Yamamoto Senko| Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits | 2018 Product Catalog, Page 20

Yamamoto Senko| Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits | 2018 Product Catalog, Page 20

Rigging Guide

Talkin’ Texas - Four Ways to Lasso and Hog-tie a

Yamamoto Bait

Texas rig, Carolina rig, Mojo rig, with a screw-in sinker, a splitshot or dropshot, weightless or wacky rig? A Senko or Kut-Tail can be effective all these ways as can most of our soft baits. Except wacky rig or using our Split Shot hook, you often start out the same by putting the offset eye portion of a hook through the nose of a bait and out the chin. Then with the point end of the hook, do one of the following, depending on how heavy the bass-holding cover is at any given moment.

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Tex-Skin on Top

For moderate cover, follow the directions for Tex-Exposing the hook. Then, insert the hook point and barb just under the skin on the plastic bait’s back. You have to pull the plastic in front of where the hook comes out the top of the bait, and stretch it forward a bit. While it is still stretched, insert the point just under the skin, and then push the stretched plastic back to cover the barb area. The only way to describe it is that the hook point should appear just under the bait’s skin exactly as if you got a splinter in your thumb, just under your skin.

Texas Rigged

For the heaviest cover, the only option may be to put the point in through the bottom of the bait, and not have it come out the top surface. Works best with the thinner-bodied baits

where you do not have to drive the hook through a big wad of

plastic on a hookset. Many anglers under-estimate the gear

required for this. Texas rigging is not a light or medium line-rod

technique. A heavy rod, reel and line are required to drive the

hook through the plastic. (Sidenote: For flipping and pitching

short distances, Gary Yamamoto prefers the solid hooksets he

feels are provided by Texas rigging with a straight shank hook.

For casting weightless baits or distances, he opts for an offset

shank to help keep the bait in place during a long cast.)

Tex-Exposed

For open water or thin cover, put the point into the bottom of the bait and all the way out the top of the bait. The barb on some hooks like the Yamamoto Sugoi angle downward, so the point will hug flat on top of the bait. This is called “Tex-Ex- posed,” meaning it is an exposed point Texas rig. Applications are where the water is mostly open, with few snags and sparse weed patches. Tex-Exposed works a bit better on big, fat-bod- ied grubs or on wide-bodied lizards where there is some girth that tends to bump the Tex-Exposed point away from any snags.

Tex-Skin on Side

For moderate cover. In this variation, you do not insert the hook through the bottom of the bait. Instead, let the hook dangle down with the hook bend underneath the bait’s body, and the hook point alongside the bait. Now scrunch the bait forward a bit with your fingers, insert the hook point into the side of the bait, then slide the bait back so that the point and barb are under the skin on the bait’s side. This is often used with light tackle, since the hookset is easier to break out of the plastic this way.

Above all, you need to leave some slack in the body of the lure when you rig it. You cannot have the bait stretched too tightly onto the hook. Tautness in the lure body is what makes

for poor hooksetting. You have to leave the slightest

amount of slack in the body between the hook eye and

the embedded point. The slackness makes for a good

hookset. This is a feel that only comes with doing it right.

Leaving slack does not mean that the lure should look like

it has a bend or curve caused by the way you rigged it - it

should look perfectly straight - but when you press down

on it with your index finger, right where you want the fish

to bite it, there should be some looseness, some slack give

in the lure body. You want the fish’s mouth to depress the

bait’s body down easily in the section ahead of where the hook point is waiting. Once the hook point starts to grab hold in the fish’s mouth, you really want the entire bait to easily pull down off the front portion of the hook and out of the way where it won’t interfere with a good hookset. This is kind of hard to describe, but very recognizable once you get the hang of doing it.