Alabama rigs for smallmouth?

[pdxfisher]

One of my best producing lures out here is a 3" white swimbait on a 1/4oz jig. Often I have other fish following the hooked fish all the way to the kayak. I have been thinking about trying an Alabama rig but was curious if folks had any experience with them for smallmouth. In Oregon there is a 3-hook limit so I am planning on getting some 5-armed rigs and putting hookless baits on the top two arms. 

 

Seems like it should work well as long as all that wire does not bother the smallmouth. Just curious if anyone uses them for smallmouth. I am also curious if hooking a double or triple destroys them

 

 

[roadwarrior]

The #1 producer on the Tennessee River.

 

[A-Jay]

The Umbrella Rig is one of my top producers for late summer and fall.  In northern MI, the Big Brown Bass hammer the thing.

 I use all 1/8 oz heads. 

A-Jay 

[gim]

Alabama rig is not legal everywhere. Be sure to check your state fishing laws before using it. I know for a fact that it’s illegal in Minnesota here.

[MN Fisher]

27 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Alabama rig is not legal everywhere. Be sure to check your state fishing laws before using it. I know for a fact that it’s illegal in Minnesota here.

Not totally - you can use it with restrictions.

1 - No more than one arm can have a hook or lure (inline spinner for example) - the others have to be hookless, but you can put baits/lures on them

 

"However, a Alabama (Umbrella/Yumbrella) would be legal if not more than one hook or artificial lure/bait is attached. An angler could place a single bait/lure with a hook on one of the wires and attach hookless spinners or plastic baits to the other wires."

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/regulations/fishing/alabamarig.html

 

[Jig Man]

Missouri also has a 3 hook limit.  I make my own similar to a flash mob with willow blades and only 3 baits, either swim baits or flukes.

[Bluebasser86]

Smallmouth will about take the rod away from you when they hit an A-rig. I'm sure they'll eat small baits, but I've done best with 4-5 inch swimbaits. My biggest A-rig smallmouth was on a Zoom Swimming Fluke in the Albino color at Beaver Lake Arkansas.

[pdxfisher]

Thanks for all the comments. I look forward to trying them. I will report back on whether I have success or not. 

 

Thanks also for the comment on legality. That is why I am going to use only 3 of the 5 arms with jigheads and swimbaits. On the other two arms (top arms) I plan on putting shaky head like spring things that will hold hookless swimbaits. 3 hooks is the limit in Oregon so that setup is legal here.

 

I was going to use 1/4oz heads but maybe I will use 1/8 oz heads after reading the post by @A-jay. 

[Jig Man]

I use 1/16 and 1/8 oz heads with 4/0 hooks.  Ive caught smallies up to 4.5# on them.  They are really good for pre spawn white bass also.

[pdxfisher]

Thanks again for all the tips. A few Alabama rigs arrived from Amazon today. I bought some 1/8oz jig heads to use with them. I got them rigged up and ready. I am fishing tomorrow. I will give them a try at some point in the day.

[TnRiver46]

On 8/29/2020 at 7:11 PM, gimruis said:

Alabama rig is not legal everywhere. Be sure to check your state fishing laws before using it. I know for a fact that it’s illegal in Minnesota here.

He already mentioned he can only

legally use 3 hooks in the OP. It seems most threads have a “that’s illegal in Minnesota” clause....... are your prisons always at max capacity?? ?

[roadwarrior]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

... are your prisons always at max capacity?? ?

[gim]

50 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

He already mentioned he can only

legally use 3 hooks in the OP. It seems most threads have a “that’s illegal in Minnesota” clause....... are your prisons always at max capacity?? ?

Ya I missed that part...?

[CountryboyinDC]

I think the rule in Virginia is a 3 hook maximum, unless it's changed.  Come October, I usually have a 3 wire job made by Yum and use it on rivers like the Shenandoah or Rappahannock.  I only use it in a few spots with 3.3 Keitechs, 2 1/16 oz heads and a single 1/8 oz heads.  I get some looks; most people are using light spinning rods.  But doubling even with 10-12" fish is a lot of fun, and one of these days I'll get 3 at a time.  No giants like @A-Jay, that's for sure, most of us around these parts have only heard of brown bass that big.  But still a nice change from casting into the same eddys all summer.  Even a 3 wire rig will get hung up on you, though.  

[Logan S]

13 hours ago, CountryboyinDC said:

I think the rule in Virginia is a 3 hook maximum, unless it's changed.

You can use a full 5 hooks in VA.  In MD we're limited to 2...But you can still use 5 arms, just put dummies on 3 of them. 

[CountryboyinDC]

6 hours ago, Logan S said:

You can use a full 5 hooks in VA.

That's good to know.  I've been working off some internet heresay for a while.  I've never found the citation for the number of hooks in the DGIG book.  Do you know where it is?  I just checked, still don't see it.

[pdxfisher]

I threw an AR for about 1/2 hour on Monday but did not have any luck with it. It was an extremely slow day - normally I have been catching around 50-60 fish per trip but I only got 19 on Monday and most of those were dinks.

 

I will try the AR again in the future - especially now that I have a couple set up for use. The AR did look pretty cool in the water so I think it will be effective but nothing was working well this past Monday.

 

I always struggle to get confidence in a new lure or technique until I have a really good day fishing it. I know it will happen for the AR at some point but I am not there yet.

 

Thanks again for all the advice!

[Logan S]

2 hours ago, CountryboyinDC said:

That's good to know.  I've been working off some internet heresay for a while.  I've never found the citation for the number of hooks in the DGIG book.  Do you know where it is?  I just checked, still don't see it.

I think the rule is that there is no rule .