Last season we tested  the wiggle rig on Pan Fish, the results were  even more than we expected. These were head, to head, test, fishing right beside other fishermen using live baits, and lures, fished with other rigs..

The "patented" Wiggle Rig is designed to hold your lure or bait in one spot, yet allows you to keep the bait moving in that spot. It works because of a specially designed elastic thread made from "Spectra" (which makes it very hard to break) and the very weakest natural rubber, which allows you to use a very small weight. to hold the rig in one spot. We call this material SpecTastic, and is only manufactured for the Wiggle Rig, no other elastic material will work, either it's too weak, and breaks when you cast it, or on the smallest snag, or it's stretch is too strong, requiring a huge amount of weight to hold it in place, although all elastics are covered under the Patent, SpecTastic is the only material suitable for  actually fishing this technique.

These SpecTastic bungees still wear out,, they last on average, from 4 to 8 hours of fishing

The first test was done in May, at a popular heavily fished, bank fishing spot. When I arrived there were 9 fishermen, fishing from the bank, using minnows, red worms, night crawlers, and crickets. They had caught only two shell crackers (a type of bream) between them. They told me the fish were just not there, that day.

I rigged a tiny 1/8 inch dia. by 3 inch  long plastic worm on the wiggle rig,, using an 18 inch leader, from the hook to the bungee. I was using four pound test line, and a long shank #8 cricket hook, with the plastic worm threaded on just one end of the worm. I also used "Mega Strike" fish attractant on the worm.


I made the first cast, throwing out as far as I could, planning on working the worm back to the bank until I found the fish, if there were any fish there. (I had always though bream would always hit a worm, or cricket, if they were there, and no one else was catching anything. I didn't think the fish were there)  I tightened up my line, and rapidly bounced my rod tip only one inch, while keeping the line taught. I did this for about a min., then reeled in about 6 feet, and did it again.  On the third stop, and wiggle, BAM ! I caught a nice 8 Oz Blue gill.  I had found at what depth the bream were hanging out, over the next 10 min I caught 11 more from that spot, on 11 cast (caught and released). By this time everyone on the bank had come over, and asked how I was catching them, and if they could have, or buy, some of the rigs. It was hard for me to say no, and explain how I needed to compare the rig against their fishing techniques, maybe the fish were just turning on, or moving in, and would hit their offerings as well. Over the next 3 hours, I caught 146 fish,  (26 spotted bass up to about 3 lbs, 2 stripe, 5 white bass, the rest were blue gills, and shell crackers) fishing between all these other fishermen. To help me calm  some of them, I started giving them fish to take home to eat, as all of these guys, and girls were fishing to eat what they caught.  The other nine fishermen did not catch a single fish during this time, using their live baits. I had never in my life, caught so many fish, so fast, nor had so much fun. Many of these fish were not eating size, one spotted bass that I caught was only 3 inches long, but over a hundred of them were keepers.

Before leaving, I rigged everyone there with the wiggle rig, and gave them enough for them to use on later dates, they all starting catching fish.


No one was more surprised about the results of this test than me, it had to be a fluke I thought, and It was, as I never caught that many in three hours again. but in every test since then, "it has always", out performed live baits, or other lures, and never less than 2 to 1 . It averages 5 to 1.  Now if the fish are not near the bottom (they are suspended in deep water) this rig is not effective, as the fish don't see the wiggling worm, if they are not there.

I have never had any fishermen not satisfied with the Wiggle Rig, if they couldn't catch fish, no one else was either, using anything else.  Can you fish all day with it, and not catch a fish ?  You bet , it has happened twice to me. I just couldn't find where the fish were, or fish it, where they were.

Why does this tiny plastic worm, out catch live worms, and crickets? The only thing we can figure out is, it's in the wiggle, that natural wiggle tells the fish that it is alive, and if they don't eat it, another fish will. It triggers something in a fish's brain. We also found out you can put this same wiggle with  live crickets, minnows, and worms, using the Wiggle Rig. When doing so, the number of fish caught goes up even higher than using the plastic worm on the Wiggle Rig, the only problem is you have to buy bait, and re-bate after each fish, as well as loosing bait without catching the fish.. Another bait that works extremely well on the Wiggle Rig, is the Berkley Gulp worm, you get about a hundred of these tiny worms in a small jar from Wal-Mart, for around 4 dollars. The best thing is they never die, so you can use them on many trips, and on the Wiggle Rig, they out perform live worms.
So far, tiny plastic worms have out performed all other lures, (on small bass and pan fish) but very good results have been had with with the Pan Fish Assassin. It really nails the crappie, and larger bream, as well as bass up to a couple of lbs, I have not tried it yet for trout. Speaking of Trout, so far in all test, nothing, and " I mean nothing" produces more trout, than a tiny plastic worm on the Wiggle Rig. Many days everyone else was skunked using fly rods with flies and trout baits on spinning gear, and the Wiggle Rig was catching trout, on "most" cast

I now have a  kit available with everything you need,  It has 20 of the very same worms we used in these test in the kit, they are packaged in MegaStrike, fish attractant.


 Once someone has spent a day using the Wiggle Rig for pan fish,  (using it right, that is) they never want to fish without it.


Use light line for pan fish, 2 to 8 lb test, use a small long shank hook, number 10 or 8 cricket hooks on tiny worms (I have caught a large number of bass over 5 lbs on a number 8 hook, using light line, you can't horse them in anyway because of the light line.)

You keep your line taught against the weight (you have about 8 inches of stretch in the bungee to work with), even on the down bounce of the rod tip, (don't let your line go slack during the wiggling action, after you wiggle a few seconds, you "can" let it go slack, and let the worm drift to the bottom, this can draw a strike on real finicky fish).  You "don't"  bounce the rod tip over 1 inch.  (any more than this, the lure is moving too fast, and too far, for the fish to get it in their mouth). It works best, when you keep your weight from sliding on the bottom, thus keeping your lure in one spot, but a very slow slide,  and bounce will also produce fish, but usually not as many.  If you feel a strike, but miss,, don't reel in,, keep bouncing the rod tip,, the fish will hit it again.

For the absolute best action, tie you hook on the line with a drop loop knot, this loop needs to be under 1/4 inch long. This loop allows the hook to "freely" pivot, as the line moved back and forth

Practice where you can watch the lure, so you will learn what speed to bounce the tip, and how long a bounce you need. While your practicing, you will instantly see why this technique catches so many fish, nothing can make a lure move like the wiggle rig, and live bait gets tired very quick, and their ability to draw fish with movement, does not last very long.

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