A carolina rig is a popular bass fishing rig consisting of a soft plastic worm and a sinker that is extremely accurate to cast and is best suited for fishing during the spawn to put a bait in the middle of territorial bedding bass.
There are plenty of reasons why the Carolina rig is among the most popular lure presentations when it comes to bass fishing. At certain times of the year when the conditions are just right, professional anglers have turned to this style of rig time and again for success when other lures simply couldn’t produce. What is it about the Carolina rig that creates more strikes than other rigs that seem fairly similar in nature?
In this article, we will cover some of the basics to Carolina rig fishing, as well as lay out some of the best situations and scenarios to use this legendary lure. The Carolina rig is something every angler should have in their tackle box and you can seriously improve your bass fishing game by using it correctly.
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Carolina Rig Origins
The Carolina rig burst onto the bass fishing scene in the early 1980’s when anglers were experimenting with different ways they could keep their soft plastic lures in the strike zone longer. Using lead weights were becoming quite popular and many anglers were catching on to the fact that they could use an exceptionally lightweight lure in a way that puts it down at the deepest level of the water column by using lead weights in the right manner.
The lure truly became famous worldwide when Jack Chancellor used it to catch a whopping 45-pound bag and win the Bassmaster Classic that year. While other lure experiments would come and go, it started to become clear that the Carolina rig was here to stay in the world of bass fishing.
What is a Carolina Rig?
A Carolina rig is a soft plastic worm that’s attached to a line that is weighted down with either lead or tungsten. Throughout the history of the Carolina rig, anglers have adamantly used it with varying length between the weight and the hook and lure with differing levels of success depending on water clarity and the time of year they’re fishing.
In the early years of the Carolina rig’s popularity, anglers were known to use leaders as far as 6 feet in front of their soft plastic worm with success. Since then, it’s become customary for fishermen to go with a more compact approach and place their sinker about 12 to 18 inches above the lure for the best overall results and a more versatile lure.
There is no specific type of sinker you must use and some anglers prefer an egg sinker while others opt for a simple bullet sinker that you might commonly see with a Texas rig. You’ll want to place a swivel somewhere between the 12 to 18-inch mark depending on how long you want your leader to be. It’s also a good idea to place one or two beads on the line between the leader and the sinker in order to prevent the sinker from damaging the knot and causing the line to break.
You can choose to rig the sinker in a way that allows it to slide freely over the line, but many anglers will opt for a Carolina rig that involves firmly tying the sinker in place at a certain length. Doing this ensures that your sinker will stay at a specific level in front of your lure and keep the soft plastic at the same relative position as you work it across the bottom.
Finally, there is truly no limit to what kind of soft plastic lure you can use with a Carolina rig. The lure presentation began with a simple plastic worm, but anglers have since discovered incredible results with plastic lizards and other designs that might resemble a crawfish or other type of prey.
Why Does the Carolina Rig Work?
Many beginner anglers have compared the Carolina and Texas rig and asked the same questions. What’s the difference between the two and why does the Carolina rig work at times when the Texas rig doesn’t? The answer to those queries is somewhat simple, but requires some knowledge about the habits and behavior of bass to understand.
The main reason why it works so well is because the Carolina rig is capable of appealing to bass when they are in a variety of different moods. Sometimes bass might be particularly sluggish and unwilling to chase down a fast-moving lure. At other times, they might be quite aggressive and want to attack the first thing they get the chance to bite. The Carolina rig puts the lure in the right place to entice strikes from bass that are in both types of moods, depending on a number of other factors.
When to Use a Carolina Rig?
The real key to making the Carolina rig work as a year-round bass-catching machine is knowing how to use it in different situations and environments. Professional anglers have, over the last 40 years, somewhat perfected their understanding of how the Carolina rig can be employed in different water conditions, temperatures, weather patterns, and times of the year.
The Carolina rig particularly shines during the bass spawn, which usually takes place in the early to mid-spring of each year. Bass will usually be locked onto their beds, guarding their eggs from any potential predator that might do them harm.
Using a Carolina rig lets you pinpoint your cast and get the lure in a position so that it can be worked directly through the bass bed, which usually ignites the large female into attacking the lure in order to protect her young. You can also catch the male bass, which will usually be somewhere nearby operating in the same mindset of protecting the eggs or fry for a matter of days after they have hatched.
During the hot summer months, a Carolina rig is capable of getting your lure down into the deep water where fish are more likely to be during the majority of the daylight hours. As the temperatures climb up well past 85 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit, bass will take refuge around different types of structure or cover in deep water. If you know where to expect these fish to be at these times, you can easily target them with a Carolina rig that’s heavy enough to reach them.
There are other occasions when the Carolina rig seems to work better than other types of lures as well. If the weather is particularly windy and rough, bass will usually move down into deep cover and stay at or very close to the bottom to avoid the turbulent waters overhead. The Carolina rig will, once again, put your lure in the right position to be sensed by bass using their sense of vision or by feeling the lure’s movement in very muddy waters.
During the cold winter months, it can often seem like a monumental task to get fish to bite when there’s a cold front moving through. Regardless of these harsh weather conditions, bass have to eat at some point in order to survive. While they will be much more lethargic and slow-moving when the water is very cold, they will still bite lures that they can reach without much effort.
A Carolina rig in deep water can be the ticket to successfully catching those bass that are hard to pattern during the winter and many professional anglers have won tournaments using this approach.
How to Use a Carolina Rig
If we’re being totally honest about the Carolina rig, there’s really no wrong way to fish it. The key to catching fish with this setup lies in knowing when to use it and at what pace you should retrieve it as well. Sometimes you’ll have greater success by fishing it at an agonizingly-slow pace while other times you can rip it through areas with moderate vegetation or cover to produce strikes.
The Carolina rig can be used as an exploratory lure presentation that allows you to actually scour the bottom of a lake, pond, or river and locate the specific depth and area where fish are hiding. In late spring and early summer, when bass are much more active and somewhat more aggressive, you can fish the Carolina rig a bit faster. If you don’t get any nibbles in a particular section of water, it’s probably best to move on until you do start feeling that subtle ‘bump’ that happens when a bass bites the lure on a Carolina rig.
When fishing this presentation during the spawn in and around bass beds, you will need to tailor your retrieve to what makes the bass want to bite. Remember that a bass that’s guarding its bed will not be looking to eat anything that comes near it’s eggs, but is instead mostly concerned with attacking and protecting this prized spot. In fact, it’s not out of the ordinary to see a bass scoop up a plastic lure in its mouth in or near it’s bed and swim out several feet away only to drop the lure and return to guarding its eggs.
If you’re fishing a Carolina rig, or any other lure for that matter, around a bed, be particularly keen to watch the lure as closely as possible and wait for the bass to bite. You’ll usually see a bass swim directly up to the lure and ‘nose down’ on it so that the lure is literally touching it’s lips before it will suddenly open it’s jaws and suck the lure into its mouth in an instant.
When this happens, what you’re able to see from above the water typically looks like a slight ‘flash’ of white and the bass will begin swimming away. Watch your line for movement and be ready to set the hook hard in these scenarios. Carolina rigs are often the number one lure setup used to catch trophy bass that are locked on their beds during the spawn.
Conclusion
With so many different scenarios and methods you can use the Carolina rig to catch bass, it’s easy to see why this lure has grown to be a staple among the tackle boxes of professional anglers over the last few decades. It’s fully capable of catching fish at any time of the year and the Carolina rig is almost always worth a try if you know where the fish are at and that your lure can reach them.
The best way to understand any type of bait or lure presentation is to get out on the water and fish with it. Gaining a full understanding of when, where, and how to use a Carolina rig comes with ample amounts of practice. The next time you’re on the water, don’t be afraid to toss a Carolina rig into a spot to try it out for yourself.