A- Rig

[huston]

Pretty Good article in today's newspaper  in Sports/outdoors section by Eric Sharp on  The A rig.

[huston]

I rigged up one of these last night and it seems as though no one has wrote the book on usage. Some say heavy arsenal, this size jighead and what ever soft plastic you want. Since the main tying point on these rigs has weight to it, I don't see why you have to have all arms with weighted  soft plastic. It seems to me if you have, let's say five arms, then why not weigh the bottom two and just use a hook on the other three with whatever soft plastic you want. This is a rig that you are casting and reeling, not giving it any extra movement. All more weight would mean is sinking faster. The grubs, swim baits  or what ever are going to swim  when you reel anyway. less weight to me means less problems.......... Just brain storming.

[djkimmel]

That is what some people are doing for balance and to reduce weight when great depth or speed isn't important. Jonathon VanDam talked about this in his seminar Saturday at the D&R Sports Center NBAA Day. He's often using smaller minnow bodies and jig heads, and finding that catches more bass more often so far.

[Manxfishing]

Well it's going to be aloot of trial and error this spring

My thoughts are
The 5" paddle tail that there throwing down south is going to be to big for Michigan. and we won't be fishing them 20' down

So smaller baits will mean smaller hooks
I have no weight, 1/8 oz in 3/0 and 3/8 oz in 5/0
And the plan is to mix and match to find the right combo

As a Walleye guy that likes to troll
I can tell you, lead weight is very speed specific
there's a huge difference from 1.0 MPH to 1.5 MPH if your trolling in line weights.
So, If your burning the rig you;ll need more weight to keep it down
And less if your slow rolling it

So,
My plan is to cast it out, reel it in and then adjust by adding the heavier
jigs on the bottom till I get to the depth I'm after
And I like the ideal of the big hooks being down there

[dartag]

I was tossing a couple off my breakwall before the ice froze.   5   1/4 jig heads with 4/0 hooks seemed to work find.  All I had were some 4 inch swim baits in a bag I got somewhere.  It worked great as long as you didn't reel to fast and overpower it.   Tried some grubs I had and they looked good also.  Just going to take some playing around to get it.   It was good to see Gerry Gostanic say good things about it in the article.   Be interesting to see if every dead bass floating in SC this spring is blamed on the rig.

I see the BPS sales circular has 2 of them in there for sale now.

[huston]

There is also versions of this that have no weighted head.

[LGMOUTH]

There is also versions of this that have no weighted head.

One of the biggest problems I had when using it a couple of weeks ago was it tumbling in the air and the line would wrap around the head between the wire arms. Talking with Stacey and Greg we determined this was from the lead head and not enough weight on the arms. I think the no weight heads are the cure for this if you dont want to fish deep and/or your not going to add a bunch of weight to each arm. Also I was casting over head since I was in the middle of the boat most of the time. I can see it not doing that as much if you were lobbing it side arm.

[djkimmel]

Seems like most people I have seen cast it in videos are doing a kind of sidearm lob most of the time. You should have asked for equal time!

[huston]

This is going to be one season to remember. It may be called the summer of the A Rig. I picked up two of the un weighted for $10.00 each too and a medium heavy rod. We should just troll this thing with rod holders on our Bass boats.