Bill Dance's Secrets For Fishing No-Weight Baits
Story and Photos By Vic Attardo

Most people put on weight as they get older. It's especially true of fishermen, but not bassin' legend Bill Dance. Dance has found a way to shed those pounds — maybe not around the middle where his belt rests, but on the end of his line where it really counts.

More and more, Dance is fishing weightless soft plastics — baits without the added encumbrance of a bullet sinker, split shot, egg sinker or even the bottom-bouncing bell weight of a drop-shot rig. Instead, Dance is tossing soft plastics with only the weight of the hook, adding meager grams to his offering.

He has also found that fishing soft plastics without weight is a highly versatile technique. In fact, he's now using weightless baits in all four seasons and over many structures and in different types of water.

"You can fish weightless anywhere," Dance said. "You can skim weightless soft plastics over submerged grass, on top of lily pads, on the outer edge of heavy cover, over treetops, submerged stumps and logjams and even in water 20 feet deep above a 90-foot bottom."

The variety of structure that Dance fishes weightless is matched by the type of soft plastics he works. Laying out a selection on the deck of his boat, Dance showed he was ready to shed some pounds during a spring day on the water. His collection included Yum tubes, crawdads, floating worms, creature baits, salted sticks and lizards. The soft gathering featured straight bodies, flappers, curly tails, forked tails, wide claws and thin legs.

"Just about any soft plastic can be fished weightless," Dance said, "and each one of them will give you a different action or fall rate or bring something special that will make bass hit."

"Fall rate" was one phrase that Dance used frequently in our discussion on weightless plastics. Other important ideas were "line control," "horizontal descents" and "patience."

Anyone who has ever watched Dance fish or heard him speak knows he considers the game's mental aspect the least discussed, yet an important component of angler success. Years ago, Dance spoke about having confidence in your bait and presentation long before the word reached the lips of most anglers. So when it comes to working weightless soft plastics, you should expect a cerebral aspect to this technique as well.

When fishing weightless, Dance believes an angler must conquer the tendency to fire a lot of casts and work quickly. He must have "patience, patience, patience."

"This is not a run-and-gun technique," he said. "You need the patience to let the bait fall like dripping honey on a hot Tennessee day."

Of course, there is a tangible reason to practice patience.

"A key to fishing these baits without weight is to let them fall slowly," he said. "A lot of anglers aren't successful with this fishing because they only give the bait a few seconds and then they start working it."

The key to using weightless soft plastics is a "slow, slow horizontal fall."

"I like horizontal falls," Dance noted. "There is no question that a horizontal fall is more enticing to a bass. It's more natural, and the fish perceive it as dying prey."

To achieve a horizontal fall with unweighted plastics, Dance uses a wide-gap hook, which serves as keel on many plastic baits. The hook he uses has a wide, deep bend, and the shoulder of the hook is curved up and behind the line eye.

"Many soft plastics are lighter than water, and as a result they float," Dance said. "The hook gives the bait just enough weight to sink. So when you say weightless, theoretically they aren't totally weightless because you have to use a hook."

Just like a dieter who sometimes cheats a little, Dance will add micro amounts of weight to achieve the compulsory horizontal fall in addition to the prerequisite hook. His extra calories are obtained by using an aluminum crimp just at the hook-eye. The crimp weighs 1/128 ounce, so it's still basically weightless. The lightweight crimp gives the bait "nose weight."

"Why would you have to add weight?" Dance asked rhetorically. "Sometimes to stabilize the bait, or sometimes to give the bait a horizontal fall. Another reason is the wind. If you're having difficultly because the angle of the wind is blowing the bait around, a crimp is a good trick. Or maybe there's a slight current, or you need to get the bait deeper. Just add a crimp."

However, even the light weight of an aluminum crimp might unfavorably change the angle of descent. When that happens, Dance has another way to add a few calories to a no-weight bait.

"What I'll do then is take a finishing nail — I keep an assortment with me — and insert it into the soft plastic to where it levels the bait so that it falls on a horizontal plane," he explained.

Another important aspect of fishing weightless soft plastics that Dance mentions frequently is the "fall rate," or how fast or slow the bait descends through the water column. According to Dance, most soft plastics rigged on monofilament fall at the rate of 1 foot every 3 to 4 seconds. However, denser soft plastics, like the Yum Dinger, descend quicker. Also, the fall rate can be altered with a thin-diameter braided line.

"Many factors will determine fall rate, including the weight of the line, the distance of the cast, the size of the hook, the size of the bait and its buoyancy," Dance said. "Also, the body mass has a lot to do with the fall rate. If you have a bait as big as an ear of corn, it has more buoyancy. It will fall slower than a bait that's only as wide as a pencil and 4 inches long. On average with monofilament line, you can figure the fall rate on most soft plastics, rigged properly, is 1 foot every 3 to 4 seconds. So if you want the bait to get down just 10 feet, you're looking at about 30 seconds."

Dance has worked out a simple method for determining the fall rate of soft plastics. Using a 7-foot spinning rod — his normal rod for fishing weightless — he pulls line from the rod tip to the end of the butt section, giving him 7 feet of line.

"Get somebody in the back of the boat to hold the bait, then put your rod tip about 1 inch above the water," he said. "Tell your partner to drop the bait, and you count — "one thousand and one, one thousand and two" — and keep count until the line is directly under your rod tip. That will give you a fair indication of the fall rate of the bait. If it takes to the count of 24 before the bait is directly under the rod tip, that tells you it's falling about a foot every 3 seconds."

Besides the bait's inherent fall rate, the type of line and even how long the line has been in the water can both be factors.

"Because it absorbs water, the longer mono is in the water, the faster the descent," Danced noted. "When weightless soft plastics are the pattern, I normally have a couple of rods rigged. After I fish one for a while, I lay it down, giving the line a little time to dry, and pick up another rod. Also, I'll use Real Magic, a lubricant that semi-prevents the line from absorbing water. It's a plus to periodically spray your line especially when you're fishing this way."

In addition to monofilament line, Dance also uses braided line to fish weightless. The braided line has a slower rate of descent than mono, not only because of its thin diameter, but also because it absorbs less water than mono.

"When I use braid, I'll use 14-pound braid that has a breaking test of 20 pounds," Dance said. "Yet that 20-pound braid only has a diameter of 4-pound mono. Using braid, I've got tremendous strength, no stretch and super sensitivity."

Dance does not connect the braided line directly to the hook-eye. Instead, he joins the braid with a 14- to 20-inch section of fluorocarbon line.

Dance believes weightless soft plastics work best in clear-water conditions.

"Soft-plastic baits are eye-contact baits," he said. "They don't displace much water, and they don't vibrate that much. So the key is sight. That's the predominant sense for the bass."

But while clear water is a limiting factor, there are no limitations as to the seasons Dance will use the baits.

"One time when the baits are highly effective is in the spring when fish are up against the banks," he said. "A floating worm, like the Yum Jitterworm, is a high-percentage bait in this situation. If it's rigged with a light-wire hook, it's basically weightless and deadly. Also, any time the fish are shallow in the spring or summer is a great time to fish weightless."

Around weeds and cover, Dance will use weightless creature baits, tubes, Yum's Ribbontail Worm and Houdini Shad. However, the versatility of weightless soft plastics means they can be used in deep-water situations as well. In summer, when fish move to deeper depths, the technique is highly productive.

"In summer, fish will suspend, especially in ponds, soil-conservation lakes and waters that don't have a flow-through, like lowland and midland-type lakes," he said. "In those waters, bass will normally suspend at 50 percent of the bottom depth. So if the bottom is 30 feet, you will normally find them around 12 to 15 feet."

Many times Dance has fished a highland reservoir and gone up in the pockets in the coves.
"Sometimes I'll let the wind drift me in the cove," he noted. "I won't run over the top of those fish, or I'll take my trolling motor and zigzag, coming off the channel banks — the turn-ins and turn-outs. The bass will suspend right over the channel itself. Many times when nothing else works, a weightless soft plastic will be the killer."

Anglers are always looking for ways to conquer the cold-water conditions of early spring, late fall and winter. Dance believes that weightless baits should be given strong consideration at those times.

"The baits are excellent lures to use during the cold-water period when fish are very inactive," he said. "People believe fish hibernate in cold water, but that's hooey. Sure, fish can get by on less food intake in cold water because their metabolic rate slows, but they still have to eat to survive. Year after year, some of my best catches come from November into February, and I throw a lot of weightless soft-plastic baits in the winter months. Wintertime fishing calls for a slow presentation with repeated casts to the same high-percentage areas."

No matter what the season, savage, rod-jolting strikes are not the norm when fishing weightless.

"The strikes are very, very light," Dance said. "Many times, you just feel a small tick, like that of a bluegill pecking away, or some line movement or a spongy-type feel when you pull back."

Whatever the season, whatever the structure or water type, Dance believes there is a weightless bait that will often produce when all else fails. And to improve your chances for success, pay attention to the keys, like horizontal falls, rate of descent and line control. Just don't forget to practice patience.