Carolina rig - BITE

I have had a Carolina rigged up for a while but have never spent a lot of time with it,
Over the weekend I stayed with it for several hours trying to learn how the bite feels
What is it suppose to feel like ?
Had half my worm stolen once , another took the whole senko
I could feel like a small brim nibbling then one small tug and bait was gone
The nibbling is that when you set the hook ?
THANKS for any help
Monte

Most of the time they swallow the bait if you wait to long and that's not good

1. Thump
2. Reel
3. Mashed taters
4. Swing batter

Hooksets are free. I would suggest that you reel down and swing on anything that feels different or off. Sometimes it can even be a sudden sense of nothing, or a complete loss of contact with the bait. It's a tough rig to stick them on when they aren't biting aggressively, at least in my experience. Especially with a long leader.

"tick-tick", "tug-tug", "mushy", "tap-tap".......anything that does not feel like the normal dragging of the weight on the bottom. Your question is why I encourage people to at least try braid on your main line. Amazing feel for what is happening on the other end....and I don't even really care for braid.

One of the reasons I love this forum..... I'm old....been fishing my whole life.....learn something every day.

Keep a constant slow tug on your line, very slow. If you feel anything that you think is a bite slowly pull, and they will let you know they're on there. Whatever you do don't let them eat it forever, the hook will be way down their throat.

If you’re in a pause situation and not moving the rod or reeling, yet feel the weight dragging the bottom you have a fish on!

If your weight never reaches the bottom, you have a fish on.

If the bottom pulls back, you have a fish on!




All of these were how they were biting during the SOT on Fork two weeks ago. Not many tell-tale “tic tic boom” type bites.

Lots of good 411 on this forum for you.

The best advice I can give you is this. If you are not sure what is going on down there, Jerk.

I do like 50-65 braid as my main line. One ounce bullet weight, swivel, 3-5 foot leader of 15-20# mono or fluoro, and hook of your choice. Most bites will occur right after you feel your weight clear the brush or whatever is down there. You won't always feel the actual bite, especially if it is a big fish. Most of the time, it just gets heavy and pulls back. You have to set the hook out of self defense.

If you are feeling lots of ticks or pecks it is most likely small bass or bream or sandies.

Also you will have fish pick up the weight at times. Not much you can do about that.

It gets heavy at the other end

Sometimes it gets REAL heavy....

I practiced during the week on Amistad for a tournament. Bass were picking up the weight on a regular basis. Lots of teeth marks on the lead sinker. Occasionally I would catch a small fish and had caught big fish there many times. Kept me busy sitting the hook. The night before the tournament I went and talked to an older friend and discussed the situation. He recommended using a 1 oz. jig as the Crig. weight then coming off the eye of the jig with a snap swivel for the leader to attach to. We weight in 5 fish over 4 lbs. each for the win. 4 of those fish were caught on the Jig.

[quote=FishTheBite]Hooksets are free.



Until you lose a tungston weight.

Hog Jaw got it right describing it as getting heavy. I have a video clip on fishing the Carolina and you may be able to see the tip of the rod before the hookset. The link takes you directly to this part.

I've never used a jig as the weight although I've heard of it before. I have also had them eat the weight when I used a polished tungsten. I always use a black/green pumpkin weight with a c-rig.

reel very slow and every time you "feel" anything, like your bait going over a rock or some kind of structure, just pause for 3 seconds or so. usually the bite will come during that pause and it will be very obvious.

All the above is true, or the parts that I read. It is hard to describe what a bite feels like, because it can take so many different modes. The typical Tap Tap, SWING is the most common for me. Sometimes the line just gets heavy and you better swing for all your worth on that one, bigger fish (at least for me) bite this way. SOMETIMES the tappity tap tap of the bream is actually a bass, so swing away, as someone said above, hook sets are free. If you watch your line, and it starts running sideways, SET THE HOOK!!!!!!!!!! There is not one particular bite that feels like that all the time, it varies. Learn how to feel your bait (I would use a non senko bait for this until you learned the feel of it). I mostly fish lizards on a C-rig, although not always. I would suggest a bait that has a little more heft in it, vs. the senko, while learning it anyway. My favorite baits for the C-rig are: Lizard; Brush hawg or baby brush hawg; fluke like baits; crawfish; Trick worm then a finesse worm and an ole' monster for summer fishing. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains

Try to keep your bait hanging up. By this I mean move the weight along bottom till you find something. It may be a rock, branch or brush pile. But you’re using the bait to find cover. Once it finds something, dont be in a hurry to yank it free and start moving it again. The cover is where the fish tend to be. The c-rig is a great search bait when used like this. Keep visualizing dragging the weight over the bottom trying to find something of interest.

I've been fishing C-rig about 50% of the time for the last year. Sometimes they hit hard and you know it immediately, but agree the bigger fish tend to not yank and run and so the line feels heavy. I set hard in those situations. I use a fluoro leader that is 5lbs lighter than my main line so that if I do get hung up I only loose the hook and not the whole thing. I keep some hooks on leader ready to go so I can tie up quickly. Been using a 3/4oz weight.

C-rig is great down at the damn or anywhere you can find a lot of rock. That click on the rocks will get their attention. I fished brush hogs in the spring, and baby brush in the summer. It's one of my favorite rigs. I also fish a lot of drop shots straight down into cover or structure, but the C-rig can cover so much more ground. It doesn't work as well on a sandy bottom, so I'd really look for rock or other structure to clank against.

If you are unsure and they are ripping the worm off the hook, try changing to another plastic and see what happens.

Maybe they just wanted a jig lol. I honestly cannot for sure say that I have missed fish because of them eating the weight. I normally use a 3/4oz cat fish sinker