Hover Rig: The finesse tactic you need now

Hover Rig: The finesse tactic you need now © Mustad Fishing

It's great when you flip a dock, laydown, or grass point and you immediately feel that hammer fall. Likewise, frogging's repetitive monotony becomes well worth the effort when that cannonball explosion shatters the stillness. We all love the aggressive fish, but a case can be made for the deeper sense of accomplishment from fooling the tough ones. Shallow water, clear water, maybe that midday lull or post-frontal conditions — all elements of a severely demanding day. Throw in a heavy dose of fishing pressure, and you have the recipe for disaster.

This is the time to put your high-energy power fishing, reaction bait mindset on pause and go slow and subtle. It's all about delivering a bait that presents a tempting profile without irritating or spooking fish on high alert.

Think helicopter vs. airplane. The former has its benefits, but the latter offers a key feature — the ability to hover. Segue that thought into one of the more recent techniques, hover strolling, and you have a real problem-solver.

What Is It

The jig head minnow craze, largely bolstered by forward-facing sonar age, has made one point abundantly clear — bass have a hard time resisting the classic minnow profile. Bass eat plenty of crawfish and bluegill, but whether it's a small shad, shiner, smelt, or alewife, the generic minnow form triggers that feeding instinct.

The hover rig leverages this natural forage image, but with a strategic rigging setup that creates a unique look based on the way it falls. Rather than the head-first descent common to the basic jig head minnow, the hover rig falls with a more lateral posture.

This helps maintain a realistic profile, but the most enticing aspect is the subtle side-to-side rolling motion, which adds more lifelike appeal. You accomplish this with a very specific rigging style.

Start with your favorite soft plastic minnow and rig it on a Mustad Aberdeen 90-degree Jig Hook. The critical step involves inserting the point through the bait's back, about 1/4 inch behind the nose. Thread the bait onto the shank, as you normally would, so the hook emerges from the back and the line tie protrudes from the head.

Next, insert a 1/16- or 3/32-ounce Mustad Tungsten TitanX Nail Weight into the bait's body, adjacent to the hook shank. By moving the weight from a traditional ball head jig's head position to further back on the bait's body, you drastically alter the way the minnow approaches the fish.

Adjust your hook and weight size to your bait choice. The key here, is the ability to fish multiple minnow sizes, including downsized versions that would be too small for even a light bass jig head.

When Is It Applicable

Over shallow wood or rocks, under docks, across long, tapering points, or in deeper water when fish are holding reasonably close to the surface — these are ideal hover strolling scenarios.

Present your bait on a 6-10 Mustad BLF Instinct spinning rod with 15-pound TUF-LINE XP+ Braid and a TUF-LINE XS Fluorocarbon leader. Adjust your leader size from 6- to 15-pound test based on bait size and depth. (Larger fluoro sinks slower.)

You're not trying to reach fish parking over rock piles in 30 feet of water and the hover rig definitely is not what you're reaching for when flipping laydowns. However, this finesse presentation allows you to stay off the fish, give them plenty of comfort zone spacing, and tempt them with a familiar image presented in a way they're less likely to see it.