No way, throwing a chandelier to catch fish makes you look cool.

With a stupid rule like that I just crossed the Bassmaster Elite Series off my list.

I have said before, Im not for or against the Rig, I personally dont have one and never will, but thats my choice.

My take on it being banned:

I dont think it hurts the fish, most of the time people just catch 1 fish at a time, its not going to work more times than it will.

On the Other hand:

Some states have rules based on how many hooks, this is based on Ethics and Conservation. They cant say a bass fisherman can have 5 hooks but a catfisherman cant. Its up to those states to decide this. Same with B.A.S.S, They own the Company, They make most of the Decisions based on what Elite Anglers and What fans want, I feel they are allowed to decide something that affects the business, whether its selfish or not. Any one of us running a company would do the same thing. If you let everyone else run your company it will fail eventually.

During a tournament my partner and I were idleing under a bridge and noticed a guy was throwing the A-rig. He glanced over at us and gave us a snooty look like he was the man then launched the rig under the bridge only to get it hung up in an old shredded up rope hanging from the bottom of the bridge....laughed our azzes off....the rope end he hung it in was about 2 feet out of reach.

No mention of a ban for my Herd O' Lizards lure for bedding bass?

Wow, I am so upset this rule was passed. I have already spent 30,000$ coming up with a harness design that would allow 8 football jigs to be dragged on the bottom with leaders for 8 swimbaits up above it. I cant believe people are claiming this is unsportsmanlike??? After I conquered this design I was trying to develop a fiber optic transparent leader with leaders branching off to reproduce a real school of shad, not the sissy 5 bait schools the A-rig imitates, Im talking 30-40 baits. I was hoping to be able to plug my rod into my Hydrowave so it would send bait sounds down to a transmitter on the head of my harness, I want it as life-like as possible. Well that was all just a dream now that they will not be allowed. Man, if coach had only put me in in the 4th quarter, we would have taken state.......

Yawn...so they banned the rig. I'll bet anyone that wants it 20 bucks they will still catch'em.

We get worked up over the silliest things.

So when do they go on sale for under $3.00?

What list is that? I love to watch the Elites. It was a board made up of their members that recommended this. I have no issue with it. Can't wait to watch the Classic.

Do you guys think anyone is going to get into the sticky gray area of what constitutes a lure? I remember in one of the recent BASS mags discussing the legality of the A Rig in various states, that one state official said his group was in a debate on whether the A Rig was "5 lures attached to a line" or "1 lure with 5 appendages." Or something like that.

Anyway we have double armed spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, I think there is a crankbait with two pieces that slide up and down a wire. If a manufacturer replaced the blades on those dual arms with another fixed head, would this then be one lure since it is all one unit?

Pot stirring finished, carry on.

This is my issue with banning it, because, for example we have spinner/buzz baits with trailer hooks, segmented swimbaits with multiple hooks, etc. An "a-rig" (or more simple example, a jig and drop-shot), is counted as 2 lures because someone says so, but it could be argued it's a "widely segmented" single lure with 2 parts (like a segmented swimbait, which has 2 or many more pieces of the "lure" attached with fabric, metal pins, etc, in the middle of it... an a-rig is multiple "lure pieces" joined by metal wires (conceivably heavy flouro could be used similarly to make the comparison even more equal).
Bottom line, trying to define a lure-type to decide if it's legal or not, is getting into nasty areas, the one-line/one-rod rule is very simple, I have already elsewhere proposed this "fix" for ALL the different lure challenges presented by this situation:

For any rig, no more than 3 separate "hook-unit-attachments" may be made, consisting of no more than 3 separate hook-points per attachment point.

This doesn't outlaw ANY rig specifically, you could have an a-rig with 3 hooks (single or treble) (and "x" number of dummy lures), a spinnerbait with a trailer hook (2 attachments), a jig-and-drop shot rig, but more importantly, swimbaits, triple-treble topwaters, etc, are under it (other than large 4x trebles, but this covers nearly all "reasonable" bass rig setups)

This also allows for open creativity, you could have a "flock of mayflies" on the surface as a topwater setup (I'm trademarking/copywriting that name right here and now!! LOL), so long as only 3 have hooks.

The argument about fish "tangling" in so many a-rig hooks becomes much weaker, although still possible, there is no "pulling pressure" against any hooks other than the one in their mouth (the rest of the rig is going to try to move with their movements so they'll tend to stay "away" mosstly), worst case they get a few tiny surface sticks like we do when hnading crankbaits in general, with no blood or penetration worth mentioning.

I've had/seen some nasty hooked fish on normal crankbaits, and even one belly-hooked on a chatterbait, stuff happens, but with fewer (and therefore more widely spaced) hooks, that's not going to be a major problem.

What about a flutter spoon with a feather treble hook on the line above it. Seen this done a bunch would it also be kicked.

Even if the 95% wasnt accurate, If 51% didnt want it, its a majority vote. Im sure that the 51% are made up of people at the top of the pack as well as the bottom.

That was funny..

You can fish em if you want but not me.

Ehh. Never tried it, probably never will.

Yes Sir!! AMEN!