Fall usually finds me hanging around on local docks in marinas fishing for crappies. The bite is, as a rule, good enough that I don't have to do anything different to catch my fish but even in a purely vertical world these crappies can throw a curve ball. Quite often the crappies will be laying down deep and then rifle upwards to smack a jig from the under-side. A lot of hits like this are duds....no hook-ups. That's where this little number comes in handy.
This is a 1/16 Herring head underspin head that has had the barb and collar trimmed off. After painting I crimp on a size 14 Mustad treble directly to the spinner wire and in lieu of the blade. Now when those trickster hit from below the first thing they meet is hooks. My up-ward hit hooking percentages have gone way up since I started playing dirty.
I normally pass on any float when I am jigging the dock pilings but occasionally we'll find fish that want a bait at a certain depth and we rig a float over a jig of this ilk ad do pretty darned good, again on up-ward hitters.
The concept is about like a jigging Rapala only a plastic is used. If you're fishing vertical and getting short-hit, try rigging a head like this with a small treble and then go get them.