The Carolina Rig is an effective rig for smallmouth bass. The rig is used mostly to fish deeper water around points, near weed edges, on offshore structure, along rocky shorelines and on reefs near deep water. You can use lighter weights for shallow water fishing, although, the Carolina rig isn’t as popular for shallow water. You can fish many different types of live bait and artificial lures with the Carolina rig.
Crayfish Baits
Crayfish baits look great when fished along the bottom on a Carolina rig.
Chunk Worms
Smallmouth bass love those smaller, thicker pieces of worms and they will gladly eat them on a Carolina Rig as well.
Creature Baits
Creature baits work well. The baits with swimming legs on them look great by just crawling them along the bottom slowly on a Carolina rig.
Curly Tail Worms
Curly tail worms have good action on a Carolina rig. Just make sure you use a heavy enough weight to give the curly tail worm some kick to it as you move the bait through the water.
Finesse Worms
Finesse worms look good with slight jerk and pause. This creates an erratic action then a slow fall on the pause. You can also rig them wacky rig to draw plenty of strikes with the Carolina Rig as well.
Lizards
Lizards look great on a Carolina rig. Crawl them along the bottom or hop them along. Mix in some pauses to get more bites.
Paddle Tail Worms
Paddle tail worms also great with more of a slight jerk and pause retrieve on the Carolina Rig. Some baits look really good when you wacky rig them with this technique.
Soft Plastic Minnows
Just give these baits a little jerk and then pause them. You will get a lot of bites as this bait falls slowly on the pause.
Skirted Twin Tail Grubs
This bait looks really good with the Carolina Rig. Just work it slowly along with some pauses and get ready for the bite.
Tubes
Tubes can be hopped along the bottom nice and easy with the Carolina Rig. Make sure to let the bait pause at times since most of your bites will come on the pause.
Wacky Worms
Wacky worms look good on a Carolina Rig. Work them slowly along the bottom and you’ll catch plenty of bass on these rigs.
Carolina Rig & Live Baits
Whether you fish a lively nightcrawler, leech or minnow, you will do very well with a Carolina rig. This is one of the most popular ways to fish live baits for smallmouth bass when they are in deeper water.
