop. Then we're going to let it pause, let it sit, reel up our slack, pop, pop, pop, pop. That's two different methods to work this Texas rig to get a lot of bites. Now, one that I really like, and this is probably my favorite, say there's a tree out there and I know it's under water because I felt it or I see it, OK? I'm going to throw my bait up there. And instead of popping it aggressively like this, I'm actually going to reel my line to where there's no slack in the line. As you guys can tell, my line is going straight from my pole into the water. That means there's no slack. What I'm going to do is I'm going to grab the back end of my rod. I'm going to grip my thumb here and I'm just going to do that. What that's going to do is allow that bait to barely move. This is actually a technique I use in the springtime when the bass are betting a ton, but I actually tend to use this more often than not. I mean, I'm doing this 12 months out of the year. If the fish were really finicky, that's one good way of moving your bait instead of just dragging it, but giving it a little bit more something to where these fish are going to bite. So just like that. So once I do that, I kind of let the bait sit for a second. I might drag it in one rip. I'll let it hit the bottom and I'll start doing that again. That is a great method to getting some more of these finicky fish to bite and give it a little something to entice them to fully eat the bait. So before we move on to the next rig, I want to show you guys something with this Texas rig that is going to allow this bait to be a little more finesse. OK, I actually took my bullet weight off my line. It's not there anymore. I still have my worm on my hook. So I'm pretty much going to tie this thing up weightless. OK, so pretty much the same rig, but just without the bullet weight. So we have our bait, pretty much the same rig. Guys, you're going to rig this up the same way, just minus that weight. So this is a lot lighter. OK, if you guys are getting into bass fishing, I'd probably suggest throwing this on more of a spinning combo. You can throw this on a baitcaster if you're a little more advanced. Just make sure you obviously tighten down your brakes and make sure everything's good there. That's for another video, though. Pretty much what's going to happen when you throw this bait out there. Since it doesn't have a weight in the front, it's going to take a lot more time to fall to the bottom, which is really cool with this Ocho because you got these hard edges. So when this bait is falling, it's going to slightly shimmer just like that. These hard edges are going to catch that water. It's going to allow that bait to kind of move in that direction. As it's falling to the bottom, you're also going to have this tail lift up a little bit, so you're going to have the bait fall down. And I'll tell you a lot of the time when you're fishing this bait, you're going to have a lot of these fish actually eat the bait on the fall, which is pretty cool. Let's go ahead and throw our bait out here. I can still get a good distance on there. I'm going to tell you just because this bait's weightless doesn't mean it's not heavy. This bait actually has a good bit of salt in it. And I can still throw this thing very far on a baitcaster. So we just threw a bait out there. Obviously it's taking a little bit longer for this bait to hit the bottom. But as I can tell now, our lines floated on the top of the water. So that bait isn't sinking anymore. So what I'm going to do with this one, I'm just going to slightly drag it. This is more of a method that you can pretty much do nothing. I like called the do nothing method. You can kind of sit there and let the bait do all the work for you. So we're kind of kind of reel up our slack a little bit, pop our bait ever so slightly, pop it two or three, four times, and then just let that bait fall again. So all that bait is doing is you're popping it, gets off the bottom, and then as your line slack, it's just sinking right back down. Then you pop it again off the bottom, sinking back down. We're just going to repeat the process until you get it back to the bank. There's another method of you could just drag it, just drag it and then let it sit. But this is one of those methods where if those fish are just not biting, you're having the hardest time getting a fish to eat anything. This is one method that's going to catch you a lot of fish. It's just something that's more finesse. It's not as flashy, it's not as poppy, just kind of sit in there. You let the bait do the work for you. And more than likely, those finicky fish are going to eat it. OK, guys, before we get to the rig that I've been wanting to show you guys the whole video, I'm going to actually whip out my kick in their bass TV, Exluse spinning combo here. You want to check it out, you guys know, kickintheirbass.com. This is going to be perfect for y'all that are just getting in the fishing. You want something that's going to cast good. This is the bra that you need to go with. Bait caster is a little more advanced. It doesn't take too much time to learn it, but it does take time. This is something that you can rig some line up on, go out in your backyard or wherever you're going and cast right into the water and have no problem with it. One thing that we don't want to do with this braid is tie or bait directly to it. This line is not clear. You can fish with just braid if you want, but I wouldn't suggest it. So with this, we're actually going to have eight to 12 foot of fluorocarbon that we're actually going to tie to the braid. So the knot that I actually use is called a uni to uni knot. It's pretty much a uni knot two times on each side. I'm not going to go in depth in this video and show you all, but you guys can definitely find it on YouTube. And this is a way that you can tie pretty much line together. And the fluorocarbon that I'm using is actually 10 pound. I like to match it with my braid. So if I got 10 pound braid, I'm going to flop 10 pound fluoro on there. Boom. And just like that, we tied our braid to our fluorocarbon. And like I said, I got eight to 12 foot on this. That's what I like to do on my spinning combos. Our boys, now that we have our leader line rigged up, it is time for the rig I've been talking about a little technique. OK, so when you guys hear this out of my mouth, you're probably going to say, man, I've tried this before. But listen, we have a couple of different ways to fish this rig. That's going to help us get a lot more bites. And that's why we're making this video. So the rig that I've been hyping up is the wacky rig. OK, this is a way that you guys are going to be able to catch a fish anywhere. I'm talking, it doesn't matter how big they are, whether they're 10 pound bass, whether they're half pound bass, any of these fish will eat a wacky rig. So when it comes to wacky rig fishing, I stick pretty basic. And I just get a regular circle like finesse Y gap hook just like that. That's usually what I do. But there's a bunch of different options. I've seen a lot of people just use like a regular straight shank worm hook. Then you also have the standard circle hook and it actually has a little wire there, so it makes a weed list, which I'll show you guys here in a second. And then there's another option, which is a weighted wacky hook. So those are the hooks that we have. So let's go ahead and rig one of these puppies up and I can show you what the wacky rig is about. If there is any rig in bass fishing as a whole that just catches fish, guys, it is the wacky rig, especially if you guys are a beginner and you just want to go out and you want to go catch some fish, how you want a wacky rig? You're going to have to throw this on a spinning rod, by the way. And that's why I was talking about rigging up that fluorocarbon on here, because this bait is so light, it's going to be very hard to throw it on a bait caster unless you're throwing the weighted wacky rig, wet our line. Boom. And there we go. We got our little circle hook right there. And so now I'm going to show you guys exactly how to rig up this wacky rig. I'm actually going to go with an ocho because what I was explaining earlier, the edges on this ocho actually allow the water to pick up and maneuver, remove this bait and have it wiggle a little tighter and more of a wobble action when it falls. So what you're going to want to do is you have this circle hook here. You're going to want to get your stick bait. OK, if we hold it here, you see how it shaped just like an upside down you. We're going to want to hook it there right in the middle, just like that. And that is our standard wacky rig. And you guys see what's happening when I flop it? That bait is creating a little bit of action on both sides. OK, so what's going to happen when we throw this bait in the water is you're going to throw it out there and it's going to slightly kind of shift like this. But with those hard edges on this Sanko, it's slightly going to be shimmying. So you're going to see it slightly fall just like this. It's going to be shimmying back and forth at the same time. This is a bait when we're talking about a bait that's going to work for you. This bait is going to work a lot for you. But let me show you guys exactly how I would fish this in the water. To get the most bites possible. All right, guys, like I said, got appeared up on a spinning combo. This is something that's very light and you're going to have to throw it. So say we're out here at this pond and this in this goes for rivers. It goes for lakes. It goes for anything. What a bass love, especially largemouth bass. They love cover. They love wood. They're going to be up on here right here on this bank. We got this nice little tree line. Got a willow tree right here. Got a couple of willow trees in the back and this whole edge has a bunch of cover. So what we're going to do is we're going to take this wacky rig and throw it right there down that bank line. OK, when we throw it out there, all we're going to do is sit back and kind of relax for a minute. We're just going to let that bait sit in the water. And we're just going to kill it for a second. We're going to make sure our drag set here pretty loose. OK, now that our bait's on the bottom, I actually thought a fish was biting it. It looked like my line was running. So all you're going to do with this wacky rig, let it sink to the bottom and you're going to reel up your slack and you're just going to pop it a few times. So all that bait's going to do is like what I was showing you before. When you pop it, that bait's just going to flutter up. And then once you stop popping it and you let your line go slack, it's just going to sink and kind of sink down to the bottom. A lot of your bites that you're going to have on this wacky rig are actually going to come when your bait's falling. So when you pop that bait a couple of times, you bring it off the bottom, just go and pop, pop, pop, pop. And then it's slightly falling. This is a great method, whether these bass are really finicky, whether these bass are biting really good, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the conditions. It doesn't matter the time of year. This bait is going to catch fish year round. There's another method that we can use to get a ton of bites. Throw a bait out there, let it sink to the bottom. And all we're going to do is kind of reel it a few times. You just let that bait sink. With this method, you can pretty much control your destiny with it. And what I mean by that is you can sit here for a minute and let it sit there on the bottom, or you can sit here for 10 seconds. Just know if the bass are really finicky that day. You're probably going to want to let it have a longer pause than usual. Give it a couple more pops, drag it out, let that bait sink. You just repeat that process. I promise you you're going to get a lot of fish to bite. Now that we talked about how to fish the standard wacky rig, weightless, a ton of fish, another good perk about this bait is pretty much if you have a pond that has just a ton of grass in it, but there's little holes in the grass, you can easily get this wacky rig in. This is weightless, it's going to slowly flow down. It's going to be a lot easier to catch fish in some of those areas. But the one thing I kind of want to harp on and let you guys have an understanding on are the different methods to rig this wacky rig. I'll show you all these hooks. So with this one, this is the most standard wacky rig method. Simple little hook like that. This one actually has a weed guard. You guys are probably asking Noah, what is a weed guard? Let me show you. So this is going to help you, especially because this wacky rig. I mean, if you're throwing it around trees, you're probably going to get hung up. This is going to be a savior for you. I'm pretty much to know that this is going to keep a lot of stuff from hanging up on this bait. That isn't the perfect example for it. So I actually have another one here. This is the weighted one that also has a weed guard. Let me show you this. So if you're having problems hanging up on stuff, you're going to want to get some of these hooks of weed guards. That's another guard right there that's going to help glide this bait off of any cover. Don't get me wrong, it's not going to be perfect like a Texas rig, but I'll tell you that's going to help a lot just between you getting snagged up. Because the last thing we want is to be getting snagged up all day and losing a bunch of baits. So I also talked about this standard straight chink worm hook here. This is just a personal preference. Some guys like to use a bigger hook with their wacky rig. I like to use just the standard circle hook. That's what I prefer. But this is another method that a lot of people like to use. So now let's talk about the hook with the weight on it. So this is going to be very beneficial for y'all that are fishing in a little deeper water. Say you're on a clear lake, I'm from Lake Lanier, big spot of bass fishery. I'm probably not going to go out on Lake Lanier with a weightless wacky rig unless I'm fishing in the springtime and the fish are up spawning. This is going to allow your bait to get a lot deeper. Like say I'm fishing 10 to 15 foot of water. I can fish a wacky rig with a little weight on that and 10 to 15 foot. If I'm fishing the weightless one with how this bait is going to flutter down, it's going to take half a century for your bait to hit the bottom. So just to fish more efficiently, I would say if you're fishing deeper water, definitely go with the weighted wacky rig. So those are just some of the options with the wacky rig. But now that we went over the Texas rig, we went on multiple different ways to rig up the Texas rig to get more bites. We also went into the wacky rig, multiple different ways to rig up the wacky rig to get more bites. Now we're going to go ahead and test both of these baits and see if we can catch some fish on before we cast out here and catch some of these fish. There's one more thing I want to talk about, which I think is really important that I haven't hit on is colors and when to pick which color. So right here, we got the two sankas that we've been talking about. One of these is black and blue flake. Another one is watermelon red. This is a rolling thumb, dirty water, more stained water that you really can't see through pretty dirty. You're going to want to go with your darker colors like this black and blue for fishing clear water. I'm going to go with more of my watermelons, more of my green pumpkins. So to give a little example right here, we got black and blue flake for dirty water, black and blue flake, Junebug, black and red, any of your darker colors for dirty water. We're sticking to clean water, your watermelons, your watermelon reds, your green pumpkins. Those are going to be the colors that you're going to want to use in clear water. That's just a little rolling thumb, dirty water, dark colors, clear water, clean colors. Now let's go ahead and see if we can catch a fish on this old wacky rig here. As we talked about earlier this video, I'm working this pretty basic, popping it up a few times, let my line slack, letting it sink. Wait a few seconds, reel back up, pop it again. There's a bunch of trees that are submerged right here on this bank. So I'm keeping that in mind. I'm just working this thing really slow. It's one of the most finesse baits that you can throw. I'm telling you, these fish love it. Really, anywhere and everywhere you go, whether it's a pond, river, lake, does not matter, they'll eat it. All right, boys, well, I ended up breaking off my wacky rig and I went back to the truck and grabbed my Texas rig. Now this is a really great talking point. So out here there's a lot of lay downs, a lot of brush in the water. And I'll tell you that wacky rig has that exposed hook. Yes, we could have switched to the one with the weed guard and probably helped minimize our hangups. But I'll tell you this spot, the Texas rig is more optimized for it. And I'll tell you, this is perfect because this is the other technique that we talked about. So there's going to be certain scenarios to where you need to whip out, warner the other with these rigs. And with this scenario being that there's a lot of trees, a lot of things that we can get hung up on. It's almost better for us to go to this Texas rig and fish some of this stuff. So we're going to go ahead and throw out there and see if we can get nibbled on with this thing. We're going to be able to fish this a lot more efficiently too. That wacky rig, I'll tell you, is a great rig and you're going to be able to get so many bites on it. But the one thing I will say is that it takes a lot of patience. You're going to be slowing down a lot, which is a good thing, especially this time of year. I'll tell you this Texas rig, I'm going to be able to fish a little more efficient and we'll be able to get a little further cast with it, just knowing that it has a weight on it. And I'm on my baitcaster and let's see if we can trick one of these fish down there to bite. I thought I got bit right away. That was actually that brush pile I got hung up on. Look at them running with me. Oh, there we go, boys. There we go. I got it right up on the edge of that tree. And that's a freaking big and two. Look at that. Oh, my goodness, baby. Come here, come here. Oh, that's almost a four pounder. Let's go, man. There we go, boys, right there on the Texas rig. Got it right in the top of his mouth. He was tucked up in those trees right there. So I'll tell you, you know, that wacky rig, we can skip and get up under those trees. But I'll tell you that Texas rig, we can get deep in there, not worry about getting hung up. We pulled us out a good three pounder. I hope you guys got some information out of this video. If you did, please hit the like button. Let me know what other tip videos you guys would like to see and if you'd like to see more. And like I said, go take some of these tips, apply it to your next day of fishing. And I promise you you'll catch some more fish. But thank you guys for watching and I'll catch y'all in the next one.