Inside Angles: The Nuanced Ned

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Although longtime In-Fisherman Field Editor Ned Kehde probably cringes each time he hears it, the “Ned rig” has become as much a part of bass fishing as the Texas rig or Carolina rig. Is it not the most preeminent rigging introduction in bass fishing in the last decade?

Kehde first wrote about his take on catching bass in cold water in our winter magazine issue of 2010; but it was former In-Fisherman Senior Editor Steve Quinn who first called the rigging Kehde was using Ned rigging in an In-Fisherman article a year later.

Of course, Kehde, being a consummate historian of our sport, will tell you that Ned rigging is just a nuanced take on a long developing line of jigging approaches, perhaps starting with the first marabou jigs popularized by Bill and Virgil Ward in the 1950s. Soon enough, bass anglers were also adding pork eels to heavier marabou and hair ties, the forerunner of what we have long called jigworming. So you might say Ned rigging is a nuanced form of jigworming. And least that’s my take, skipping a lot of rigging history in between. Kehde could fill in the blanks.

Especially during fall and into winter, particularly on smallmouth waters, an angler would do well to tie on a Ned and keep it on the deck or in hand walking a riverbank for the entire season. So, a few quick notes about how you might up your basic Ned game this fall.

First consider sizing. It’s noteworthy that the body size Kehde and crew finally arrived at through hundreds and hundreds of outings and thousands and thousands of caught bass was about 2.75 inches. That’s in-the-field tediously tested tough.

There is, however, also in-lab testing from Berkley scientists suggesting bass preference for a worm 4 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. The test was noted in Dr. Keith Jones book Knowing Bass—The Scientific Approach to Catching More Bass. You can see the data in chart form produced for a Visions and Views column by our longtime contributor Dr. Hal Schramm in our July 2023 issue.

Indeed, my own preference over time fishing for smallmouths had been for a Berkley MaxScent 5-inch General trimmed to 3.25 inches, this before they introduced their Ned body, the MaxScent Lil’ General, which also measures 2.75 inches.

The Lil’ General certainly catches fish, but the point is that there isn’t just one body of a specific length that’s always going to do the job best. On the other end of that divide, it’s worth noting how deadly the 2.5-inch MaxScent tube is rigged on a Ned head in tough-bite situations. Of course, the Ned head adds a slight bit of length to the offering, so that it measures close to 2.75 inches.

The tube body often is as productive as any of the Ned bodies, although that’s in the eye of the beholder—mine. On the Ned body side of things, no need to tinker much shorter, but there’s reason to experiment with longer from time to time. And with different body shapes, which is another story.

Meanwhile, you should have at hand bodies that float as well as bodies that don’t. They perform differently. Floater bodies offer snappier, more-responsive movements as you swim your Ned along, and, of course, at rest on the bottom the tail end of a floater combo stands up. By contrast a sinker body like the MaxScent Lil’ General glides along much more smoothly and subtly than a floater body like say, the Z-Man TRD. You need to fish one against the other to see what works best.

The standard body colors are for the most part subdued: green pumpkin; black or black/blue-fleck; a craw-something with a bit of red or orange; and Berkley has in the Lil’ General line a color called Gobyashi that has fished superbly for us in Door County, Wisconsin; on the Mississippi River; and on Mille Lacs. I haven’t seen a pink body option, but there must be one, and I’d fish it on largemouth waters (because Chef Todd would). And I can image a scenario on shad waters where white might be the order of the day.

The consensus on tackle, particularly for smallmouths, when tossing a Ned is to go longer and light, so a medium-light-power, medium-fast or fast-action 7-foot rod with a nicely balance reel and light braided line (or Berkley FireLine), with a light fluorocarbon leader.

You might also consider “retro rigging” with one of the newly introduced Z-Man Drew’s Ultimate Ned Rig Rods. Drew Reese, a longtime friend of Ned Kehde’s, designed two rods, which are close to what the artisian Ned-riggers always fished with. There’s a 5-foot 4-inch version and another at 5 foot 10 inches, each with medium-light actions. Tape a light reel with a smooth drag on the Tennessee handle and away you go—old school—fishing along with the likes of the Ned rig’s namesake, our longtime associate, truly a gentleman and a scholar, Ned Kehde.

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