The best technique with the senko is to cast it out, let your line get totally slack (pull some off the reel if need be), then pick your nose, stare off across the lake, or eat some food. Bonus points for looking over your shoulder while talking to your partner or relieving yourself over the side during the cast. This strategy ensures that the fish completely eats the bait before you realize you're bit. Fishing senkos simply requires no skill whatsoever when done properly.

While I detest senko fishing to no end and can proudly say that I have never caught a fish on a 5" or smaller bait, I do pitch 7" senkos on 20lb during the prespawn and spawn. I used to farm quite a few on EWG hooks so I went to 5/0 round bend offset gammies. You lose your bait frequently to snags and almost always on fish, but you hook everything. To ensure that you hook everything (and lose your bait often) only hook about 1/2 of the bait through the nose before pushing the hook through. If you rig the hook in further back in the bait, it bunches up and makes you lose fish. Trust me, they'll eat the whole thing so you don't have to worry about where in the senko your hook is. For the hookset, I set it like a jig, as hard as possible. If you do it right, your rip the senko completely off the hook on the hookset and stick the fish.

-Rob (wannabe senko master)