Ned Rig: How to Fish It, the Right Jig Head and Where It Came From

The Ned rig is a small soft-plastic bait, two to four inches long, threaded onto a light mushroom-shaped jig head and fished slowly along the bottom on spinning tackle. It looks like nothing, which is the point: it catches bass when the water is cold, clear or pressured and the reaction baits are ignored, and it catches them in numbers. Its inventor, the Kansas outdoor writer Ned Kehde, calls the whole approach Midwest finesse, and the name “Ned rig” was given to it by a magazine editor, not by him. Below: the rig, the jig heads and baits by conditions, the six retrieves Kehde’s network fishes, the tackle, and the history from the 1957 marabou jig to the day in 2006 that made the rig famous.

It looks like nothing, and that is the point: a two-inch stub of plastic on a jig head the weight of a paperclip, fished slower than you think possible.

What you need

• A mushroom-head jig with a light-wire hook: 1/15 or 1/16 oz (1.8–2 g) is the standard, 1/10 oz (2.8 g) for wind and depth, 1/20 oz (1.4 g) for shallow calm water. Z-Man’s Finesse ShroomZ, Gopher’s Mushroom Head and the finesse heads of every jig maker fit; the head shape lets the bait stand up.
• A bait of 2–4 in (5–10 cm): Z-Man’s Finesse TRD, the bait designed for the rig, or the TRD CrawZ, Hula StickZ or a 5 in ZinkerZ or Senko-style stick worm cut in half. Z-Man’s ElaZtech floats, so the tail stands up off the bottom; ordinary plastisol works but lies flat.
• A 7 ft medium-light spinning rod with a fast tip, a 2500 reel, and 10–12 lb braid to a 6–8 lb fluorocarbon leader. The rods and line hubs explain the choices.
• Restraint. The rig fails when it is fished fast.

Rigging it, and choosing the head

Thread the bait straight onto the hook so it sits flush against the mushroom head with no bend; a crooked bait spins. Some heads have a bait keeper; with ElaZtech a drop of superglue on the head holds the bait for dozens of fish. The weight follows depth and wind, and the rule is the lightest head that still touches bottom.

Kehde’s own choice has stayed the same for years: a 1/15 or 1/16 oz head and a green-pumpkin ZinkerZ cut to 2½ in, or a single 2¾ in Finesse TRD.

The six retrieves

Kehde’s Midwest Finesse Network fishes six retrieves, all slow, and switches between them until one draws bites. In his words, the swim-glide-shake keeps the lure “swimming slowly from six inches to one foot above bottom”.

1. Swim-glide-shake. Start shaking the rod tip as the rig sinks; reel slowly so the bait swims 6–12 in off the bottom; stop reeling and let it pendulum down (the glide); resume. The standard retrieve.
2. Drag. Rod low, a slow pull of a foot or two along the bottom, reel up the slack, pause. For cold water and smallmouth on rock.
3. Hop. Short lifts of the tip that jump the bait a few inches; the bait stands up on each landing. For fish holding on the bottom.
4. Straight swim. A slow steady retrieve just off the bottom with no rod movement, for bass that follow.
5. Deadstick. Let it lie. Ten seconds, twenty, more, with the tail standing up. The retrieve for the coldest water and the most pressured fish.
6. Stroll. Let the boat’s drift or trolling motor move the bait along a drop-off while you shake the rod; covers water on deep structure.

Bites are rarely a thump: the line ticks, moves sideways or goes slack. Reel until the rod loads and sweep; the light-wire hook needs no hookset.

When it works

All year, and best when other things do not. In Kevin VanDam’s six-season framework from the bass hub, the Ned rig fills the winter and early pre-spawn bands, under 55 °F (13 °C), when bass sit on deep rock and want a small meal presented slowly; it catches spawning fish that refuse bigger baits, post-spawn fish that have gone finicky, and summer smallmouth on deep reefs. Clear water, high pressure, cold fronts, tournament Sundays: the conditions that empty the livewell are the Ned rig’s conditions. It is also the rig for every species that eats a small bait, walleye, crappie and spotted bass among them.

Mistakes to avoid

• Too much weight. A 1/4 oz head turns it into a shaky head and loses the glide. Go lighter until you lose the bottom.
• A stiff rod or heavy line. Both kill the bait’s action and the bite detection; medium-light, 6–8 lb fluorocarbon leader.
• Fishing it fast. Every retrieve above is slower than feels natural.
• Plastisol baits on a stand-up head. They lie down. Use ElaZtech or accept the bait on its side.
• Setting the hook hard. Light wire straightens; sweep and reel.

When to use something else

The drop shot suspends a bait above the bottom where a Ned rig sits on it; the shaky head carries a bigger worm; the Texas rig goes through cover a Ned rig cannot. All three are on the jigs and rigs page. When bass are chasing, the chatterbait and crankbait hubs cover the moving baits.

Where it came from

Midwest finesse is older than the name. Chuck Woods of Kansas City built the Beetle and the Beetle Spin and Texas-rigged the first jig worms; Bill and Virgil Ward made the marabou jig in 1957 and founded Bass Buster; Guido Hibdon fished tubes when nobody else did. Ned Kehde, writing about all of them since 1981, took the mushroom-head idea from Ron Lindner in the early 1980s. On 12 October 2006 he and Dick Bessey fished a northeastern Kansas reservoir for four hours with a 2½ in Strike King Zero on a 1/16 oz Gopher jig and caught 109 largemouth bass, two wipers, a walleye and a channel catfish. Steve Quinn named the rig after him in In-Fisherman in 2010. Kevin VanDam introduced Kehde to Z-Man’s ElaZtech, Kehde cut the 5 in ZinkerZ in half, and his friend Drew Reese persuaded Z-Man to mould a bait of that size: the Finesse TRD, “The Real Deal”. Wired2Fish’s 2026 pick is its fuzzy successor.