Alabama Rig Heats Up Wintertime Bassing

By Lynn Burkhead
OSG Senior Digital Editor

My longtime bass-fishing friend Chris Bobo is an enthusiastic angler, no matter what the season happens to be on the calendar. That’s true even in the dead of winter, a season now under way – meteorologically, at least, if not quite yet astronomically – with the dawn of December 1 on the crazy 2020 calendar.

While few anglers would call December one of the best months to wet a line for largemouths, a species that can become quite persnickety where cold weather and Florida-strain genetics collide, the angling month leading up to Christmas Day can be surprisingly good, especially on days when a storm is approaching and the barometer is falling or after a stretch of sunny, mild weather. Either set of conditions can occasionally flip the feed-bag switch and have bass stacking away the aquatic groceries at a Southern impoundment near you.

When that happens, fishing success can be simple enough for an angler like Bobo, as long as he has one of his favorite shad-imitating baits tied on.

“One of my favorite choices during the colder months is the Alabama Rig,” said Bobo, a North Texas resident who eagerly participates in his home region’s various bass tournament trails. “The A-Rig can be thrown with a variety of baits and gives you nearly unlimited options during a time (of year) when bass fishing can be slow.”

Like right now, as Christmas trees, twinkling lights and beloved holiday movies start to make their annual end-of-year appearance across the country.

So why does the Alabama Rig, or umbrella rig as it is also known, work so well (the bait isn’t legal in many tournament settings) during the early weeks of winter as St. Nick gets his sleigh ready for the famous Dec. 24 run?

“Bass, being the opportunistic feeders that they are, they see not one but up to five baits swimming by with an A-Rig and that can make the opportunity (to feed) irresistible,” said Bobo, who started fishing the lure not too long after Paul Elias wowed the bass fishing world in 2011 with a remarkable FLW win at Lake Guntersville on the newfangled contraption.

While there are numerous versions of the A-Rig on the market now, the original that Elias used back then – after it was invented by Andy Poss – was made by Mann’s Bait Company.

Because the licensing agreement reportedly expired a few years ago, anglers will only be able to find the Mann’s bait at a few select locations such as eBay, Amazon and any lakeside tackle shops that still have a few remaining in stock.

But there are certainly others out there these days, baits that include the YUM Flash Mob. There’s also Bobo’s favorite in recent years, the Strike King Tour Grade Titanium Umbrella Rig, which he puts to good use when the water turns cold on reservoirs near his home such as Lake Ray Roberts, site of the 2021 Bassmaster Classic, or Lake Texoma.

“This rig is (often a) key to my wintertime bass fishing success, given the added blades and titanium rods for when a fish does strike hard,” said Bobo. That includes not only big largemouths and smallmouths, but also the occasional big striped bass at Texoma, a fish that the North Texas angler doesn’t like to feel surging at the end of his line given its tackle-busting abilities.

When it comes to the trailer on each A-Rig hook, Bobo has a specific preference.

“The bait I enjoy using with this rig is the Xcite Baits 4-inch Shadnasty swimbait," he said. “As for colors, I choose them depending on the baitfish and water color of the reservoir that I’m fishing. Sexy shad and smoke show in the Shadnasty are my two favorites to throw (much of the time).”

To complete his wintertime fishing setup with the A-Rig and its accompanying swimbaits, he uses a 1/8- or a 3/16-ounce jighead for each link.

“This bait can be used shallow or deep,” said Bobo. “Deep-water guys tend to love these rigs due to their quick-sinking speeds and the fact that they can cover 10 times more water than using a single bait such as a crankbait.”

Just remember to reel it in fairly slow and have it on the right rod-and-reel setup.

“Use a low gear-ratio reel, if needed,” said Bobo. “This will create more whip in the paddletail of the swimbait trailers, which will give your bait more action versus dragging them through the water too quickly. And use a heavy rod and heavier line than usual since this bait does weigh a lot. Someone new to this rig may even use braid until they are confident.”

But new to the A-Rig or not, even a beginning angler can learn to entice cold-water bass into giving a red-hot strike to one of the baits that rewrote the fishing history books over the last decade.

And that’s at a time of the year when good old Santa Claus is making his list and checking it twice – hopefully with some new fishing tackle headed for the spot under the tree at my house later this month – when many other lures and presentations aren’t enough to coax a strike from a December bass that are a little bit on the lethargic side.

But on a sunny, mild winter day when the wind isn’t blowing too hard, the A-Rig is oftentimes one of the exceptions to that rule.

To be sure, it’s a funny-looking lure. But it still works, even a decade after Elias showed its possibilities to the angling world.

So, as the jolly old elf himself gets ready to make his Christmas Eve run into bass country across the southern U.S., make sure that you have an A-Rig or two loaded up on the front deck of your bass rig this month.

Word on the street is that hot cocoa and cookies don’t do much to fire up the appetites of cold-water bucketmouths swimming in your local waters. But a bait that resembles a bonanza of protein-rich baitfish can work wonders and give bass an irresistible urge to strike hard, even as the rosy-cheeked fella in the red suit prepares to head south for the December holidays.