Alabama Rig: How to Rig and Fish It, and Where It Is Legal

An Alabama rig swims five small swimbaits at once: a shad-shaped head with five bendable wires behind it, each ending in a clip that holds a jig head and a bait. One cast puts a pod of baitfish in front of the bass. Paul Elias won the October 2011 FLW Tour event on Lake Guntersville with it, and three months later the top pro tour had banned it. Where you fish, the state’s hook count decides how many of the five baits may carry a hook.

Paul Elias weighed 102 lb 8 oz of Guntersville bass in four days and won by 17 lb 3 oz. On the final day most of the top ten had the rig tied on at one time or another.

What is an Alabama rig?

It is a castable umbrella rig. The original had five bendable wires joined at an angle inside a small shad-profile head, reaching 6–7 in (15–18 cm) behind it, with a small round jig head and a grub or swimbait on each. Weighed in October 2011, it came to about 3/8 oz before the baits, and over 4 oz with ordinary jig heads and soft plastics on it.

The name stuck to the whole category, the way every bladed jig gets called a ChatterBait. Today’s rigs carry fewer than five baits or more, with or without spinner blades on the arms, in wire or in clear material.

When and where does it work?

Fall through winter, wherever bass feed on shad. In fall the shad move into the creeks and the bass follow, and a rig that looks like a school stands out in all that bait. In winter it works on bass feeding on shad in deep water: the bottom of channel breaks, deep flats, and stumps and brush near the bait schools.

Elias held his boat in 25–40 ft (7.5–12 m) on ridges and points by the causeways, where current made the bass stage on shad. He caught them suspended at 20–30 ft (6–9 m). The fish finder guide shows what a bait ball with bass under it looks like.

Guntersville guide Alex Davis now fishes it like an oversized ChatterBait or spinnerbait: when the dam is pulling current, or with cloud and wind. Jason Sealock of Wired2Fish puts his rigs away in late winter and early spring. For the cold-water window it owns, see the best time to fish for bass.

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Is the Alabama rig legal where you fish?

States rarely regulate the rig by name. They limit hooks or lures per line, and that decides how many of the five baits may carry a hook. The spare wires carry hookless teasers. Six agencies have written down how their rule applies:

Tennessee’s three-hook rule replaced an older, more tangled one. After the rig appeared, that rule “created much confusion among anglers and TWRA staff,” and the commission rewrote it. Under the new one a crankbait with two trebles counts as two hooks, so three such crankbaits on one line are illegal.

Bassmaster surveyed the states in January 2012. It found the full five-bait rig legal in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas. California, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin allowed three hooks or fewer, and Arizona two lures with hooks. In New Hampshire, Iowa, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont and Maryland, a rig with three or more hooks was illegal. Mississippi barred it on Arkabutla, Grenada, Enid and Sardis, and New Jersey limited the Delaware River to three hooks.

That survey is a 2012 snapshot, and rules change. Check your state’s current regulations before the first cast.

How to rig an Alabama rig

1. Count your legal hooks first. Where five are legal, rig five. Where three are, put hooks on three and swimbaits without hooks on the rest.
2. Pick the jig heads for depth. Heavier heads and smaller baits run deeper and take a faster retrieve; lighter heads and bigger baits fish slower and shallower. Round ball jig heads with a screw-lock keeper hold the bait when bass nip the tail.
3. Thread on the baits with the hook open, not rigged weedless. Sealock tried weedless swimbait hooks around grass and missed too many fish.
4. Clip a jig head to each wire and spread the wires so the baits swim free of each other. The rig folds a little on the cast; set too tight, the baits tangle.
5. Consider one odd bait. Five matching baits work, but a bigger or different-colored bait in the middle sometimes draws the bigger fish. Mark Zona swears by one odd-colored bait for smallmouth.
6. Keep a second rig tied up with the other head weight, so a depth change is a rod swap, not a re-rig.

What tackle does it need?

A rig over 1 oz, cast all day, needs a rod built for it. Sealock fishes an 8 ft (2.4 m) heavy or extra-heavy rod rated for 1–3 oz, with a fast to moderate-fast action and a long handle for two-handed lobs. He calls a swimbait rod rated for at least 2 oz the minimum. Elias won Guntersville on a 7 ft 11 in (2.4 m) flipping rod. Davis now uses a 7 ft 8 in extra-heavy rod with more bend in it, which absorbs shock and casts easier. The rods hub covers the heavy rods.

For the reel, take a 200- or 300-size baitcaster. Davis uses a 7.1:1 gear ratio, slow enough for deep water and quick enough to burn the rig over grass.

The line is heavy braid: 65 lb for Sealock and Elias, 50 lb for Davis. There are two reasons. A rig that heavy snaps a thin line if it binds on the spool during the cast. And braid lets you pull hard enough to straighten a hook on a stump and get the rig back. That matters: in 2013 Sealock put the money tied up in one rig at $30 or more. In very clear, pressured water, switch to 20 lb fluorocarbon and a clear rig.

What is the best umbrella rig for bass fishing?

No rig is best everywhere: the right one has as many hooked arms as your state allows. Three current rigs show the range, specs from the makers’ store pages:

• YUMbrella Flash Mob: five heat-treated stainless steel wires, with four willow blades midway down the outer arms for flash and vibration.
• YUMbrella 3-Wire Rig: three stainless steel arms, sold for states that only allow three hooks per rig.
• Picasso Bait Ball Extreme: from 3 arms and 6 baits up to 7 arms and 16 baits, 9.5 in (24 cm) long (the 3-arm version 7.5 in, 19 cm); each snap takes a hooked bait or a hookless dummy head.

How do you set it up for depth?

The trend since 2011 runs one way: smaller. Davis started on 5- and 6-inch swimbaits; now anything bigger than 3.5 in “doesn’t get the same amount of bites.” The soft plastics hub has the smaller paddle tails.

How to fish it

The cast. Lob it; do not snap it. Sealock swings the rod back low and brings the tip around in a wide circle. As the upper hand drives toward the target, the lower hand pushes the butt away. A snap cast loads and unloads the weight too fast, which strains the wrist and shoulder and can crack graphite.

The count-down. Even on light heads the rig sinks fast. Sealock counts to about eight for 10 ft (3 m). Fishing deep, he lets it touch bottom and starts reeling the moment the line goes slack. A quick pop of the rod tip straightens the baits behind the head before the retrieve starts.

The retrieve. Steady, medium to slow, just fast enough to keep it off the bottom and the tails kicking. In cold water, faster than that costs bites. Two tricks trigger a follower. Stop, and pop the rod once or twice so the baits flare and dart. Or let the rig swing down a drop on a tight line like a pendulum. Davis watches fish track the rig on forward-facing sonar and gives the reel two quick turns to make the baits pulse. That is usually when they hit.

The hookset. Do not set hard. When the rod loads, lean into it and reel faster; the speed drives the hook home.

Where did it come from, and why did the pros ban it?

Umbrella rigs are old. Saltwater trollers pulled them for striped bass and bluefish off New England. Trollers on Georgia’s Lake Lanier pulled them for landlocked stripers. Andy Poss, an Alabama tournament angler, scaled the idea down to one you could cast on ordinary bass tackle.

Three months after Elias’s win, B.A.S.S. announced on January 19, 2012 that its Classic and Elite Series anglers would be limited to “a single lure during practice and competition”, effective February 1. That covered the Classic at Shreveport–Bossier City on February 24–26. The same rule ended double soft jerkbaits and drop shots weighted with a jig. The Elite pros on the rules committee asked for it unanimously, and one gave the reason: “It doesn’t matter how you work it. The fish can’t help themselves.”

The rule did not then apply to the Bassmaster Opens, the Federation Nation or College B.A.S.S. In April 2013 Patrick Bone won a Southern Open on Douglas Lake with the rig. In 2014 B.A.S.S. extended the ban to the Opens and every other event that leads to a Classic berth.

FLW followed for its 2014 season: “Alabama rigs and similar umbrella-type rigs are not permitted” on the FLW Tour. Its other circuits kept the rigs, capped at five wires, five lures and three hooks.

The rigs hub has the single-bait rigs, the lures hub every other family, and the bass hub the fish this one was built for.

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