THE INU
RIG
Is this new Japanese-inspired rig the next big thing in tournament bass fishing or another soon-to-be-forgotten gimmick ?
By Sean Ostruszka
PHOTOS BY JUSTIN ONSLOW
M atthew Stefan didn ’ t need to even watch the video . The thumbnail was all he needed to see .
Surfing YouTube back in October 2021 , the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit pro had finished watching a video when something in the thumbnail collage of suggested videos caught his eye .
“ I saw this worm in an ‘ S ’ shape with the line through it ,” Stefan recalls . “ Immediately , I thought , ‘ Why has no one thought of this before ?’ I knew it was such a unique concept .”
The video had been posted only a few days prior by the user HiroSans TV , and it only had a few thousand views . Stefan didn ’ t care . He clicked it and realized two things : 1 ) He had absolutely no clue what the narrator was talking about while discussing this odd rig since it was spoken in Japanese ; and 2 ) When he watched the underwater footage , he saw a worm move in a way he ’ d never seen before . “ It was potentially the most lifelike action from a lure I ’ d ever seen in the water ,” Stefan says . A statement like that usually makes an angler pause . On one hand , something new and more lifelike than any other lure or rig before it obviously means more fish in the boat , especially for an angler willing to be an early adopter of it . Just look at what Brent Ehrler did with the Neko rig , secretly being an early adopter before most had ever heard of it and using it to win multiple tournaments . Other offerings like the Alabama rig , drop-shot and ChatterBait come to mind , as well as so many other now-common rigs we use all the time . At one point in time , they were new , better and / or more lifelike than anything else before it .
On the other hand , it ’ s almost cliché with how many lures and rigs in the past that have been touted as “ the most lifelike ,” only to turn out to be gimmicks ( Ahem , the Banjo Minnow , anyone ?). That goes double for the odd rigs often pioneered in Japan . For every drop-shot , wacky rig and Neko , there are so many more that turn out to be all hype . And still others that turn out to be more niche , like the spybait , flick shake or giant glide baits . Which begs the question : With the Inu rig suddenly blowing up all over YouTube and other video platforms , where does it fall ? Is it a gimmick , niche or the next big thing set to take the tournament-fishing world by storm in 2022 ?
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2022 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM 63