Best Rigs

The Carolina Rig is used mostly to fish along the bottom in deeper water around points, near weed edges, and on offshore structure.  Some anglers do fish it shallow, but most fish it in deeper water.

The drop shot rig will work in most situations.  Whether you are fishing around docks, weeds, wood or rocks, it’s one of the most versatile rigs you can use when fishing for largemouth bass.

The Ned rig is one of the best rigs for catching large numbers of bass.  It really is just a simple jighead and piece of chunk worm, however, the jigheads made for presenting these thicker style worms do work much better.

The Neko Rig is an exciting way to fish a variety of baits, especially those baits that were meant to be fished wacky style.  With this rig, you can fish your baits completely different from the other popular soft plastic fishing rigs.

There are so many soft plastics that work great on a scrounger jighead. You can fish with grubs, worms, swimbaits, jerkbaits and many others. A slow and steady retrieve is the key to giving these baits their action.

Split Shot Rig

The Split Shot Rig is a very popular rig that works well with live bait and soft plastics in shallow and deeper water. Largemouth bass anglers have so many options when they dig into their tackle box because the split shot rig works so well with so many different baits.

Standup jigheads, also called shaky head jigs, do a great job of keeping the bait up off the bottom.

Swimbait Hooks

Swimbait hooks are great for rigging a variety of soft plastic baits for targeting largemouth bass.  They were made for swimbaits and they work great with them, but you can use other baits on these hooks too.

Rig your favorite worms, creatures, craws and so much more with the Texas Rig.  This rig is great for fishing around many different types of cover in deeper water and in the shallows too.

Learn How to Rig It

If you live in a state that allows you to fish with this rig, it can be very effective, especially when bass are schooling up over deeper water.

Most anglers use some type of soft plastic bait that has a swimming action. It does a great job of imitating schooling bait fish.

Rig your favorite wacky worm or finesse-styled worm in the middle of the bait and you get a very enticing action that largemouth bass can’t resist.  The traditional wacky worms are a favorite among anglers, but don’t rule out wacky rigging finesse worms, minnow baits and lizards too.

Weedless jigs are great for fishing around scattered weeds. Most anglers use the weedless jigs pictured above as live bait rigs, but you can rig soft plastics on these jigs as well. The standard bass jig is also weedless and those work great around all types of vegetation as well.

The Weightless Rig works well for largemouth bass, especially when bass are found near any type of shallow water cover.  There are a variety of ways you can fish weightless.

Use your same baits that you would on a Texas Rig, but don’t add the weight to this rig.  Fish it slow around all types of cover and hang on.

Wacky Worms

Most anglers fish wacky worms weightless.