Carolina and Texas rigs for Bass Fishing
Combine a sinker with soft plastics and make a Carolina or a Texas rig for bass. A Carolina rig is one of the best ways to catch bass. This bass rig is for slowly and methodically fishing the bottom of lakes, ponds and canals all over the United States.
It helps to get salt impregnated soft plastic worms, lizards and crayfish when using a Carolina rig. This will make them float in freshwater so they will not get a bunch of gunk on them from the bottom. Nothing messes up your presentation like a piece of algae or mud from the bottom. A bass doesn’t want to eat a salad it wants something meaty.
You will want to use a braided line when you are using a Carolina rig for bass fishing. There is nothing that lets you feel the bite and feel what the bottom you are fishing feels like. Mono filament lines just have too much stretch to accurately feel what is going on where your lure is.
Braided line lets you feel those soft bites that you might miss with a mono filament line when you are using a Carolina rig.
The advantage to a Carolina rig over a Texas rig is the bass don’t feel the weight when they pick up your worm, lizard, crayfish or whatever soft plastic that you are using. The sinker is free sliding so the bass doesn’t feel it when they swallow your bait.
You want to keep constant contact with the bottom when you are using a Carolina rig so a heavy weight is usually your best option. A 3/4 to one ounce weight will usually do the job even in the deep lakes.
Having your weights dragging on the bottom allows you to figure out what is on the bottom. Is it gravel, sand, mud…….? This is a great way to learn a body of water that you are fishing.
A normal lead sinker will do the job but those new tungsten weights are harder and heavier for their size than a lead weight. They are about half the size of a normal lead weight would be. They are also less hazardous to the environment. They are more expensive but they are a much better alternative to the standard lead weights when you add them to your soft plastic lures.
A Texas rig is another great setup for catching tons of bass. They are much more simple to to make and to use than the Carolina rig. All that you have to do is add the weight to your line before you tie on your soft plastics and hooks.
The Texas rig is the most commonly used rig for fishing rubber worms of all shapes and sizes. This is a great way to catch bass as long as the bottom is not full of gunk. A sandy or gravel bottom is perfect for the Texas rig. This is the perfect bass bait for open water with a clean bottom.
If you want to fish cover with the Texas rig then you won’t want to leave the sinker free to slide up and down your line. You will want to attach it to your line with a rubber bobber stop or a toothpick. I use a toothpick and jam the point into the hole of the sinker to keep it in place.
This simple technique works very well because the wood of the toothpick will swell up as it get saturated with water. This will keep it in place. You could also use a crimp or a rubber bobber stop too.
In essence, you can use a Texas rigged soft plastic lure as a punch jig for fishing heavy cover and thick weed mats. You can go out and buy punch jigs from your local tackle shop but a Texas rigged crayfish will work just as well.
Combine a heavy sinker with smaller soft plastics and make a punch jig for fishing heavy cover and weed mats with ease. This is a great way to get at those Summer bass that like to relax in the shade during the day under vegetation.
You will want to use the tungsten weights because of their small size and massive weight advantages over a lead sinker. The smaller size will help you punch through that thick vegetation much more efficiently than a lead sinker would allow.
Conclusion:
Adding weights to your soft plastic lures is a great idea in many fishing scenarios. The Texas rig and the Carolina rig are two of the most effective bass fishing techniques for the novice bass fisherman and the professional bass fishermen all over the United States.
The bottom line is that you often have to be able to fish the entire water column to catch a bunch of bass. They might want a topwater lure in the morning and want a Carolina rig by noon. You have to give them what they want if you like to actually catch fish when you go out fishing.
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