In the spirit of Don Iovino’s Finesse Movement, Top Brass Tackle and Thunder Bullets carved their niche in bass fishing with brass weights for the fine arts of doodlin’ and shakin’ worms. The Mojo rig, using an elongated weight pegged a distance above the bait, has found fans in the East after sweeping across the Rockies. Joining Mojo Tackle, other companies including Top Brass, Bullet Weights, and Bass Pro Shops have designed long cylindrical weights and pegging systems.

Drop Shot Rigs

To meet the finesse craze, manufacturers responded, producing new drop-shot weights. Check Big Poly’s rubber-coated hole shot, Bass Pro’s XPS drop weight, and Bakudan Distributing’s lead drop-shot weight. “Like other drop-shot weights, the Bakudan weight is shaped like a cherry bomb,” explains western pro Rich Tauber. “But, you don’t tie your line to the weight. A swivel on the weight holds the knotted line in place. When the weight hangs up on a rock, the line breaks at the swivel.”

Wormin’ Weights

The most popular rigging for plastics remains the Texas rig. This simple setup serves well for dragging a worm over structure or through a weedbed, bouncing a crawworm over rock, flipping a lizard into the thickest brushpile, and countless other applications. Innovations in design and material have been directed to weights for Texas rigs as well.

When flipping and pitching plastics into dense cover, it’s important to maintain contact with the weight and lure, or you’ll miss subtle strikes. Gambler Worms created the Florida Rig weight with a “cork screw” wire, to thread into a bait to secure it. Other manufacturers, including Bass Pro Shops, Mustad, and Lunker City, have produced weights that insert into the plastics to hold them.

Gambler also offers a rattling version of the Florida Rig weight. Joe Bennett, a bass pro from Missouri, invented the Jobee Pro Hook, with the sinker molded onto the extra-long offset-shank Gamakatsu hook. The Swing Head from DUH!!! Team is another rig with a Gamakatsu hook swinging freely behind a lifelike head.

Lead weights are both affordable and heavy, but the metal is soft and becomes grooved or mashed. Moreover, lead is under attack as a toxic metal both to loons and other birds that may ingest it, and to humans working with it. New Hampshire banned most lead sinkers and small jigs, and similar bans exist in National Parks and in parts of Canada. Steel, such as Ultra Steel 2000 from Bullet Weights, is much harder than lead, creates sound, and is still affordable. Brass is a bit more pricey, but offers anglers a good weight-to-size ratio and is hard, enhancing sound as it contacts cover or a glass bead.

An innovative addition to bass fishing’s weighty lineup is Lake Fork Trophy Bait and Tackle’s Mega Weights. The East Texas plastic lure manufacturer recently introduced weights made from a tungsten-nickel alloy. Mega Weights are heavier than lead, so sinkers run 25 percent smaller than lead weights, with even greater differences compared to brass, tin, or steel.

Assessing the range of sizes, shapes, and materials, top bass anglers put as much care in matching the sinker to the application as in selecting a plastic bait. No time to be an old codger in the world of weights.

*Paul Cañada, a writer from Irving, Texas, is a frequent contributor to Bass Guide.