Not just bass like the Free Rig

Geecrack on 1/4 oz Free Rig got the Waldo’s riled up today. Back to back 27 and 28 inchers

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Nice! I am going to give this a try when I go up to Hayward at the end of the month. Just watched the new Tactical Bassin video on it. Looks pretty darn effective.

What plastics have you been using on it. I like the look of the Bellows gill or shad and a fluke.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Nice! I am going to give this a try when I go up to Hayward at the end of the month. Just watched the new Tactical Bassin video on it. Looks pretty darn effective.

What plastics have you been using on it. I like the look of the Bellows gill or shad and a fluke.

Really trying to experiment with a lot of different things. For sure the 3.8 inch Bellows Gill gets absolutely shredded by largemouth, smallmouth and … even walleyes. Problem is they are $2 per bait and only last 2-3 fish. Hard to put it down though. That burnt Fritos smell absolutely gets bites. Maybe the fish are all cheesed since hooch was made legal in Minn. lol

Other stuff I’m starting to add in are the 3.5 inch OSP DoLive Beaver in Gripan/Chart (smallmouth) and also the Xzone Finesse Muscle Back Craw 3.25 in Summer Craw (Chartreuse). Omnia has in stock, and price is right.

Tomorrow – a well known smallmouth lake – will see how the Free Rig or Poop bait does vs. the traditional Chatterbait, topwater, jerkbait… Fall in SoDak is some kinda Nirvana!!

Tactical Bassin’s video talked about using a fluke on it and it’s fall is really erratic similar to using it as a weightless jerk. Just deeper because the weight it on or near it. I’m going to try a tube and some other things also. Two years and I haven’t figured out Hayward yet. Might as well give something new a shot.

Now that looks like a nice simple rig. Are you making long casts or pitching? Or dragging it? Man I wish I had time to get to SD this year.

Here’s the recent Tactical Bassin video I watched on it that breaks down the plastics and terminal they are having success with. He also goes over how he works it. What I took away from it is it can be used as a finesse carolina rig or you can pop it up aggressively, then immediately drop your rod tip so the weight falls to the bottom but the plastic falls weightlessly back towards the weight. I’ll be using that method. Basically allows you to fish a weightless (in theory) plastic on deep structure.

Thanks for the video. I’ll have to give it a try.

I can’t keep up with all these damn rigs. I haven’t even tried the Tokyo yet. But this looks similar to it correct?

Not like the tokyo rig. You’ll have to watch the video. The dropshot weight slides on the line “freely”.

Joe Jarl wrote:

Now that looks like a nice simple rig. Are you making long casts or pitching? Or dragging it? Man I wish I had time to get to SD this year.

I tend to make targeted, medium distance casts… So if I know where a specific rock pile or weed edge is, I try to cast right at it. That sounds obvious, but I think most lures I try to throw just past the target and drag to it. Not with the Free Rig, because so many bites happen on the initial fall where the sinker and plastic separate and the lure just lazily works its way down to the bottom – you need to cast right to it. That makes it unique to any other technique at least that I’ve used.

From there, you can either do short lift/drops for an up/down motion – or do a couple of those, then a bigger pull upwards and let the sinker and plastic separate again.

The key on the initial cast, or a big pull, where you give it separation – is to really WAIT before working the rig again. It’s easy for me to be type A and really want to work it right away, but you have to let it do it’s thing..

mahtofire14 wrote:

Tactical Bassin’s video talked about using a fluke on it and it’s fall is really erratic similar to using it as a weightless jerk. Just deeper because the weight it on or near it. I’m going to try a tube and some other things also. Two years and I haven’t figured out Hayward yet. Might as well give something new a shot.

I think a fluke could work well, kind of like the DoLite Stick that was the Free Rig rage when people started doing this. I haven’t tried it yet, but the Caffeine Shad has about the best spiral/fall action of any plastic I’ve ever used.

A lot of plastics can work – you just want to avoid those with lots of floppy appendages or curly tails. Those don’t do the “hover” thing very well when it separates from the weight… they just kind of droop and look lifeless.

Really looking forward to trying the Bull Flat I just picked up on sale at Waypoint Angler tomorrow. That wide/flat profile is kinda like the Geecrack – it really hovers on the way down!

Did you ever get Walters on a Carolina rig on that lake?

tim hurley wrote:

Did you ever get Walters on a Carolina rig on that lake?

Never tried on these SoDak lakes, but the C-rig just doesn’t have that slow fall on the way down like the Free Rig.. you’d think after scraping the bottom all these years I’d scratch out a walleye or two but I haven’t!! Got a 38 inch pike once though.. Thought I had Raveling’s state record until it reared his toothy head – –

Well dang. I will have to rig one of these up

Bearcat89 wrote:

Well dang. I will have to rig one of these up

Not too difficult at all – the hardest thing to find are the weights. Standard is 1/4 oz. Unless over 15 feet or wind/current then 3/8 oz: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09Q87Z921?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I’m going to give this shot on Sunday when I am out on a Brainerd area lake. The weights I have may or may not work.

I’m going to break it to the wife, I need a new rod for the free rig

Guessing a standard 1/4 oz. bell sinker just doesn’t cut it.

tim hurley wrote:

Guessing a standard 1/4 oz. bell sinker just doesn’t cut it.

I think it can but I really noticed the advantages of the pencil style sinkers – they don’t seem to get hung up hardly ever. I did start out using tear drop casting sinkers, and it seemed even the smallest amount of sand grass on the bottom – the sinker would kind of “grab” it when you did the lift/drop action. That affects the action of the plastic then too. With no cover and a sandy bottom it might be ok.

Just be sure if you use a pencil weight that it isn’t a drop shot weight. Those have a line pincher and it just doesn’t slide up and down the line no matter how you bend it out – it’s never a smooth circle like the sinkers I posted. There are other brands out there that work, it’s just hard to find them in stock a lot of times.

Omnia has a few different models of non pinch style drop shot weights. I just ordered a few packs.

Sweet fish, and back to back no less. Awesome.

My Lindy Rattling No Snag sinkers worked just fine along with a Mag Super Fluke. I caught 3 bass and a pike in about 45 minutes of duty on North Long Lake. I would have fished the free rig a lot more if it had been windy. I couldn’t resist the temptation to throw topwater even though the fish were much smaller than the ones down in the weeds. Hopefully, I’ll get some more practice with the rig before my tournament on the Whitefish Chain at the end of the month. I think I’ll dig out some Lindy Rig sinkers and see how they work. I wish I had thought about switching rods sooner than right before the end of the trip. The 7′ H Avid I was using has a little too heavy of a tip I think. I’m pretty sure I missed bites because of it.