For those of you bass fishermen that are looking for the competitive edge in catching bass in the summer months, yet tired of treble hooks bringing in the “green mossy monster” or texas rigged worms sliding down the hook resulting in snags, let me introduce you to my go-to lure by Kelly’s Annealed Baits.  Introducing the 2 hook weedless scented worm and the weedless scented bass crawler, both by Kelly’s.

Kelly’s has been making rubber worms for years now, and I had stumbled upon them in 2009 at Bacon Creek General Store in Sioux City, Iowa. I seen them and thought they would be a better alternative to using texas rigs or live bait, due to the weedless hooks already prerigged into the worms.  So I picked out a couple different colors of the weedless hook worms, each costing about $2.75, and hit the farm ponds for some action.  In my area, darker colors like black with white spots/stripe seemed to achieve better results, and bass and blue gills would hit them better than any other lure I tried.  It wasn’t till the next spring that BCGS carried the purple color with white spots/stripe, and once I tried that, I might as well have thrown every other color away.  Seemed like purple was just what the doctor ordered.

After BCGS ran out of my favorite color, I did some research and found out that you can order directly from Kelly’s, pay a little bit less per lure, but then you are subject to shipping costs. Luckily they do not have a minimum order quantity, and you can mix and match as you please. Their customer service over the phone was such a relief, really easy to deal with and friendly no matter if you ordered 5 worms or 100 worms. Another bonus to Kelly’s is that they usually get your order out within a business day, the longest I have had to endure was 2 days, which was plenty fast for my needs. And even a couple times my order came with a complimentary color that they included for me to try. Not too shabby!!

Now to the nitty-gritty on how to use these lures properly. What I have found best is to tie on a snap swivel to your line, then hook one of these on and cast out without any weight. Once the worm hits the water, start counting in your mind till you reach a desired number to let the worm sink. I have noticed that a good starting point is about 5, which is about 2-3 feet sinking. Counting past 10 has never proved to be that successful in my journeys, however anything is possible in your neck of the woods. Once you reach that desired number, slowly reel the worm in, about one full crank per second. The natural bend in the worm combined with the snap swivel will create the “slow death” illusion where the lure corkscrews thru the water. Bass and blue gill go nuts over this action, but luckily the first hook is about 2-3 inches from the tail, so for you to catch blue gills with an unmodified version of this worm, it will be a pig of a blue gill. Adding weights to the line seems to snag weeds, which in turn ruins the action of the lure. If you were fishing an area without weeds, like a gravel pit, you could add a small split shot above the snap swivel to add depth to your presentation, however, I still advise against it from my personal experiences. If you want more casting and sinking weight, jump into the bass crawler version, as it is heavier, longer by an inch, and thicker, and ultimately holds up to the abuse of those lunkers a little bit better. Also, try different retrieve speeds if my version isn’t working for you that day. Since it’s weedless, try scooting across the tops of moss and lillies at a high rate of retrieve, works just great for that too. Either way, these worms will be your go-to lure for the summer months just like it is for myself, and everyone else I have gave a spare worm to. These worms are worth every penny you spend on them!

Enjoy some photos of Blake Van Peursum and myself smashing some lunkers with these worms….