EWG Ned jigs

[Dutch]

48 minutes ago, Smalliebigs said:

I bought a Ned mold after I couldn’t get anymore from Dave as have always liked his the best no doubt. I bought a mold that takes a very sharp Owner hook and altered the mold to accommodate a wire weedguard. I must be using heavier camo brown wire than most as I never get hung with that thing ever. I don’t tournament fish so I have no need to have to be able to catch some fish as the Ned/Shakey will most definitely do. I rarely ever fish a Ned anymore at all as I force them to eat big baits or just enjoy the scenery. 

I also modified one of mine for a wg.  I fish a lot in the upper James where trees wash down get hung up and sink.  It is real narly in the most productive parts.  Anything on or near the bottom has a very short life expectancy.  Jigs are good when they will hit them.  When they won’t shaky is next in line, but sometimes they just want the little guy.  When Ned is the ticket I have 5 Ned setups and fish them till all are empty.  I just hate to spot lock and do a lot of retying. 

[Seth]

8 hours ago, Smalliebigs said:

Thrown on your sissy stick more than likely lol….. I saw you nail a nice Smallie at the buzzer on that setup lol

Definitely on the spinning gear for me. The hooks are pretty thin and bend easily. I bet a medium action casting setup would probably work well too if one tried it. I just suck at casting anything lighter than 3/8oz on casting gear.

[Dutch]

I have one bait casting setup for Ned.  It is a Gloomis bronze back ml with a Shimano 70 xg and 6# fluorocarbon line.  3/32 is as light as I can go with it.  I don’t have any mediums that would work with a Ned.

[Smalliebigs]

19 hours ago, Seth said:

Definitely on the spinning gear for me. The hooks are pretty thin and bend easily. I bet a medium action casting setup would probably work well too if one tried it. I just suck at casting anything lighter than 3/8oz on casting gear.

Your tourney videos are some of my favorites to watch late night lol. Your commentary is genuine and we both fish very similar so I just really enjoy your demeanor because they aren’t fake or drummed up drama. You are straight forward and it’s fun to watch for me Seth

[Seth]

2 hours ago, Smalliebigs said:

Your tourney videos are some of my favorites to watch late night lol. Your commentary is genuine and we both fish very similar so I just really enjoy your demeanor because they aren’t fake or drummed up drama. You are straight forward and it’s fun to watch for me Seth

Appreciate it man! I wish I was better and talking to the camera or showing the fish off but I get caught up in the fishing and forget a lot lol. Hopefully the commentary isn’t too cheesy and fills in the gaps.

[Ketchup]

I went to using these about a year ago, and rarely, and i mean rarely get hung. Best thing since sliced bread for Neds in any cover/rocks. 

[dtrs5kprs]

Late to the party on this, but I'm curious how it worked out for you Dutch? Saw the molds, anticipated some issues with hook availability based on the other Victory hooks, plus had some experience fishing it on EWG's.

I've (unsurprisingly) thrown that little dude about every way you can imagine. One of the troubles I've had with EWG hooks and TX rigging it, is with the gap. The elaztech has a bad tendency to ball up rigged that way, with the obvious ensuing problems. This is why my crappie slider heads didn't work all the way back in 2011. Bunch of hooks in the right size range are going to be light on gap.

Other issue is with hook length. This comes into play if you try to upsize the hook in the regular heads too. As that hook gets bigger/longer, there's less bait free to do its thing underwater. You're essentially leashing the bait's potential.

I have TX rigged it and flipped it, with some success, using the Owner Rig N Hooks, which are considerably shorter, while maintaining a wide gap. That's with a big line, big rod, tungsten weights because nothing else big enough mates well. Not really sure it was worth the effort, but it was one of those things I wanted to check off the list. It will get down through bushes, compared to some other baits.

Have tried TX rigging it with lighter weights and a twirly reel, but rocks like eating bullet weights more than the little jigs, at least where and how I fish. Don Baldridge used to fish it rigged that way a bit, did some videos about it.

Tried it on some little swing heads with EWG's. Made sense, didn't work out all that well.

As far as keeping it from sliding down, I use little snips of shrink tubing on my shakey heads, and big EWG hooks for elaztech baits. Cut the tubing on an angle, slide them up with the angle at the front so it sticks past the jog in the hook, cook it, then superglue it in place.

Bingo, you have a version of the keepers used on flip hooks. Then superglue the bait to the shrink tubing keeper once you've rigged it. Works great if you run the ZinkerZ on a shakey head, or are flipping the palmetto bugz. Had to special order the little bitty tubing from a shrink tubing place on eBay.

Now, all of that is specific to elaztech. If you're running plastisol, EWG hooks may be fine. Don't know, I haven't thrown a regular plastic bait on it in years.

Day in and out, it's hard to beat the regular little old heads. 

[Quillback]

"Day in and out, it's hard to beat the regular little old heads. "

I agree.

it is so hard to find commercial Ned heads that have a hook smaller than 1/0 AND come with an acceptable weed guard.    I once had some custom shroom heads made from a guy that will do custom orders at a reasonable price, but he could not use a hook smaller than 1/0, he said he could not make his mold work with a smaller hook.   He also had a wire weed guard, but it was really flimsy and that combined with the 1/0 hook led to me to getting snagged a lot more than with the regular little old heads.  They did get bites, but the snagging was making me crazy.

 

[Dutch]

Well the hooks are in at Barlows.  I just ordered 400 to get us through the winter.  
 

I have also fished it several ways including the swing head which was a disappointment.  I’ve tried the shrink tubing keeper but prefer to just tie a bitty piece of floral wire on the hook shank.  It’s faster than the tubing for me.