Texas Rig vs Carolina Rig, which one should I throw for the given situation?
When fishing soft plastics, there are two rigs that come to most anglers minds, and those are the Texas and Carolina rigs. These are two mainstay techniques that are proven bass catchers and every bass anglers should know how and when to use them.
Each technique has its pro’s and con’s. In this article we hope to discuss a few to make you a better bass fisherman.
Table of Contents
Texas rig vs Carolina Rig – A Plastic Worm Showdown
Let’s begin by briefly explaining how to rig each technique. Next, we will highlight a few situations in which you might throw each.
How to texas rig a plastic worm
The Texas Rig is one of the most used techniques for plastic worms/baits and most don’t even realize they’re using the technique. It’s extremely easy to set up, and it provides you with a weedless fishing technique.
The Texas rig is simply a weight, usually in the form of a bullet or other conical-shaped weight that helps rip through cover, a glass bead, which is optional, and then your soft plastic, whatever that might be. The size weight can be experimented with to match the depth you want to get to and how quickly. Lighter weights give the bait more natural movements in the water and will slow down the descent for more takes on the fall.
What makes it a Texas rig is how you insert the hook back into the plastic after sliding the nose of the bait up to the hook eye. The hook tip is then brought back and inserted slightly into the body of the plastic bait leaving only the shank of the hook visible. This setup allows the bait to be pulled through cover without snagging. You might miss a few hits if you don’t use a pretty aggressive hook set, but the more you use this rig, the more efficient you will become and detecting hits and setting the hook.
How to Carolina rig a plastic worm
The Carolina rig is a great setup for getting bait down into deeper waters quickly and covering a lot of water looking for schools. The setup is fairly simple and can rigged up pretty quickly. We like to think of the Carolina Rig as two parts.
The first part is your line coming from the reel that has the proper amount of weight to get your bait down deep quickly. The weight is often a bullet head type weight and directly behind it is a glass bead that serves as a buffer between the large weight and the start of the second part of the rig and also provides sound as the weight and bead collide.
The fishing line is then tied to a barrel swivel which is also attached to around 1-3ft of leader. At the end of the leader are your hook and plastic bait. Like the Texas rig, a lot of anglers opt to use the same hook and bait setup to make give a weedless application to their Carolina Rig.
When and how to use a Texas Rig
Heavy Cover
The design of the Texas rig makes it great for hitting heavy weed beds or other types of cover where are a lot of lures would snag easily. There are a lot of times throughout the year where bass move to heavy cover to suspend and ambush prey. The Texas Rig can get in there where other lures cannot.
The Texas rig is the go-to pattern for “punching” which is a technique where heavy weight is added in front of the fly. By pitching or flipping the bait over the top and letting the weight carry the lure down it “punches” through the cover and gets your lure into an area that is otherwise inaccessible.
Watch the Weight
While the Texas rig is great for getting through heavy cover and is often used for the punching technique we just discussed, many people add too much weight to their Texas rig. A huge percentage of bites that you should get from a Texas rig comes from the descent. This will only happen if you use a light enough weight so that the descent occurs more slowly. If you can stick with 3/16, ¼, or ½ conical weights.
Versatility
The Texas rig is an extremely versatile setup when it comes to various fishing techniques that can be used. You can swim the bait, hop it, and dead stick it. All of these techniques used with the Texas rig has and will always catch bass. This allows the Texas rig to be used at any time of the year and can be dictated by bass behavior. There are very few other bass lures that are as versatile as the Texas Rig.
When and how to use a Carolina Rig
Searching
The Carolina Rig is one of the best options for when you are searching hard for bass and need to cover a lot of water quickly. The weight placed up ahead of the hook and lure allows you to read the bottom of the water without your bait getting snagged. This is especially critical if you are fishing water you don’t know well and don’t have a depth finder. This tells you how heavy and what kind of bottom cover you are dealing with.
Add the Weight
Carolina rigs work best when using heavier weights. This weight does not influence the movement of your plastic near as much because it is separated from the bait, unlike a Texas rig. The point of a Carolina Rig is to search and read the lake bottom, so there is no point wasting time. Put the weight on and get these down to the bottom quickly. More weight lets you cast further and cover more water.
Fishing the C-Rig
Because this is a bottom running rig you are technically using a dragging technique. When dragging you should do so with a pretty slow retrieval technique. Pulling up on your rod tip slightly to drag the weight and feel what you are working with and then slowly bringing in the slack line before repeating.
When you do run into some cover it’s important to slow your retrieval up a little and let you leader and worm work in the area for a few seconds. With this leader, your worm should have a good amount of movement. You can speed up or slow down this process based on fish activity.
Though the Carolina rig is designed for searching large areas quickly, it’s a proven technique for catching bass, and though it can be monotonous at times, it’s one of the best ways to put yourself on a large school of bass.
Final Thoughts on the Texas Rig vs Carolina Rig Showdown….
The Texas and Carolina rig are both two of the more classic and well-known methods of rigging up your plastic lures for bass fishing. There are tried and proven methods for finding and catching fish throughout the year.
Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of how these rigs are put together and how they are used. Add them to your fishing repertoire and reap the benefits.
What are you thoughts about the texas rig vs carolina rig showdown? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below.
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