Several knots are used to tie these rigs together with, a Rapala knot, a Palamar knot, a Trilene and a clinch knot being the most commonly used. There are of course many others used including the old granny knot but it like so many others they don’t have the holding strength of the first knots I mentioned. These first knots have the advantage of having 95-100% holding strength. That is to say that the knot is likely to fail just as much as any part along the length of the line. This is important, as it doesn’t reduce the test line your using from say, 14 pounds down to 12 pounds or less.
A Palamar knot is a simple to tie knot that retains 95-100% of its strength.

The twisting Clench knot is the simplest and most often tied knot by most fishermen today but it only has an 85% holding strength.

A Trilene knot is like the twisting clench knot except you add an extra loop at the beginning, so you have two loops to go through instead of one after you twist it up. This knot has 95% holding strength.

An improved clinch knot takes the knots strength from 90% to 95% with one simple move as shown. When you are done with a regular clinch knot you take the tag end and run it through the major loop instead of letting it hang loose. Sometimes it’s the small things that make a difference.

A lot of magazine articles have been written about how worms have fallen out of favor with the professional circuit. They state that no big bass tournament in years has been taken by using worms. Well that may or may not be true but worms work and they work really well during the spawn and all other seasons rigged wacky. They work in shallow water under docks and around structure and they work in grass and weeds. Maybe no big tournament has been won with a worm but you have to remember that those guys’ fish under a clock and the rest of us don’t have to power fish to make a living. We can take our time and use a worm instead of having to power fish for 5 hours and run back to the scales. When using worms you have to work them and make them look alive and so irresistible that a bass just has to eat it.
When using plastics, ALWAYS use the smallest weight possible. This is a key point to remember. What you are looking for is a natural fall to the lure, not a 1- pound thud as it crashes into the bottom.
Heavily salted worms and other plastics will sink because of the added weight of the salt. Rigged weedless, they are best cast weightless as they are quite heavy already. With this set up you will be able to cast great distances and crawl the worm along the bottom without snagging anything and without any added weight.

The best length, on average, of worms to use by season are; winter = 4 inches, spring = 5 to 6 inches, summer = 7and ½ to 12 inches and fall = 6 inches.
When it comes to rigging plastics, most beginners worry about getting the hook straight and weedless and the worm looking natural. What they don’t know is that this is only one half of it. Have you ever seen a worm with a ‘c’ shaped tail? Ever wonder exactly why that ‘C’ shape is so important and what happens if you hook it so the ‘C’ is pointed up or down or even sideways, oriented to the hook? Well it makes a HUGE difference. Hooked with the tail pointed up in relation to the hook tip is called ‘dead sticking’ and is used for fast retrieves where not a lot of water displacement or bait action is wanted. Rigged with the tail down sets up greater vibration and you get more out of the built-in action of the worm. Hooked sideways you get, not half dead stick and half action like you would think, but three quarters dead stick and one-quarter action. On straight worms with no curved tail you have to look for the ridgeline that runs down the length of the worm. Hooking through the ridge or not through the ridge changes the action also. This is true for all swim style plastic worms. Frequently check you your plastic bait to ensure that they are still hooked up weed less.

Worm fishing, depending on how they are hooked will determine the action imparted to that worm. We will now talk about all the types of worms besides ‘c’ tails. Straight worms are the workhorses of this plastic group; even then the variety within this class is huge. Scented, salted, type of action, fat, skinny, cut tail, blunt tail, floating, sinking etc. They can be hooked Texas style, Carolina style, drop shot, wacky style, weightless, weedless, etc. They can be retrieved fast, slow, using stop and go, twitched, suspended in mid water column, left on the bottom, swam on the surface and used as a second bait (a Carolina rig where the weight is replaced by a jig and the worm or other plastic is used as the bait). Now you are beginning to see how versatile a simple little worm can be. A curly tail worm drops through the water column relatively slowly, ungelating and vibrating as it sinks. It works best on the fall. Be a line watcher with this one. Ribbon tail worms are visual worms that attract attention with its swaying tail. It is a swimmer and works best on a Carolina rig. A ribbed or French Fry worm displaces a lot of water as it moves through the water sending out extra strong vibrations making very effective in heavy cover and dingy water. Carolina rig this worm. Finesse worms are usually 4 inches or less long and are for inactive fish and are moved very little. They are best used with minimal weight and weedless. Floating worms are used Texas and Carolina rigged and sometimes weightless twitched along the surface. The ability of these worms to float up and be seen is their most important feature.

Most beginners when they look at a plastic worm just see a hunk of plastic and can probably get a hook into it with out much problem. When a worm is poured at the factory it is done so in two halves and joined together. The seams that run down the sides dictate where you put the hook tip in and where you pull it out at for getting different actions. Bet you didn’t know that one. For a pitching and flipping worm with a C tail you enter the nose of the worm with the tip and exit on the proper seam (so the tail stays down) about 3/8’s of an inch down. Slide the worm up to cover the hook eye and knot. Rotate the hook and pinch the worm to reenter it. Slide the hook completely through the worm at a 45-degree angle. Tuck the hook point back into the worm to make it weed less. Swim tail worms and ribbon tails are hooked the same way, with the seam. Floating worms are hooked 90 degrees between the seams so the flat tail stays flat with respects to the hook. Tubes have no seams. Little things like seams on worms, how to hook them differently and red bleeding hooks are the results of technology, testing and engineering. A lot of testing has gone into finding the best way to hook up a worm to get the action out of it.

Carolina rigs put your bait in front of more bass in a shorter period of time than a drop shot rig. Some techniques like jigging are a bear to learn but not Carolina fishing. The beauty of it lies in its simplicity and is now the number 1 method of using soft plastics, because it’s caught more bass than any other soft plastic method. Now this statement must be qualified. It has become the number 1 method since the invention and sale of Strike King’s 3X™ brand plastics. The super soft, super flexible, super strong, anti tearing and buoyant material, that Strike King uses, has revolutionizes the fishing industry. The baits of a Carolina rig float using this product. So while the sinker may be covered with algae and weeds on the bottom, the bait is clean and floating 18 inches to 3 feet above the bottom where it can be seen. Pulled slowly along the bottom the bait dives down with each pull, only to drift back up. The rate of drift upwards is determined by the weight of the hook used. It no longer falls to the bottom and just lies there inching along as you pull it. Even Texas rigged the tail will lift off the bottom making it easier to see. And with both, the softness of this new material makes the bait come alive with the slightest movement, and wiggling and swimming, drawing attention to it. It is a perfect rig for a beginner to learn how to rig up and use. All you have to decide is what bait and what color to start with. Oh, by the way, Strike King has the widest selection of styles and colors of baits than any other manufacture. When retrieving a Carolina rig, if you keep the rod tip up you’ll hang up less often than by keeping it pointed down.

A plastic worm can catch fish better than most lures simply because even if you let it lie on the bottom or suspended in mid water for long periods of time, its still working for you.

Straight tail worms work best with a horizontal fall. A wiggle action or a wavy action along the length of the body is what makes this worm attractive to bass. Curly tail worms are general-purpose worms that are good for swimming and deep-water presentations. Ribbon tail worms are swimmers for the most part, used in shallow water but can be in a horizontal presentation. A sickle-tailed worm is a swimmer also but has a fatter body than most. A tube tail worm is a bottom bait. And finesse worms are small, straight worms noted for their lack of action. They are good in deep clear water and shallow dingy water under docks and around structure.

I hope this helps clear away a little of the fog that surrounds the subject of plastic baits and how to hook them up correctly. Since we all use plastics so much, it’s important to understand every little aspect about them from the line to the hook to the plastic itself. It may seem like a simple subject to some but it is one of the most important subjects to get right every time you use one of these rigs.