Hover Strolling vs. Mid Strolling: How to Fish Both for Bass

Hover strolling and mid strolling have become two of the most talked-about finesse techniques in bass fishing. Both are built around a similar idea: keep a small baitfish-style lure in front of suspended bass and make it look like an easy meal.

They’re also easy to confuse.

The biggest difference is how the bait is rigged and the depth at which the techniques are typically used. Hover strolling generally uses a lighter, internally weighted presentation higher in the water column, while mid strolling typically uses a weighted jighead to reach deeper fish.

Both can be extremely effective, especially when targeting suspended bass.

I fish both. Here’s how I approach them.

What Is Hover Strolling?

Hover strolling is a finesse technique that uses a lightly weighted soft plastic bait—usually a minnow—to create subtle movement while keeping the bait suspended in the strike zone.

A traditional hover rig uses a hook inserted into the bait with a small insert weight pushed into the nose. The placement of the hook and weight helps the bait maintain a relatively horizontal posture in the water.

The goal isn't to make the bait do something crazy.

It's almost the opposite.

Small movements of the rod can make the bait shake, glide and change direction while barely moving forward. That allows you to keep the bait around a suspended bass longer instead of simply retrieving it past the fish.

How to Fish a Hover Rig

You don't need forward-facing sonar to fish a hover rig, but sonar makes it much easier to target individual suspended fish.

When I can see the fish, I'll cast beyond them and allow the bait to fall until it's slightly above their depth.

That's important.

Bass often feed upward, so I'd rather have the bait above the fish than underneath it.

Once the bait reaches the depth I want, I use small movements of the rod while slowly retrieving enough line to maintain control of the bait.

You're not trying to drag the lure through the water.

You're trying to keep it hanging around the fish.

If a bass starts following it, sometimes continuing the subtle movement works. Other times changing the speed, direction or fall of the bait is what finally gets the fish to commit.

The Problem I Had With Traditional Hover Rigs

When I first started hover strolling, I loved the technique.

I didn't love rebuilding the rig.

Traditional insert weights can work their way out of the bait, especially after catching fish. Installing the hook and weight also damages the plastic before the bait ever hits the water.

That became frustrating because when the fish were biting, the last thing I wanted to do was stop fishing and rebuild another hover rig.

That problem eventually led me to develop The RIG, Bent Rod Fishing's pre-rigged hover-strolling minnow.

Instead of inserting a separate weight into the nose, The RIG uses an internal weighted jig that's already positioned inside the bait. The plastic is molded around the jig, creating a consistent internal weight and hook position from bait to bait.

More importantly for me as an angler, I could grab one and fish.

That was the entire point.

What Is Mid Strolling?

Mid strolling follows the same basic philosophy—present a baitfish imitation to suspended bass—but the rig is different.

Instead of an internally weighted hover rig, mid strolling is commonly fished with a soft plastic minnow on a weighted jighead.

The additional weight makes it much easier to reach fish holding deeper in the water column.

This is where you'll also hear the term Damiki rig. There are variations in how anglers use the terminology, but both generally involve presenting a minnow-style bait on a jighead to suspended fish.

Rather than getting hung up on names, concentrate on what the bait is doing.

Get it to the fish, keep it in their strike zone and make it behave like something they want to eat.

How to Fish a Mid Strolling Rig

The first job is getting the bait to the correct depth.

A heavier jighead lets you reach deeper suspended bass much faster than a lightly weighted hover rig. It can also give you better control when you're dealing with current.

Once you're there, small rod movements can make the minnow roll, shake or swim while you control its depth with your retrieve.

Again, don't automatically put the bait directly on the fish.

I generally want it slightly above them.

The exact jighead weight depends on depth, current, bait size and how quickly you need the lure to reach the fish. There's no single weight that's correct for every situation.

Hover Strolling vs. Mid Strolling: Which Should You Use?

I don't really look at this as one technique being better than the other.

They're tools for different situations.

If I'm targeting fish relatively high in the water column and want a lightweight presentation that I can keep around them, I'm comfortable reaching for a hover rig.

If the fish are deeper and I need additional weight to get down to them efficiently—or I'm fighting current—a mid-strolling setup can make more sense.

That's also why having both presentations available can be useful.

Instead of forcing one technique to do everything, match the presentation to where the bass are positioned.

Choosing a Bait

Minnow-style soft plastics are my first choice for both techniques because we're usually trying to imitate the baitfish bass are already feeding on.

For hover strolling, I obviously fish The RIG. I developed it specifically because I wanted a ready-to-fish hover presentation without dealing with a separate insert weight every time I rigged another bait.

For mid strolling, the Tracer Shad is one of my go-to choices. Its minnow profile works naturally on a jighead and gives me the type of baitfish presentation I'm looking for around suspended bass.

But don't get locked into thinking there's only one correct bait.

Size, profile, color and action can all matter depending on what the bass are feeding on.

The Most Important Part

It's easy to get buried in equipment when talking about techniques like these—jighead weights, hooks, sonar settings, rods, line and dozens of different soft plastics.

None of that changes the fundamental goal:

Put the bait where the bass are and keep it there long enough for them to eat it.

Whether you call it hover strolling, mid strolling, a Damiki rig or something else, you're ultimately trying to convince a bass that the little baitfish hanging in front of it is worth eating.

Sometimes the fish don't care what we call it. 😂

They just want it presented correctly.

GET BENT - STAY BENT