The word is out on a finesse system that has professional anglers scrambling to master it. While its components and concept are far from new, rigging worms wacky-style on jigheads created an undercurrent throughout 2007 that promises to bust loose this season. Today, effective techniques are “outed” ever faster by TV cameras and tools of the hi-tech electronic age. While origins of using a jig to present a wacky worm may be in doubt, Japanese anglers once again broke ground with this finesse tactic. And like the dropshot rig, the West Coast was its American proving ground.
David Swendseid, a tournament veteran from Beaverton, Oregon, and a member of Jackall Lures’ pro staff, provides background. “I’ve been working with what we call the Flick Shakin’ technique for three years,” Swendseid says. “Like drop-shot fishing, Flick Shakin’ is a complete fishing system that involves jighead, worm, line, and rod, as well as an understanding of its capabilities. But it’s much easier to learn than the drop-shot technique.
“Jackall Lures’ Flick Shake Worm at first glance may look like another finesse worm,” he notes. “But it’s molded in a subtle S-shape, with the head and tail sections flattened to increase the worm’s action as it falls or is shaken. It’s salt-injected to add weight and for flavor. Insert the Wacky-Jig Head through the egg sack and you’re ready to fish. As a Flick Shake Worm falls or is moved, both ends rotate, an action bass haven’t seen before.
“As far as I can tell, this technique originated in Korea, then was imported to Japan and refined by two of that country’s most proficient bass anglers, Takuma Hata and Toshiro Ono. Following their success in major tournaments in Japan, it was brought to the U.S. by Jackall’s chief lure designer Seiji Kato and their pro staffer Kota Kiriyama. While Kiriyama kept his Flick Shakin’ success under wraps, Kato used the rig to win the co-angler division of the Bassmaster Elite tournament last March at Lake Amistad on the Texas-Mexico border. On the final day he boated 19 pounds of bass, while his professional partner caught only a few small fish. Moreover, Kato lost a huge bass estimated at 11 pounds, after a prolonged battle on light line.
Scuttlebutt on the Bassmaster tournament trail reverberated throughout the 8-month season, and pros have been keen to try it during the off season. Through the grapevine, Dave Wolak, a rising star on the tournament scene, learned that at Amistad, Kato had rigged a pair of Flick Shake Worms on a single jighead, using a small worm section to form a light brushguard amidst Amistad’s underwater arboretum. The effect of the paired worms was said to imitate the beating wings of a dragonfly, but whatever the image, it proved irresistible. The Cross Swamp Worm from the Japanese company Rein is made in a cross-shape to facilitate this action.
