Someone needs to develop a bait that mimics a regurgitated piece of food

I use a circle hook and they work well for wacky rigging a senko. You never set the hook. Just real in the bait to make another cast and surprise surprise you got a fish on the other end. I’m surprised they aren’t popular on the frozen tundra with all those toothy fish. The circle hook will get em in the corner of the mouth so they can chew on steal instead of line. I also use a zappu inchi wacky. Very good design, also.

SOme thoughts for the guy who is losing fish on a senko….
1. Those gammy hooks are crap. They are the worst hook ever made for wacky rigging. Throw them away. If you still use them increase the gap on them by 25% with a pliers.
2. Why are you using braid (floating line) on a bait that is designed to sink? Please realize that you are getting a big bow in your line if you are using braid and a weightless senko so when you swing all you are doing is removing the bow in your line. You aren’t moving the hook an inch hence your lame hook setting. Please use straight flourocarbon that sinks with your bait.
3. I am assuming you are feeling the bite and swinging. IF you are a line watcher and see the braid twitch and you swing, the bow in your line is even bigger since the fish hasn’t removed any of the bow so you can’t even feel the bite. If you are stubbern and still want to do stick with the braid, then I’d suggest you just reel set. When you detect a bite just raise the rod tip while you reel as fast as you can. Crank 10 to 12 times as fast as you can. That way you will remove more of the bow out of your line and start to move the hook point a little. And provided the point is sharp it will find a home.
4. Perhaps your rod is too limber. Are you using a short glass rod by chance? Try a longer stiffer graphite rod.

Just some thoughts. Hopefully you figure things out. Fishing is supposed to be fun

Lake Havasu has lots of quaggas/zebras. The bluegill and shellcrackers seem to be eating a lot of muscles….Check out the size of this one……5 lbs 8 ounces !!!

Without sonar you have 2 options to locate deep weedlines. First get a contour map that shows you depth changes in your lake. Steep areas ( where the contour lines run close together ) will have well defined weed lines, flats ( where contour lines are spread apart ) will have poorly defined weed lines. Second weeds will normally only grow to a certain depth in a lake (say 0-20 foot deep ) because they need sunlight to grow. Find a steep area of the lake and put your boat on top of some weeds. Tie on a jig, trig or carolina rig and cast out to the middle of the lake. Drag the weight on the bottom from the deep water back to you in the shallow water till you feel it getting “sticky” in the weeds. Move your boat on top of your lure and measure how much line is below you. That is the depth of the outside weed edge on your entire lake. Thats how you find the weed edge without sonar. That’s also a great way to fish a weed edge (putting the boat on top of the shallow weeds and casting to the midddle of the lake and retrieving a weight on the bottom till you feel the weed edge). The beauty of the carolina rig is once you detect the weed edge with the weight, your bait will still be clearly visable a foot of two away from the weeds. Stop moving the bait towards you and just shake it in place in the perfect place along the outside weed edge, and hold on!!! If you pay attention to the feel of the weight dragging on the bottom you should be able to determine if the bottom is soft/ muddy and clean, soft/muddy and weedy, or hard bottom. If you find a small area with hard bottom surrounded by soft bottom with a weed edge get even more excited. Weedy hard bottom areas really hold fish everywhere in the country. Guys with good sonor or flashers can just idle around the weedy areas to find the hard bottom spots. You ….You gotta drag a weight around to find those spots. You’ll have more fun finding em. Incase you have a hard time relating what you feel to what is on the bottom, take your rod, close your eyes and drag a carolina rig across your drive way…..that’s hard bottom. Drag it across your lawn…sticky weedy bottom….drag it through your bushes…bushy bottom…..drag across some boulders….bouldery bottom. Rmember how it feels…It will feel the same with water on top. Go catch a fish!!!

I fish ultra clear water in socal. My partner is paranoid about perfectly matching the hatch. I fish the most alien style baits and colors I can dream up. We both catch fish. My point is, don’t be afraid to fish your muddy water baits and styles in clear water. Especially if you are fishing for reaction bites. As long as you are fishing clean water “completely wrong” you will be the only one showing fish something they have never seen before and you will literally have the entire lake to yourself. You should be quiet and stealthy/long casts regardless of water color. You know how according to the book you fish tighter to cover in muddy water? Well in clear water remember that shadows are cover. Fish the shadow edges and avoid placing moving shadows from you or your boat on top of areas you are fishing.

“Northland Tackle has one that is similar, but not an exact copy that is about half the price.”—awesome and thanks for the suggestion! I can decorate some more trees with ice jigs!

Do you fish the slick jig without any bait, and does it really fly through the water like a rapala ice jig does?

search for Icky wacky, and make sure you rig the jig in the proper direction to make it weedless..In the wrong direction it will roll over and snag the bottom every time.
Add a oolorado blade on a hitch hiker to the back of the senko and swim it and take 3rd place in the bass master classic, maybe…
I prefer shrink wrap to save senkos, especially when skip casting them.
Neko rig is pretty cool too. With the right balance you can get your senko to swim away from you like an IKA.

Most 8 strand spectra lines are nice…Rounder, less friction = longer casting, still limp, and more quagga muscle proof with the fused strand in there. 8 strand is good. You might consider the diawa samuri braid. I prefer it That stuff is just awesome! Can cast a frog a mile with it. Really like the nanofil on sissy sticks, too. Just don’t get the nanofil too hot. Used it in 108 dergee temps and I think the heat weakened the line. (Or might have gotten one bad spool)

some thoughts….
Allow me to assume
1. That your lost fish are because the hook disconnects from the fishes mouth.
2. With your current setup sometimes you indeed land fish.

That demonstrates your setup can hook and land fish…so how do you increase your odds. I’d focus on your hook.
Is your hook the gamakatso finesse hook? IF so immediately change hooks…That one is a pos!!! If you don’t throw them away at least use a pliers to open the gap.
Is your hook smaller than a 1/0. If so consider that there is not much gap for your hook to accomodate the fish’s mouth. Let me explain…Many of your hooksets will only be crappy skin hook ones where the hook point never sees the light of day and just hooks the inner skin of the fishes mouth. If you see this on fish you land…I’d propose your hook is lame!
What size fish are you catching? Take note how wide the upper lip of your bass are. Is your hook gap wide enough to penetrate behind the lip of the bass you catch on average???. IF not you will just drill the point into the bony lip of the bass and it will fall out asap when the fish shakes its head or jumps. With wimpy rod and reel and line you can’t penetrate through bone = lost fish-I don’t care how sharp your hook is.
In my opinion a straight shank works good for casting applications, and an ewg when you fish under your boat. Try the roboworm rebarb or something like that 1/0 – 5/0 hook.

IF you are one of those ultra finesse guys and really believe light lines and tiny hooks are required for you to have success, may I suggest you try using circle hooks???? Don’t set the hook any more just reel reel reel. I say this because circle hooks will find their way to the corner of a fishes mouth every time, and the corner has no bony lips to penetrate, yet the corner of the mouth has real tuff tissue that won’t allow the hook to tear out during the fight. Thats why we use them for tuna. Just my thoughts and how we do things out west. We dshot for 1 – 10lb fish.
I personally will avoid catching (50) 2 lbers to land one 10 lber. So when you lose a toad with your wimpy set up realize maybe you caught more 1 lbers than me and be happy. Otherwise adjust your gear to accomdate a larger fish, and don’t complain about losing the big one. You can’t have it both ways my friend.