Take a look at the following rigs that anglers use to catch more fish.
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Learn more about the different fishing rigs below.
The 3-Way Swivel Rig is a popular rig for fishing with live bait and for trolling with artificial lures. Most anglers use this rig when they are fishing with live bait. This rig works great for fishing near the bottom for freshwater and saltwater fish.
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The Carolina Rig is one of the most popular rigs for fishing deeper water. You have so many options with this rig because you can use just about any lure and have success with a Carolina rig.
This rig consists of a main line with a heavy sinker, bead, then swivel. The swivel has a leader (1-6ft) to which the hook is tied. The bead helps to protect the knot.
Shop Carolina Rig Accessories on Amazon on the following links
Buy Carolina Rig Weights | Buy Carolina Rig Swivels | Buy Carolina Rig Beads
Pre-Rigged Carolina Rigs
There are some pretty cool pre-rigged Carolina rigs that are on the market. If you do your own Carolina rigs, you will already know that it can be a little time consuming to get this rig just right. If you want to save some time, consider using a pre-rigged Carolina rig.
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The Double Hook Bottom Rig is a popular bottom fishing rig for saltwater anglers. While this rig may take a little bit of time to set up, it has plenty of strength to wrestle big snapper and grouper to the boat. When fishing with live bait, you are giving your bait a short leash to swim around and entice a bite from something big. With live bait, this rig will help you entice more strikes than going with the double hook drop shot rig, so for many anglers, the extra time it takes to set up is well worth it.
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Like the drop shot rig, the Double Hook Drop Shot Rig is very effective for a variety of freshwater and saltwater fish. The main line is tied to the hook and you want to leave some extra line after you tie the knot so you have room for another hook and some additional line to tie to the sinker. The key to tying this rig is to make sure that you give yourself plenty of extra line after you tie off your first hook.
Shop Drop Shot Accessories on Amazon using the links below
Shop Drop Shot Weights | Shop Drop Shot Hooks
The Double Jig Rig is probably most popular among crappie anglers, but anglers use this rig for many other fish as well. Saltwater anglers use a double jig rig with just a plain jig head and they will add live bait or soft plastics. Panfish anglers like to target perch, bluegill, rock bass and other types of panfish that will school up over deeper water in the summer months.
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The Drop Shot Rig is a very popular rig for a variety of fishing situations. Whether you are fishing deep, shallow, around cover, with live bait, soft plastics, for bass, panfish or huge saltwater fish, the drop shot rig will work in most situations. The main line is tied to the hook and you want to leave some extra line after you tie the knot so you can tie that line to the sinker. If you want to keep your bait 1 foot off the bottom, make sure to leave a little over 12 inches of extra line from when you tie the hook to the line. This way, you’ll have about 12 inches of line left over to tie to the sinker.
Shop Drop Shot Accessories on Amazon using the links below
Shop Drop Shot Weights | Shop Drop Shot Hooks
The Fish Finder Rig is one of the most common rigs that is used among saltwater anglers and it is also very popular among freshwater anglers as well. This rig works well for all types of live bait and many different artificial lures. This rig may take a little while to set up, but it can be very productive, so many anglers do use this rig.
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The Ned Rig is one of the best rigs for catching good numbers of bass. It’s a finesse-style rig where you use a long shank hook and a 2.5 to 3 inch wacky-style worm. Most anglers just break their 5 inch wacky worms in half to use with the Ned rig, but some manufacturers do make these smaller sized worms too. It’s an action rig and you can catch a lot of bass with it. Smallmouth bass, largemouth bass and spotted bass will all fool for the Ned rig fished slowly along the bottom.
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The Neko Rig is a unique rig and it’s becoming very popular among many anglers. As you can see in the tank to the left, the hook is in the center of the bait and the weight is at the head of the bait. In this case, it’s a screw that is screwed into the head of the worm. Some anglers use small nails too.
Basically, you are going to be walking the head of your bait along the bottom. It’s very effective for many of the bigger soft plastic baits such as large worms, wacky style worms, lizards and creature baits. Anglers usually use this technique for bass.
Learn more about using the Neko Rig.
Shop Fishing Nail Weights on Amazon
The Porgy Rig is very effective on porgies, snapper, grunts and any other medium-sized fish that school up near the bottom. Grouper anglers will use this rig as well, but there are stronger rigs that will work better for grouper. The porgy rig isn’t made for catching very large fish.
This rig consists of a swivel that attaches the main line to a leader that attaches the sinker. On the leader that attaches the sinker, you will add 2 additional leaders of line by tying a dropper loop onto the leader. The loops should be about 6 inches long. At the end of these loops, add your hooks and you will have a great rig for catching porgies and other medium-sized schooling fish.
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The Quick Strike Rig is set up to use a hook in the front part of the bait fish (lips, head, just above the gills on top of the fish, etc.) and a second hook goes near the middle top of the bait fish. This helps anglers get more hook-ups without having to let a pike or muskie swallow the bait. The goal of the quick-strike rig is to allow anglers to get a quicker hook set when fishing with live suckers and chubs for northern pike and muskie. It also helps anglers release more fish that will survive to see another day as a result of getting hooked in the mouth and not the back of the throat.
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The Sabiki Rig is a string of five or six tiny flies with small hooks. Attach a small lead weight at the bottom and the flies can be dangled vertically for a variety of saltwater baitfish. Anglers will often tip the hooks with some cut bait or small pieces of shrimp, however, you can catch a variety of saltwater baitfish without tipping these flies with bait.
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The Slip Bobber Rig is the way to go if you are looking to fish deeper water, but still use a float. You can find slip bobber rigs in most bait & tackle shops. Once you learn how to use them, you’ll agree that they are fairly easy to set up. In this rig, the bobber slides freely until it hits the bobber stop. You will set the bobber stop at the depth that you would like to fish your bait. For example, you may be fishing a deep weed edge and you see that most of the fish are suspended about 15 feet down. By setting the bobber stop at 15 feet, the line will slide through the bobber and your bait will be positioned exactly where the fish are positioned. Fishing with slip bobbers is popular among freshwater and saltwater anglers, but it is probably most popular with crappie and walleye anglers.
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The Slip Sinker Rig is very similar to the carolina rig. If you decided to swap out the split shot for a swivel, it would be the same rig with a different weight. There are a couple of reasons why the rig that you see in the picture above is used over the traditional Carolina Rig. The first reason is that the walking sinker works great for holding on the bottom, even in current. By using a split shot instead of a swivel, you can easily move the split shot to change how much line there is in between the split shot and the hook. When you use a swivel, like in the carolina rig, you have to re-tie to change the length of line between the hook and the weight. The slip sinker rig is typically used with live bait, but you can also use artificial lures. For anglers that want to use this rig with soft plastics or even hard baits, most of those people will just use the Carolina Rig instead.
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Spinner Rigs are very effective for using live bait while still covering some water. Fishermen, that like to use live bait, know that it is hard to cover a lot of water while using live bait. Spinner rigs solve that problem. They work well with worms, minnows, small bait fish, and leeches. A spinner rig will include a monofilament snell, a blade and clevise, some beads, and a multiple hook harness. The Snell length can vary depending on the situation. Spinner rigs (also known as crawler harnesses) are very popular for trolling. You can troll for many different types of fish, but most anglers use these rigs to troll for walleye and northern pike.
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The Split Shot Rig is a very popular live bait rig that works for so many different types of live and cut bait. Anglers also use this rig a lot with soft plastics such as plastic worms, minnows, lizards and more. It is a simple rig that consists of a split shot as the weight and the hook.
Buy Bobbers, Floats, Slip Bobbers on Amazon
The Texas Rig is one of the more common ways to fish a soft plastic worm. With this setup, you can fish in and around many different types of cover, over deep water and in the shallows if you go with a lighter weight. The texas rig is a go to presentation that will work from spring through fall with a variety of different soft plastics and it can be just as effective for largemouth and smallmouth bass. You can also use a Weightless Texas Rig setup when you don’t need the added weight.
Shop Texas Rig Accessories on Amazon through the links below
Shop Bullet Weights | Screw in Bullet Weight
The Wacky Rig is a very popular rig for using soft plastic worms and live nightcrawlers. Bass anglers can entice more strikes by hooking their favorite plastic worm or live worm in the middle. When retrieving the worm with a lift and fall retrieve, the action is much different than when you hook the worm in the front. The wacky rig provides excellent action to the worm and entices consistent strikes from a variety of bass.
Shop Wacky Rig Accessories on Amazon through the links below
Shop Wide Gap Hooks | Shop O Rings | Shop O Ring Tool
The Weightless Rig (also known as the “free lining rig”) is very common when fishing for fish higher up in the water column. You will notice that the picture to the left displays a hook and line. That’s all it is. No weights, bobbers, swivels, etc. Most anglers use this rig when fishing in shallow water, but there are many anglers that will free line a decent-sized live bait over deeper water as well depending on where the fish are in the water column. This rig is popular for fishing with soft plastics for largemouth and smallmouth bass. It is also a very popular live bait rig for a variety of different freshwater and saltwater fish.
Learn more about the different baits that look great on a Weightless Rig.
Shop Weightless Rig Accessories on Amazon through the links below
Shop Wide Gap Hooks | Shop Worm Hooks
The Weightless Texas Rig is a great rig for using bigger soft plastic baits such as worms, jerkbaits, creatures and lizards. It’s great for rigging the bait weedless which allows you to fish your baits around all types of cover.
Learn more about the different baits that look great on a Weightless Texas Rig.
Shop Worm Hooks on Amazon
