The profound simplicity of the Damiki rig

No vibe, no chatter, no lip and barely a tail. Yet the simple jighead minnow is changing the way we fish

For all the recent debate surrounding live sonar, there’s no denying that it’s altering our understanding of bass behavior and the “whys” and “whats” of how they react to baits. And from this technology-driven well of learning, a decades-old bait type and technique has ascended to surprising — almost unimagined — prominence.

It goes by different names, but it’s known best today as the “Damiki rig.” It consists of a jighead and a small to mid-sized minnow-style soft plastic (usually a fluke-type bait, though “drip tails” and other designs are increasingly coming into play) and displays the subtle action of a baitfish at rest. It’s morphing into more refined iterations every day.

“(The Damiki rig) imitates a shad – a prominent baitfish – exactly,” says Tennessee pro John Murray. “You can work it at the precise depth you need or want. It has become a bass fishing staple now, and it never was before.”

The name itself derives from the teaming of the Damiki Armor Shad with the Damiki Rig Jighead, a combination that Tennessee anglers fished for years in relative secrecy in cold water conditions.

As rudimentary as the rig itself may be, the styles of presentation that have elevated the status and popularity of the rig are simpler still – “hovering” or “strolling” the bait in motionless or slow, tantalizing fashion over the head(s) of grouped or individual bass.

Simple yet versatile, it’s a rig that can draw bass from deep, clear water or turbid shallows, paired with forward-facing sonar or used without technology.

“I learned early on (in my career) how effective minnow-shaped (plastics) can be for bass,” says Jacob Wheeler, the Bass Pro Tour’s 2024 Angler of the Year. “Tight-lining, Damiki rig fishing is a crazy effective technique, a technique you’ve got to learn to fish whether or not you use forward-facing sonar – or any kind of electronics at all.”

The rig’s simple design, light weight and subtle swimming action enable the angler to serve it up to bass in tantalizing fashion and extend its presence in the fish’s strike window. Part of its growing popularity and accelerated evolution stems from its ease of use and deadly effectiveness when coupled with live sonar. Anglers seem to value it as much as a learning tool as a fish catcher.

“Ultimately, the technique has evolved with technology,” says Mercury pro Jacob Wall. “Together they’ve taught me so much about bass fishing and bass behavior, … how lethargic or complacent bass can be, how much they suspend. And when a lot of bass are suspended, it’s hard to catch them any other way.”

“It’s dynamite,” adds Matt Stefan, who grew familiar with the rig on Northwoods waters near his Wisconsin home. “It’s not just that we’re catching suspended bass on the rig. We’re catching fish we really couldn’t catch before.”

Origins: North, South … and Far East

The origins of “Damiki rig” fishing significantly predate live sonar, with roots reaching back decades. Fact blends with rumor and myth when tracing the origins of the Damiki rig and the techniques that gave it birth.

Some southern anglers point to “lazy” jig and plastic minnow techniques employed by Tennessee anglers during cold weather seasons as far back as the 1950s and ‘60s.

“They called it ‘tight-lining’ there in eastern Tennessee, and they employed it in cold water situations with crappie-sized baits,” West Coast pro Luke Clausen says. “They also fished the rig vertically.”

Northern anglers trace the rig to Ron and Jim Lindner, who lured Canadian Shield smallmouth feeding on suspended smelt and tullibees with a jig and fluke-style bait as early as 2003 to record tournament wins on Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake. Ron dubbed the technique “moping,” referencing the lazy style of presentation.

Murray traces the rig to more recent seasons.

“It started originally on Tennessee’s South Holston Lake using the Damiki Armor Shad, dropping it vertically on smallmouth resting on the bottom. They used it on Cherokee and Douglas, too,” the longtime Mercury pro says. “They’ve done a lot of things with the rig – things that prompted the terms ‘strolling’ and ‘hover strolling.’ But the term ‘Damiki rigging’ came out of eastern Tennessee.”

Of course, with finesse being a crucial component of the technique, Japanese anglers helped advance the rig, too. Wheeler points to Shin Fukae’s 2006 FLW victory on Arkansas’ Beaver Lake as the earliest proof that “mid-strolling”– the Japanese form of “tight-lining” that Fukae brought to America – could win top-tier pro bass tournaments. Wheeler himself would win his first national event with the astonishingly simple minnow rig on Cherokee Lake in 2017. Since then, during his 2024 AOY season and beyond, the Mercury pro has ridden the technique to multiple victories.

“I won events at Guntersville and Santee Cooper with my (Rapala CrushCity) Freeloader,” says Wheeler. “I even caught bass on it in Italy this October. Largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass: I’ve caught them literally all over the world!”

Coming in from the cold: The FFS effect

Moping, strolling, tight-lining and related presentations excel in cold water conditions. During late fall, winter and early spring, bass commonly huddle in numbers in open water – often high in the water column – beneath schools of pelagic baitfish like gizzard and threadfin shad, smelt, ciscoes, tullibees or even sunfish and perch.

But, as live sonar has demonstrated repeatedly, those bass are often reluctant to bite, no matter the season. Hence, the turn to baits and presentations able to tease a bite from wary fish any time they suspend.

Vertical presentations (moping, dead-sticking) have branched into horizontal presentations (strolling, mid-strolling, hover strolling) that enable anglers to cover water and reach fish anywhere in the water column, whether shallow or deep.

“We learned years ago that bass group up in winter and trail baitfish, and that if you have the right profile bait, you could get them to bite,” says Wheeler. “But, with FFS, we’ve learned that the technique is not limited to the cooler months. Any time the fish group up and focus on baitfish, you can hover a bait over their heads and get them to strike.”

Like other cold-weather techniques, less is often more when it comes to Damiki rigging. “Moping” practitioners learned early on that the subtle quivering of their fork-tailed baits at rest was often as enticing as any action they could impart to the lure.

The principles of “moping” largely carried over to horizontal presentations with the rig as practiced pros armed with FFS expanded the range at which they could detect bass and their bait on the sonar screen. Experience proved that even a moving bait had to be kept above the fish’s head and kept in the fish’s strike zone as long as possible.

Rock ‘n’ roll

Vertical presentations like moping established the basic bait combination and less-is-more principle of Damiki rig fishing. But FFS encounters called for longer casts and more active presentations.

Weight, size, shape and bait buoyancy are key factors when assembling bait combinations. Jighead selection favors those that present the minnow plastic in a natural, horizontal fashion.

“The key to the technique is presentation, keeping the bait running parallel to the surface or lake bottom,” says Wall. “You don’t want the bait varying too much in the water column. You want to keep it running flat.”

Typical presentation keeps the bait well above the head(s) of the fish. Stefan prefers to work his bait 5 feet or more above the fish initially, trying always to draw them upward to strike.

“A lot of guys try to suspend the bait a foot above the fish, but I find that often spooks them,” he says.

Hover strolling, which targets bass in shallow water or high in the water column, employs an unweighted hook (preferably one with a 90-degree line tie) within the minnow plastic. Weight may be added to the bait body as needed to adjust for casting distance, drop rate or retrieve speed.

“It’s a Japanese technique that came here about five years ago, but it really took hold only two years ago,” says Stefan.

Hover rigging inspired Stefan to design the Core Tackle Hover Rig, a hybrid design with conical weight segments on the hook shank and a bullet head. The rigs are available in five weights ranging from 1/32 to 1/8 ounce and five hook sizes.

When conditions call for a jighead, his choices are the Queen Tackle L.S. Tungsten or the Owner Range Roller.

“I choose a jig that allows the bait to rock side to side,” Stefan says. To keep his bait suspended without drawing it out of the fish’s strike zone, Stefan employs “fast, rapid shakes” of his rod tip.

As for plastics, Clausen opts for buoyant minnows like the Z-Man Scented Jerk ShadZ, which hang in a natural, baitfish-like, horizontal position. “The bait is more balanced coming through the water due to the ElaZtech,” explains the Mercury pro, who pairs the bait with the Guppy Head from Dirty Jigs. “Guys are looking for jigheads that keep the bait horizontal. So many refinements are taking place today.”

The latest addition to Clausen’s strolling arsenal is the Z-Man Graph ShadZ – a realistic, fork-tail shad imitation with the head integrated into the plastic. Its flat head, deep body profile, scale pattern and air cavity combine to create a strong sonar response – the driving principle behind the design.

In addition to increased FFS returns, other recent trends are toward jig/minnow combinations that produce a subtle rolling action.

“I need a bait with flatter sides, a baitfish profile that allows the lure to roll,” says Wheeler, who uses a pair of minnow-style baits of his own design – the aforementioned Freeloader and Mooch Minnow from the Rapala CrushCity line – with the VMC Hybrid Jighead. He, too, shakes his rod tip during the retrieve to impart a gentle, side-to-side rocking motion to his bait.

“It’s a neutral, natural presentation that seems to work in so many situations.”
–Luke Clausen

Wall designed the Duckett Sway Minnow and Sway Head Jig together to generate the kind of rolling action that he deems most effective in drawing strikes. He adds “subtle shakes” during his retrieve.

“You want a slack line while you’re shaking it, getting it to roll,” he says. “You don’t want to be jumping it. The shakes can be quick or slow, but they are just subtle shakes, always keeping the bait above the fish.”

The weight and buoyancy of the jig and plastic and speed of retrieve are the key variables.

“It’s a speed thing more than anything else,” Wall says. “I’ll vary the weight of the jig and speed of retrieve with the mood of the fish.”

Tackle choices for Damiki rig techniques are relatively simple, with most pros opting for a 7-foot to 7-6 medium or medium-light power spinning rod with a fast or extra-fast tip.

“I like a very fast tip because I am throwing slack into the line as I am shaking the rod,” says Wheeler, who directed a 2.0 redesign of his Wheeler Series 7-foot spinning rod from Duckett Fishing, set for winter release.

“Think of it like walking the dog with a topwater bait. If you don’t throw it slack, the bait doesn’t have the freedom to rock, to swing side to side.”

Light braid tied to an 8-pound fluorocarbon leader, upgraded to 10- or 12-pound test as conditions dictate, serves most situations.

So much to learn

Damiki rigging – or whatever you choose to call it – is evolving rapidly. While simplicity is its soul, versatility is its strength. Pairing so well with forward-facing sonar has made it nearly indispensable.

While the technique is generally associated with clear, deep waters and shad-based lakes, it is proving daily to have broader application. Wheeler emphasizes the effectiveness of the rig in depths ranging from 2 feet to 60 feet, with FFS or without any electronics at all – even in stained water.

“Shad lakes, perch lakes – the forage doesn’t seem to matter where smallmouth are concerned,” says Clausen. “On a lot of lakes in my area, the bass are feeding on kokanee salmon.”

And while anglers most commonly link the rig with suspended fish, it draws strike from bottom huggers, too.

“A lot of the fish we were catching on Guntersville while we were developing the Wall-Hanger combination (Duckett Sway Minnow and Sway Jighead) were right on the bottom,” says Wall, claiming an abundance of 6- and 7-pound bass and 30-pound days last winter. “They were so close to the bottom that you couldn’t see them on your electronics until they came up for the bait.”

Given how quickly the technique has emerged and taken over the tournament scene in recent years, Clausen thinks its evolution is just getting started.

“It’s a neutral, natural presentation that seems to work in so many situations,” says Clausen. “And it has evolved to where we are doing a lot of different things with that style of bait – rigging two or three together, fishing them on Alabama rigs – and into a myriad of techniques, from fishing vertically to even fishing fast across the lake surface. … It’s evolving so fast, we don’t know where it is going.”

The nuts and bolts
Here are some pro-proven components of the jighead minnow setup: