Best Rigs

The Carolina Rig is used mostly to fish along the bottom in deeper water around points, rocky shorelines 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, however, most anglers use this as a deeper water rig for smallmouth bass.  It’s a great rig for a variety of baits and is one of the best for smallmouth bass.

The Ned rig is one of the best rigs for catching large numbers of smallmouth bass and it also catches plenty of big smallmouth too.  There is something about these shorter chunk worms that drive smallmouth crazy.

It Catches Lots of Smaller Bass

It Catches Big Bass Too

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.  Smallmouth bass often suspend in the water column, so a split shot rig can be very effective at times.

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 smallmouth 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 smallmouth 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 smallmouth 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.