Stick Bait, Senko, Wacky Worm - whatever you like to call it, it's an incredibly easy plastic bait to use and unbelievably effective.
These worms come in seemingly endless colors and combinations, sizes and styles and scents from so many different companies. My personal, all-time favorite is the Yamamoto Senko worm in 4" and 5" sizes. This bait is densely salted and heavy enough to sink itself slowly without extra weight. It wobbles just right on the way down through the water whether wacky or weedless and draws incredible strikes from bass whether they are aggressively feeding or totally inactive.
One thing you want to be aware of when you're buying a package of these stick baits is just that - how heavy is it... how dense... how quickly or slowly will it sink. It's a good idea to experiment with different brands to get a feel for what you like best.
There are many different ways to rig it - wacky with or without weight, texas rigged with or without weight, carolina rigged... each method is effective in its own setting.
The wacky rig is wildly popular and although not perfect in every application, I think of it as one of the major go to bass fishing set ups for sure. A great tool to have if you're going to be fishing wacky is the O-Wacky Tool. You can get it at Dicks, Walmart, Bass Prop Shops or even Amazon.com and it's absolutely worth purchasing considering how many worms it'll save you in teh long run. Wacky rigging can absolutely be done without this tool but the soft plastic baits will often get torn up by even a small fish, or sometimes even fly off with repeated casting.
There are plenty of ways to modify the wacky rig - from using different sizes and styles of hooks to adding weight to making it weedless. But the rig is just about perfect just simply put together with a size 1 - 4 octopus hook and an O-Wacky ring.
In a pinch you could certainly use an EWG hook but I personally wouldn't recommend trying to go weedless with the octopus style hook. And I don't personally have much faith in the weed guard. If you're going to go weedless - just go for a regular old Texas Rig.
I've read different theories about why this bait works so well. "It's something about that wobble." Don't know for sure what it is, but I'm fine with not knowing, as long as this bait keeps catching fish. If it sinks to slow - add a little weight. If it sinks too fast - Wacky rig it. If it gets caught in the weeds - Texas rig it. If it's not working - maybe it's time to look for a new fishing spot! There are plenty of resources online about thsi bait, if you don't trust me!
