It was a big bass bonanza and the only thing that could have made the trip better would have been electronics. During a three-day visit to El Salto Lodge on Mexico’s Lake El Salto, I and a dozen others found piles of hefty fish over deep rocky structure and many more along rocky shorelines with flooded timber and well-defined points. The only problem was that the guide boats lacked sonar units.
Catches were stellar, no doubt, but with 5- to 8-pounders in great supply, we surely would have caught multiple 30-pound limits had we been able to dial in the sweet spots. To overcome this limitation, we did what all good anglers should do whenever they can’t see their targets – employ the fisherman’s version of the swimming pool game, “Marco Polo.” Here, instead of listening for clues, we relied on the sensory input of bottom contact baits and “felt” our way into largemouth success.
Granted, Mexican bass lakes give you plenty to work with, but fishing is never a guarantee. Nevertheless, anytime you fish without electronics – or in that nightmare scenario of sonar failure – you have two tools for finding your targets and the fish they hold. Although the techniques are nothing new and decidedly rudimentary, Carolina rigs and Texas rigs are the true bloodhounds of bass fishing.
Design overview of basic rig techniques
Texas rig: Poke a hook into the head of a soft plastic bait, bring it out about a quarter inch below, pull the bait up to the hook eye, turn the hook back toward the bait and reinsert the point into the body. Weightless presentations have their place, but Texas rigs generally include a conical weight above the hook. Some add a bead between hook and weight, but the essential detail of a Texas rig is pegging the sinker with a rubber stopper to keep it from sliding up the line.
Carolina rig: Slip a weight (conical, tubular or egg shape) onto your main line, add one or two beads below the weight and tie your line to a swivel. Attach of fluorocarbon leader of 24-36 inches to the swivel’s other side and tie the leader’s terminal end to a hook. Hook your bait similar to Texas style.
Texas rigs are effective for targeted casting or close range flipping, while Carolina rigs serve a more broad-reaching purpose. (Berkley packages Hank Parker Carolina rigging kits and Jay Yelas Texas rigging kits with all requisite tackle.)
“Carolina and Texas rigs are in my top three search baits, with crankbaits being the third,” said California pro Matt Newman. “I use Carolina rigs to search big areas of water with a steady to fast retrieve. Once I have found an area of interest, I might slow down and really pick it apart with a Texas rig.
“The Texas rig allows me to get my bait right into the cover. The small profile allows the bait to wiggle right into the cover where the bass are holding.”
Worms and lizards are the most common selections for casting Texas rigs, but short, compact Beavers and creature baits are often the choice for flipping specific cover. A variety of body styles from worms to creature baits work with Carolina rigs. New Jersey pro Mike Iaconelli prefers the superior “bite” of a wide gap hook for stick baits and other thick body plastics, while skinny worms get an offset hook. He’ll go with a straight shank hook for flipping Texas-rigged baits.
Locating structure
Whether it’s Mexico or your local lake, success often hinges on knowing what’s on the bottom and then making a convincing presentation with an effective bait. Even with his advanced electronics, Newman depends heavily on Tru-Tungsten weights for the sensitivity he needs with Texas and Carolina rigs. Denser and harder than lead, tungsten transmits far more bottom detail up the line and into your hands. Moreover, tungsten weights are physically smaller than lead items of similar weight, so presentations are more streamlined.
“Using tungsten weights for my Carolina and Texas rigs really helps me find cover and figure what’s down there,” Newman said. “As I pull a C-rig across the bottom I can really get a good picture.”
On our Mexican outing, most of what we felt at the bottom of this reservoir lake was solid Sierra Madre granite. Even with structure of lesser solidity and/or density, the sooner you identify what’s down there, the sooner you can refine your presentations.
“The easy stuff to find is the brush or grass,” Newman said. “When you pull into brush, you will feel the resistance and the weight falling through the limbs. Same with grass but you get more of an inconsistent hold and release feeling.
“The best part is when you find a hard bottom or rock pile. The tungsten really lets you know when you have found it. It’s a very distinct scratchy feeling. It almost feels like you are getting lots of little bites.”
Whatever bottom composition you encounter, Carolina and Texas rigs deserve a place in your game plan. Here are a few tips for each technique:
Drag show
It’s not the most glamorous of tactics and the patience requirement is certainly higher than fast-paced power fishing patterns. However, when bass hold over deeper structure, slowly pulling a Carolina rig along the bottom can produce those day-saving bites. In tournaments, co-angler fortunes often rise and fall on effective Carolina rigging. But anglers on the front of the boat also find this venerable rig effective for the offshore game.
Maintaining contact with the bottom is crucial to putting on a good show, so keep the rod low and make lateral sweeps, rather than upward strokes. Picture an eel or a salamander scooting across the bottom. Theirs is a mostly horizontal track, so nix the hopping stuff (that’s a different southern state).
Intrinsic to effective C-rigging is a slow, methodical presentation. Move the bait with the rod and then gather slack with your reel. Moving your bait by reeling greatly reduces your sensitivity – in terms of reading the bottom and detecting strikes. And don’t sweat the swing-and-miss. If a fish bites and you fail to connect, just keep your bait in the strike zone and if the original bass doesn’t follow up, one of his brethren likely will.
Shorter leaders ensure that the fish see the bait if they’re focusing on the weight bumping across structure. Also, shorter leaders facilitate casting – as does a soft, sidearm lob. Try to cast a C-rig overhead and you’ll often hook the boat, your backside or your partner.
Target them Texas style
Iaconelli always casts his Texas-rigged bait near a point of cover, be it a rock, a tree or a bridge piling. When the bait hits the water, Ike said it’s a mistake to peel off additional line, as this creates unnatural slack that lengthens your reaction time in the event of a quick pickup. Conversely, he notes that engaging your reel as soon as the bait enters the water is also counterproductive because immediately tightening the line restricts the bait’s ability to sink and instead causes a pendulum affect that pulls the bait away from the target.
Newman stresses the importance of keeping your rod ready for a hook set at all times. Letting your rod drift out of position can impede effective response by giving the fish too much time to realize its mistake before you can come tight.
“You can get distracted talking and if you have your rod off to the side or up too high, if you get a bite, you’ll have a ton of winding down to pick the fish up. Unless I’m crawling my bait over a big log, I try to never get my rod any higher than the 10 o’clock position.”
On that note, Texas rigs often get their best responses when crossing high points in bottom structure. A tree, a rock, a stump – whatever the structure, a bass waiting on the other side will usually nail your bait as it falls. You’ll have to raise your rod tip higher than normal to clear the summit, but quickly lower the tip and gather slack when you feel your bait falling and pay close attention for any change in pace. A sudden stop or tightness is probably a pickup, so set the hook.
Perimeter clues
For Carolina and Texas-rig approaches, terrestrial clues can often tell you a lot about what a lake may hold. During one afternoon on El Salto, Newman and I caught fish over near-shore rocks and submerged timber. The latter, we found by poking around emergent trees with Texas rigs, but other hints were less obvious. For Newman, it’s all about picturing what may have previously occurred.
“I’m really looking for any change in the bank,” he said. “If it’s a mud or silt bank and there is a patch of rock or brush, the fish should be holding there. But if the bank already has a lot of detail (rock, sticks, etc.), I will look up the bank more for rock or mud slides. They may look plain and boring on the bank but all the stuff in that slide had to end up somewhere. I will generally start off with a Texas rig right on the bank and slowly work it down until I find the junk that got washed into the water.
“Any change in rock composure can hold fish as well. If you are on a smooth rock bank and it turns into mud or broken rock, that seam can hold fish. Another thing I will look for starts way off the bank. If I'm at a lake where the bank all looks the same, I will stop ¼ mile (from shore) and look at the hill above. I will look for the biggest valley in the hill and follow it down to the bank. That valley will be where the most water will drain during a rain, thus bringing with it anything in the way. All of that junk will end up in the water where it becomes a fish hotel.”
Electronics will clearly show you such deposited structure, but if you’re fishing blind or if you’re just up for some old-school exploration, pick up a Carolina rig and drag it around until you find an active area. Then use a Texas rig to finish the job.
