07-13-2020, 04:04 AM
Ya, the bama rigs are big things in some parts of the country, even prohibited in some bass fishing tournament formats. I found that they work well in Louisiana, some on the Front Range of Colorado, but not so much here in the Inter Mountain West. IMHO, it is a problem with the type of bait fish we have.
Shad are the key forage species in the places where they work best, but the shad there usually don't form the massive schools like we see in Willard or Powell. The higher concentration of predators seem to break the schools up more and you often see a few dozen to a few hundred shad in a school. These smaller pressured schools do seem to be well suggested by the bama rigs. On the other hand, chub schools do often tend to form smaller schools and I have had some good results with smaller bama rigs in lakes with chubs and perch. In waters without schools of bait fish, I have never had good results.
Pat, some of the Bass Pros use to customize their bama rigs to have a longer single trailer lure out the back. So, your observation about a couple in-line would be dead on with what was observed by them.
I know that there are "crappie" sized bama rigs available commercially. Just remember that in Utah and many Inter Mountain States, we are limited to 3 hooks per line. The traditional bama rig has 5 arms or more so hooks must be limited in one way or another. The "crappie" version I saw only had 3 arms.
I bet that you will do well with the three armed bama rig, but extend the third one like a following minnow. Catch them well.
Shad are the key forage species in the places where they work best, but the shad there usually don't form the massive schools like we see in Willard or Powell. The higher concentration of predators seem to break the schools up more and you often see a few dozen to a few hundred shad in a school. These smaller pressured schools do seem to be well suggested by the bama rigs. On the other hand, chub schools do often tend to form smaller schools and I have had some good results with smaller bama rigs in lakes with chubs and perch. In waters without schools of bait fish, I have never had good results.
Pat, some of the Bass Pros use to customize their bama rigs to have a longer single trailer lure out the back. So, your observation about a couple in-line would be dead on with what was observed by them.
I know that there are "crappie" sized bama rigs available commercially. Just remember that in Utah and many Inter Mountain States, we are limited to 3 hooks per line. The traditional bama rig has 5 arms or more so hooks must be limited in one way or another. The "crappie" version I saw only had 3 arms.
I bet that you will do well with the three armed bama rig, but extend the third one like a following minnow. Catch them well.