In darker water or thick cover, try superbraid lines. Spool 50-pound Power Pro, TUF Line, or Spiderwire Stealth; tie straight to the hook and go fishing. Flipping a wacky rig is deadly in fallen trees, lily-pad fields, and under docks. Weedless hooks help avoid snags.

Hooks: There’s debate about the ideal hook for wacky-rigging. Some favor circle hooks, as the round shape holds worms neatly. Merely holding a rod steady as a bass moves off causes the hook to set in the corner of the mouth.

Other anglers favor large livebait hooks, like Eagle Claw’s L194 or Owner’s SSW, matching lure and hook size up to 6/0 or 7/0 for a 7-inch YUM Dinger or Senko.

Shiner or Kahle-style hooks also have adherents, as their bow shape holds a softbait just below the hook point, allowing a large gap for a good set. That shape also serves as a keel, helping to prevent spinning.

Weedless Hooks: Guards help when fishing thick grass, fallen trees, stumps, and boat docks. A light wire or mono guard prevents hang-ups but doesn’t deflect a fish’s jaws during the set. Wayne Falcon of Falcon Lures, a regular on Toledo Bend, devised the “K” Wacky line of hooks, built on Gamakatsu’s black nickel Shiner Hook. It’s available in plain and weighted models with 3/0 and 6/0 hooks. “I like the closed wireguard because it prevents line from catching around the guard and fouling the rig,” Falcon notes. Some Falcon models carry slender weights of 1/32-, 1/16-, and 3/32-ounce, with or without a wireguard for fishing deep or in windy conditions.

Gamakatsu has added a weedless version of its C-shape Finesse Wide Gap Hook, that has a mono guard. The Mosquito Hook from Nogales has a fine wire guard and a shape that’s a compromise between a shiner hook and a baitholder.

Reaction Innovations offers the W.W. Hook, a Kahle-style design with a pair of fibers to guard the hook, available from #6 to 3/0. Andre Moore suggests burying the fibers in the lure, to deflect snags and also to keep the lure straight. Crafty anglers can tie their own weedless hooks, using heavy mono or fluorocarbon wrapped behind the hook eye like a reversed snell.

Anglers have found that impaling a worm on a jighead wacky-style also works. Arkansas bass pro Mark Rose rigs Strike King’s 7-inch Finesse Worm on a ballhead jig. “This worm is made of 3X Cyberflexx material, which is real buoyant and very flexible,” Rose says. “The weight of a light jighead makes the plastic come to life as it falls. I fish it along bluffs for spotted bass, in current for smallmouths, and over flats in clear reservoirs for largemouths. The two ends of the worm keep the jighead upright, so you get an excellent hookset, too.”

O-Rings: Not an essential part of wacky-rigging, O-rings can, however, save you time, aggravation, and money when fishing soft stickbaits wacky-style. Anglers have used metal O-rings or split rings, sliding them onto the bait then placing the hook between the lure and the ring. I prefer rubber O-rings, which also are cheaper when bought in bulk (contact allorings.com). In a pinch, rubber bands help.