Popular Rigs for Bass Fishing
When it comes to bass fishing rigs, you could write an entire book about all of them. It seems like there is a new rig “invented” every week. In reality, people have probably been using most of these rigs for a while, and they just rise and fall in popularity. In this article, we are going to take a look at some popular rigs and what makes them good to use, and hopefully you can apply this information the next time you go out fishing.

Carolina Rig: The Carolina rig is a pretty sweet rig when you would normally want to use a Texas rig but might be fishing for pressured bass, or spooky bass that don’t want to feel so much weight when they pick up the bait. You set it up the same as a Texas rig, but instead of putting the weight against the hook eye you are going to use a swivel about a foot or 1.5 feet above the bait and put the sinker above that. It’s a great rig to fish along weed edges, down a drop off, or around a ledge.

Ned Rig: The Ned rig has really become popular in the last handful of years as fisherman are realizing its effectiveness on smallmouth when they don’t seem to want to bite anything else. Take ½ of a senko and put it on a light mushroom-head jig, something like a 1/16oz, 1/8oz, or 3/16oz jig, and then cast it with a spinning rod and light line into any promising looking place where a bass might be. This could be by a storm water drainage pipe that leads into your waterway, a bridge piling, or even under and around boat lifts or floating docks. When the fish aren’t biting much of anything else you can always seem to catch a few on the Ned rig.

Wacky Rig: What article about bass rigs would be complete without mentioning the wacky rig? Using a #4 or #2 octopus hook or wacky rig hook, just hook a senko right through the middle and fish it weightless around any sort of structure. This rig is not very weedless so ideally you’re going to be fishing this around points, drop-offs, or docks. Just cast it out, let it sink really slowly, and then give it a few twitches. Bass can’t resist the action of a flopping senko and if there is a bass around you are sure to be hooked up in no time.

Hopefully you found this article helpful, and maybe learned about a new rig that you did not know about before. The next time you are out on the boat (or on the shore) and are wondering what you should tie on, try tying on a Carolina rig, Ned rig, or a wacky rig. All three shine in different situations, so you’re bound to find at least one of them useful on any given day on the water. Good luck, and tight lines!