Yamamoto's Ezine
Story by Russ Bassdozer
One's skinny and the other's fat, but the 5" Senko (9-series) and 4" Fat Ika (92F-series) make quite the weightless duo.
When fishing shallow water for bass, both may be rigged and fished identically, meaning weedless Texas style on a weightless hook with no sinker.
I recommend using the Owner Twistlock XXX Hook for baitcasting or relatively heavier gear. Use the Owner Twistlock Light (designed by Gary Yamamoto) for spinning or relatively lighter tackle. Choose either the XXX or Light Twistlock depending on the strength of your rod, reel, line, the size of the fish and the snagginess of the cover.
Otherwise, everything's the same. Best of all, if you know how to fish a weightless Senko, then you already know how to fish a weightless Fat Ika. It is exactly the same, except a different shape profile, a different rate of fall and a different sashay as the Fat Ika sinks. Fishing one just like a Senko gives the Fat Ika a horizontal fall like an injured, sinking baitfish. As it sinks, the Fat Ika exhibits the subtlest quivering action and an unpredictable little soft shoe shuffling step every so often.
As one falls, the built-in sashay of either a Senko or Fat Ika is all a bass needs to see some days. There are times you'd swear the weightless Senko may be working better. Other days, you may find favor with the Fat Ika. Most days, both will work more than swell enough! Whichever one you try first, don't leave any area until you try the other lure also. Often, you will attract more fish by using one first and then finish fishing the spot with the other. So always try both the Senko and Fat Ika at every fishing spot.
The key to fishing both weightless is - you don't work them, they work for you. Both exhibit a natural, attractive, built-in movement as they simply fall through the water on a semi-slack line. Even deadsticked on bottom without moving a muscle for a surprisingly long time, both are irresistible to bass. If after deadsticking a while, if you haven't gotten a hit yet, simply raise the rod tip slowly, thereby raising your Senko or Fat Ika a few feet off bottom. Then lower the rod tip slowly so your lure again freefalls through the strike zone, fluttering back down to the bottom on a semi-slack line. Again let it rest there for the longest time, which is often when bass bite. Simply pause, lift and let fall repeatedly until you get a bite or until you're ready to cast again to another nearby target.
That's how to let the Fat Ika and Senko do all the work for you on a weightless freefall and deadsticked on bottom. Fishing just can't get easier or be more fun than that!
Soft Jerkbait Action
Sometimes when the classic freefall and deadstick deal isn't effective, there is another way you can fish both the Senko and Fat Ika - but you must do all the work this time, using twitches and jerks of the rod tip to produce exciting, side-to-side darting action that triggers bass to bite. Using the Senko and Fat Ika this way like they are soft jerkbaits is only possible when using a hook such as the Owner Twistlock. Reason is, the Twistlock has Owner's Centering Pin Spring which is critical in order to keep the head of the bait from slipping down when you work it hard like a jerkbait. Most other hooks, you'll jerk two times, and the bait will ball up badly on the hook, but not with the Owner Twistlock. You can jerk as hard as you want without causing any wardrobe malfunctions thanks to the sure grasp of the Owner Twistlock Centering Pin Spring.
The corkscrew keeper holds soft baits so securely, you can even skitter and splash a Senko across the top of the water as fast as you can reel one.
Skipping a Senko across the surface is certainly exciting when a bass crashes the party, but a subsurface jerk and pause is the deadlier approach more often than not.
There are two keys to your success:
- First, the jerk or pulling the line with the rod tip accelerates the bait in a forward direction and stores unused energy in it.
- Second, the pause or more precisely, pushing the rod tip back at the bait generates slack which causes the bait's head to veer to one side or another in a lifelike lunge as it uses up the stored energy to swing sideways and comes to a standstill.
In the Senko's case, a Senko can often act quite erratic as you push the rod tip back at the bait, the Senko may veer up, down, left, right, never the same way twice. It often flexes and squirms like something alive as it uses up the energy imparted to it by the rod twitch, and then stalls out. Often the strike occurs when the lure comes to a standstill.
In the Fat Ika's case, you can get a perfect, precise, side-to-side cadence going, walking it subsurface until a bass just can't stand the Fat Ika's rhythmic dance no more. It may require a little skill by the angler to create this underwater "walk-the-dog" action. Take time to learn how to do this. Practice to perfect it.
Once you get good at walking the dog with the Fat Ika, you'll find it is a great tool to use in trees and brush that are half-flooded. Just walk the Fat Ika as if it was a Heddon Spook or Lucky Craft Sammy, except in the nastiest brush or wood cover. It will climb through trees and limbs where a Spook or Sammy equals instant stuck. If a big fish boils up on it but misses, just let 'er sink. The Fat Ika is its own built-in throw-back bait!
One you walk the Fat Ika all the way through the crown of a flooded bush or an underwater tree, kill the action to let the Fat Ika sashay down through the outermost limbs. This move is a big trigger for many bass that may have followed the Fat Ika out to the edge of the cover. Many bites happen at this point when the Fat Ika is falling.
The Senko (on a Twistlock) may be used as a soft jerkbait in thick cover too. However, I like the Senko best as a jerkbait used in open water by varying the jerks and pauses to cause erratic action so the Senko never moves the same way twice. Something about that just draws bass to it even in open water or when jerked through the surface layer above slightly deeper water, bass rocket up off bottom for it.
That's why I say, one is skinny and the other's fat, but the 5" Senko and 4" Fat Ika make quite the weightless combo.
