Thinking about getting my first A rig. Need help with the following. what kind of swimbait to use. Should I get the berkely ones that have the weight in the head already or hollow bellies with a regular 5/0 or weighted 5/0 or hollow bellies with a jig head? How do you fish one? Just cast out let it set and yank it up every once in a while or cast let is set and reel it in? Line- 65 lb power pro? Areas to fish. Heading to Amistad June 1st. fish deeper points? let it fall along ledges? Any productive advice will be much appreciated.

Do like everyone else...buy all that [censored] and stuff it in one of the boat storage compartments and forgett about it.

Jwill,

I was bitten by the A-rig bug back when the water temp was still 48 degrees. I will admit that the first day I fished with it, I put it down everytime a boat got near me from embarassment of throwing such a silly looking contraption. But after boating 30 good fish in four hours, I quit caring what others thought.

Now, I haven't fished it much since before the spawn, but I can tell you what worked for me. I fish it on 65 lb. Power Pro, on a 7' MH Carrot Stix (for my lighter set up), and a 7'6" Duckett XH (for my heavier set up). I prefer the Berkely Hollow Bodies (5") in Tenn. Shad color, but have also had success on the 3" Berkley swim baits with the internal weighted jig heads. The reason I like the Hollow bodies is that I can choose which weighted hook to use depending on what depth I want to fish, and I can TX rig it to fish it more weedless where conditions dictate.

The key to it working is suspended fish, and bass feeding on schools of shad. Anywhere you have both of these, it WILL work. I would suggest for your trip try some main and secondary wind blown points, and just look for fish busting shad. Another indicator is if the white bass are schooling, the black bass are probably near by, and if they are both together you can catch both on this set up.

The key to fishing it at your desired depth depends on what size weights and "counting it down". Just figure about 1 ft per second drop. So, if you are in 20 ft of water and want to fish it about 10 ft.down, just count 1-10 after you cast, then start reeling it in. (this is ballpark depending on what size weights you use), but experiment with different depths.

As far as technique, I just threw it out, let it splash like a cinder block and fished it like a spinnerbait. Now, I did learn that when I hooked up with a fish that I knew wasn't huge, I would play the fish for a while, and many times another fish from the school would bite one of the other swimbaits. Doubles and triples are not uncommon.

Hope that helps.

Just get your most confident baits and go throw it A BUNCH! Let me know if you need some inexpensive rigs. I have a ton that I'd let go cheap. The rig takes getting used to and lots of throwing. First time I threw it was in a FLW everstart and wacked em. My pro gave me an extra rod and rig of his and boy was I gratefull. It is addicting...

Thanks for the helpful reports guys.

I'd probably feel the same way.