A lot has been covered on this thread but there is one odd thing that I've done to an A-Rig for high pressure situations... put a few single tail grubs on the back. I'll put a 4" swimbait on the long wire in the middle, two 3" swimbaits on the bottom 2 wires, and two 3" single tail grubs on the top wires. Not a lot of people do it but it has worked wonders for me. More often than not, the color of the grub that I throw is different than color of the swimbaits. Sometimes in low light conditions, I'll put on a 7" grub on the long wire in the middle and put 4" swimbaits on the other wires. There are endless ways to rig an A-Rig.


AA Monarch Grub

This is the 7" grub that I use.

Had a day on Athens a few years back with over 20 fish in the 4-6lb range. I go to walmart and buy the jr swimming flukes. 1/4 oz jig heads. On Lewisville I fish the dam from January to march and kill them on the jr flash mob. I have weedless jig heads and fish the A-rig anywhere from 3ft to 30ft. I always fish it on braid so I can straighten a hook if it gets hung. The fish are biting a lure made of wires, the line won't scare them. Find the bait fish hang on because they crush it when they hit it.
**here's a secret that I have. use a chatterbait for the center lure and watch out, they crush it.

I can throw an A-rig a mile...much further than other guys in my boat...by using Hook Spit 8' Magnum Crank Bait rod. It was designed to throw huge cranks like the 10XD, but we found that it loads extremely well and launches an A-rig forever. The longer handle allows you to put the rod up under your arm pit or on your side and that takes almost all the pressure off your wrist, which allows you to throw it all day without the fatigue of other rods.

I put V&M's Thunder Shad on the jig heads. They work great.

A buddy gave me a pointer this week: Super glue the head of your plastic bait to the jig head. This will prevent the bait from sliding down the hook, which is very frustrating. You'll catch more fish per bait before having to change them out.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

If you are using keitech or similar heavy salt plastics, remove them from the hook when storing. They can rust really bad, once you start, the rust extends to blades and arms. Dry them really well!

Yep. The Kitechs will rust stuff REAL BAD

^^^This is problem #1. We all know confidence is very important. I know you havent had success, but you've gotta tell yourself it catches fish. You know it does so no one should have to convince you of it.

The ARig doesn't work all the time. When it's on, it's on pretty good. Don't force it. Leave it on the deck and throw it periodically throughout the day. It's not a miracle lure, although the stories we've all heard makes us think so!

We throw it on 65# braid. This way you can bend the hook instead of breaking it off when it hangs up. I've thrown it on flouro and braid and never seen a difference in the two as far as results.

As someone said above, use the 1/8oz heads. 1/4 only makes it tougher on you.

We use a 7'6" heavy rod. I don't think gear ratio makes any difference at all. It's not like it's a crankbait that has a lot of drag.

Finally, the setup you have looks a lot like what we use. Personally, I wouldn't change a thing on it unless those heads are 1/4 then I'd downsize to 1/8.

Did you do any good Brad?

Thanks for all the info guys, I threw the hell out of it today and did finally catch a fish on it about a 3lb spot that absolutely choked it, not much going on with my rig today. I agree it needs smaller baits I was using what I had just like the set up, I'm not going to invest a bunch of money on a set up to throw one if I can't make myself throw it. I need to gain some confidence in it before dropping money on a good rod for throwing it. I will get some more swimbaits before next trip and see if that helps out.

Had more luck today on a deep diving crank had 3 nice keepers on that and probably could have hosted more on a crank but was more concerned with learning the Arig.

Thanks again for all the feedback it is appreciated

You take me fishing and I'll show you how to smoke-em on that same setup your using.

PD

I have been waiting on a date delvec

I'm off tmrow and next Mon and Fri.

Hey, Your the one that suppose to take my smallmouth fishing

Between the water levels rising and falling and water being a few degrees warmer than it usually is this time of year I haven't gotten bit a lot on an A rig yet.

I did catch a decent one today on it, using Heath Taylor's junior sized swimbaits.

Doug it won't hurt if you took me over to Ray Hubbard either.

Let's do next Friday I'm kinda limited during the week on how late I can stay out, but Friday's I can fish as long as you want. Pick the ramp and we will go after em.