Best Shaky Head Weight for Bass: An In-Depth Guide
The shaky head is one of those techniques that’s a pleasure to set up, but also fish. It requires literally just a jighead and a soft plastic, making it one of the easiest finesse applications to get fishing with. Needless to say, but it also smashes fish more than most techniques out there. In this post, we’ll discuss the best weight for a shaky head to suit different scenarios. Let’s dive in.
Best Shaky Head Jig Weight for Bass: An In-Depth Guide
The shaky head is one of those techniques that’s a pleasure to set up, but also fish. It requires literally just a jighead and a soft plastic (and of course, line), making it one of the easiest finesse applications to get fishing with. Needless to say, but it also smashes fish more than most techniques out there. In this post, we’ll discuss the best weight for a shaky head to suit different scenarios. Let’s dive in.
Understand The Role of The Shaky Head Weight
Before getting to the best size weight for shaky head fishing, it’s best to understand the role of the weight in the first place.
The weight in a shaky head jighead has two main roles:
- It gets your bait down: We’re mostly throwing lighter, finesse-style worms on a shaky head which needs assistance in getting down to the bottom. The weight in shaky head jighead helps with this.
- It gives it a unique profile on the bottom: With the latest soft plastic materials, finesse worms these days are extremely buoyant, which make them look awesome in the water. This is why the combination of the weight and the soft plastic work so well. The weight almost sticks to the bottom, while the soft plastic can almost stay upright because of its material.
Knowing these roles, we can now apply this to selecting the best weight option for your shaky head. We need a weight that gets our bait to the bottom, but we also need to select a weight that doesn’t negatively impact the finesse action of a shaky head.
Let’s get into the specifics.
Selecting the Best Weight for Your Shaky Head Rig
The weight jighead you choose should directly link to the depth you’re fishing, or the manner you’re fishing. Shaky head jigheads have been fitted with a wide variety of weights, ensuring you can cover all kinds of depths and fish the technique in various ways.
Let’s cover a few scenarios:
Fishing a Shaky Head in Deep Water
If you’re looking to fish a shaky head in deeper water, where you might be targeting offshore cover which you found on your fish finder, you’ll want to throw a heavier jighead. A 1/4oz jighead can cover up to 30ft of water — ensuring you reach your desired strike zones.
Fishing a Shaky Head Around Shallow Cover
If you’re looking to throw a shaky head around shallower water or isolated cover near banks, you’ll generally throw a lighter-weighted jighead. For these areas, you can’t go wrong with a 3/16oz. For tougher conditions and more finicky bass, you can look to a 1/16oz.
This weight gives your bait a slower fall rate, adding to the finesse feature of a shaky head. Often with a shaky head, you’ll get smashed on the initial fall.
Power Fishing a Shaky Head
Power shaky head fishing involves making a lot of casts and looking to cover a lot of water. When power fishing a shaky head, you’ll generally look to throw a heavier jighead. The heavier the weight, the faster you can reach the bottom.
This can start from a 1/4oz, but some will even throw a 1/2oz.
Best Shaky Head Jigheads for Bass: 2 Options to Check Out
Below are two fantastic options for a shaky head jighead. These two hooks present a shaky head in the best way possible, while being equipped with an incredibly sharp hook:
1. Missile Baits Warlock Head
The Warlock Head was designed by John Crews, an absolute mastermind in bass fishing. The unique shape of this jig head fits the shape of finesse worms incredibly, and a short spring positioned in the recess of the head pegs the worm tightly in place when fishing around heavier cover.
It's equipped with a 3/0 pitching-style Gamakatsu hook which is crazy sharp, and a wider gap promotes a better hook-up ratio.
2. Berkley Fusion 19 Shakey Head
The Fusion19 jighead is an immensely popular shaky head option from Berkley. This jighead has a more round design, this jighead is well-suited for harder cover along the bottom.
This is a more classic-style shaky head jighead — a style which has been tried and tested, and remains a popular option for shaky head maestros.
Conclusion
Selecting a shaky head weight should depend of the depth you're fishing, as well as the way you're fishing them. To sum it up, you're fishing deeper water, look to choose a heavier shaky head jighead (1/4oz), and if you're fishing shallower water, such as shore-based cover, looking to go lighter, such as a 3/16oz.
The shaky head is one of the easiest finesse techniques to get going with. Learn these basics concepts and next thing you know, this will quickly become one of your favorites techniques.
