Quote Originally Posted by mhall View Post
O.K. I fancy myself as a pretty good finesse fisherman. I have caught a few fish on the shakey head but never get bit on it like I hear others just wacking'em with this lure. I've used the football heads, spot remover heads, round heads and all weight sizes also. Plastics of all kinds and colors, depths from shallow to 30 feet. Light line and flouro or low-viz mono's. What am I doing wrong and how can I gain confidence in this bait because I have none right now. I know guys that fish the big C that tell me if they could only take one bait with them on their fishing trips it would be the shakey head. I fish other finesse baits with good success at times. Alright, nough said, School me.

First, I am a power fisherman who picked up on the shakey head a few years ago just to get bites when nothing else was working. I don't use it all day, but when I get in an area where I think I should be catching fish and I am not, I will use it just to see if any fish are there. I normally fish it in 10-15 feet of water, and that's deep compared to what I normally fish. I keep it simple and use an 1/8oz ball head with a green pumpkin Zoom finesse worm. No other sizes of heads and no other worms. I use it on spinning tackle with 8 lb original Stren. When I fish it, I just constantly shake the rod tip lightly, reeling in the slack line as the bait moves. Most of the time, there is no hard thump, the fish just starts swimming with the bait. Spotted bass seem to play with the bait a lot before they inhale it, so you have to give them a little more time before you set the hook. Like a lot of things, I think people have made the shakey head more complicated than it needs to be. There may be days when the fancy jigheads and hand poured worms out produce my setup, but most of the time I think simple is better.