TRY THE NEKO RIG

Here’s a great bottom-fishing method to try this summer during a light rock fishing session

Use it for light rock fishing.

Whether from rock marks, harbours, estuaries and everywhere in between, the summer species are here, and with their arrival comes some great sport.

I love this early summer period – with fish all through the water column, the fishing can be extremely productive. Not only in terms of numbers, but also the added excitement lies in the possibility of catching unusual species.

Over the past few years I always seem to pick up a rarity. From leopard spotted gobies and lumpsuckers, to personal best scorpion fish and squid, they always seem to happen around this time. It means every trip is tinged with a childlike excitement for catching the unknown. When it does happen, it makes for an unforgettable experience.

Mostly, my tactics are to fish the different areas of the water column rather than target specific species. Only when I have worked out what’s in front of me either by seeing fish, or by getting bites or landing fish, do I consider changing tactics to a more speciesspecific technique. This applies to both rock marks and harbour marks, and is a great way to find the fish.

SUMMER METHODS

My metal lures are a go-to for searching the water column. A small 5g metal jig, like the HTO Fugitive, is perfect for the job. With the fish active, there are not many that won’t attack a slow-falling metal jig. I can work this right down to the bottom and jig it back up again. By casting in a fan pattern, I can cover large areas of water.

Sport can be fast and furious, especially when a shoal of coalies, mackerel or bass appears. Because I can work these lures effectively from the surface down to a few feet from the bottom, they are not to be left in the box on any session.

For fishing the bottom areas of the seabed, my favourite is a weedless dropshot rig that will work my lure around a foot from the seabed. For working a lure hard along the seabed, a Texas rig or Jika rig is great, although recently I have been playing with Neko rigging lures and been really impressed with the rig’s qualities.

The past month or so has seen me having great sport with flounders, and my techniques have been really geared towards cashing in on the early-summer fun, in particular sight fishing for them in shallow water. Summer is a great time for this as flounders are around in numbers and actively compete with each other to grab your lure. Working a dropshot rig along the seabed, or (more recently) a Neko rig, is an incredibly exciting form of fishing when you can see your lure working.

Wearing polarised glasses is an absolute must when it comes to this form of fishing. There is nothing more exciting then watching your lure working back, only to see the shadow behind the lure as a flounder raises off the seabed to attack.

Shallow-water fishing becomes more and more effective as the water warms, be it wrasse coming in over the rocks that have been warming in the sun, flounders in inches of water as the tide floods, or bass nosing through the bladderwrack on the flood.

Sight fishing these areas can be rewarding for great sport, and a Neko-rigged soft plastic lure is a brilliant shallow-water rig to try.

HOW IT WORKS

Just like the dropshot rig and the Jika rig, the Neko rig was originally a finesse largemouth bass tactic devised in Japan. When it comes

to finesse tactics, LRF tackle is purpose-built for the task.

The rig is a variation of the wacky rig, and the lure is weighted at the head end using a nail weight or Neko weight, which is pushed into the nose of the lure. The hook is attached around halfway to two-thirds up the lure’s body.

This allows the lure to fall vertically on a slack line and rest in a ‘nose-down, tail-up’ position on the seabed. Because of the way the lure is weighted and the hook placement, it is easy to keep the lure in this position. Allowing a small amount of slack in the line while shaking the rod gets the lure to stand up and shake its tail, much like a feeding baitfish or ragworm looking for somewhere to hide.

If no bites are forthcoming, then the lure is jigged up a few feet and allowed to fall again. By shaking the rod when the lure is on the seabed, the weight kicks up puffs of sand, as well as creating noise to attract fish. The other bonus about this rig is that you can create a nose-weighted lure with a really slow fall, or add more weight for a faster decent. You still get that head-down, tail-up pose. Much like a dropshot rig, the fish tend to be able to inhale the lure due to it being very lightly weighted. It works very well with straight worm or slug/ senko-type lures.

I found using a pellet bander really helpful when quickly rigging. Pellet bands are used in coarse fishing to enable the hooking of soft pellets. This small rubber band works brilliantly on soft rubber lures too, and is perfect for incorporating into the rig. The rubber band is threaded on the lure and the hook is simply slipped under the pellet band. This enables the lure to be cast without the hook tearing free from the lure. I have even been using this rig with Gulp sandworm, and the lure has been secure enough to cast as hard as I liked.

The rig works really well when using larger worm or stick-style baits like a 4.5in Slug-Go and senko. These turn it into a viable bigger fish technique where you get to make use of the weight of the soft plastic to cast. It is easier to use a bigger lure without overloading the rod and, due to the nose weighting of the lure, it casts like a dart. However, because LRF tackle uses very fine-diameter braids and rods to suit, you can easily cast 2-3g lures a good distance as well.

The LRF angler can have some great fun with this technique, and it is a great option to have in your rigging repertoire.