How to Fish With Rubber Worms
Rubber worms are one of the most commonly used lures to attract bass and members of the pike family, such as the northern pike and chain pickerel. Fishing with rubber worms can yield great results once you gain some experience in how to use them. Rubber worms come in various lengths and a multitude of colors and can be purchased at bait and tackle shops, sporting goods stores and online as well.
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Instructions
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How to Fish with Rubber Worms
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Make your rubber worm able to go through weeds. Making one "weedless" is simple; you need to create what's called a "Texas rig." Take your fishing line and slip a bullet weight on the end but be sure the "nose" end is facing away from the end of the line. You have the option of placing small glass beads next to the weight; these can be bought at tackle shops. Take a worm hook and push it through the top of your rubber worm at the thickest end. Make the sharp end come out perhaps as much as 1/2 inch down the end of the worm and pull the hook all the way through until only the eye of the hook remains exposed at the top of the worm. The worm will be on the hook only from the eye to where it comes out 1/2 inch down. Rotate the hook until it faces the worm and push the sharpened end into the rubber worm so that the worm hangs straight when dangled from the line. Tie the worm onto the line below the glass bead and bullet weight. This is a Texas rig and can be cast into lily pads and other water vegetation without getting hung up.
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2
Cast your Texas-rigged rubber worm next to where lily pads are growing. Do not cast them into the lily pads until you have fished the area around the pads. Let it hit the water and after 2 seconds, begin a slow retrieve, jerking your rod tip every now and then to make the worm's movement jerky and twitchy to attract fish.
Be ready to set the hook when a fish hits your worm. If you fish from shore, you may be limited to where you can reach, but if you are in a canoe or boat, you can cover large expanses of a lake, pond or cove. -
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Once you have fished around lily pads and vegetation, cast over it and into open areas. Find the holes in the lily pad formations that are always there and cast up and over the pads to these spots. Start the slow retrieve and be ready for action. Make sure you have at least 10-lb. test line on your pole because at some point you will have to try to pull a fighting fish through vegetation.
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Throw your rubber worm up and onto lily pads. Let it sit a couple of moments and then slowly jerk it along the top. Bass and pickerel wait by such plants to ambush prey, especially anything that may be unlucky enough to fall into the water near them. If they don't hit it when it's moving between pads, they may as it comes off them and into open water.
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Fish your rubber worm close to docks, dead trees, logs, boulders and other structure. This will pay off on hot days as fish seek these structures out for shade from the hot sun. If the dock is deserted, you can even cast onto it and let the rubber worm drop into the water as you reel it in.
Use a start-and-stop motion, making the rubber worm jerk and go before letting it sit for a bit before repeating the process. This is where that glass bead comes into play. It will hit the top of the hook and the bottom of the bullet sinker as you jerk the rubber worm through the water, making noise that can turn fish on to biting.
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