This post will go through what you need to know about when to fish tokyo rig swimbaits for bass. The tokyo rig is a fantastic set up for getting deep quickly. Plus, it helps keep your bait snag free, and weedless. A lot of folks use the tokyo rig for pitching and flipping texas rigged craws and worms, but you will find more success putting a swimbait on a tokyo rig for a variety of reasons. Let’s walk through those reasons and everything you need to know about when to use a tokyo rig.
Swimbaits on a Tokyo Rig are awesome! You will find a lot of success on them when situations are right. The Tokyo Rig Swimbait is the perfect tool for extreme depths and maintaining bottom contact with a swimbait. Traditional swimbait lead head set up’s can be hard to fish. It is tough to pick the right weight and know exactly where you are at in the water column. You can avoid this frustration with a tokyo rig. Plus, run your swimbait through cover to pick up some great fish! Look for the following types of situations when you are out bass fishing, and tie on a tokyo rig swimbait for some stoke!
The Tokyo Rig is a fantastic tool for deep water swim baits. It gives you the ability to change out the weight and dial in to the right depth for fishing. You will find this set up will excel in the following situations.
In these situations the tokyo rig swimbait will enable you to get to those bass and catch fish. Here’s how. In heavy cover the tokyo rig keeps your bait weedless to prevent hang ups. The tokyo rig will keep your bait glued down closer to the bottom than other traditional swimbait rigs. You can beef up your weight on a tokyo rig swimbait to get down to 20 feet deep or deeper quickly and cover water. In the wind a tokyo rig will help you maintain a better feel, and keep the bait keeled to prevent it from blowing off course.
Here are some of the things you need to optimize your ability to fish the tokyo rig swimbait. The key is to use thin body style swimbaits. Plus, you need to pair the hook size to the right size of you swimbait. The smaller 3 inch swimbaits use a 2/0 tokyo rig hook set up. A 4 inch swimbait use a 3/0 hook set up. Anything over 4 inches try the 4/0 or 5/0 options you want to find what will work the best for you. Use the right hook to avoid not hooking up when those bass bite your bait.
The best set up for throwing a tokyo rig swimbait is a solid baitcasting rod and reel paired with some fluorocarbon 10 – 15 lbs strength depending on how nasty the cover is your fishing. If you are planning on fishing this bait out deep, more back bone and power in your can really help to get the hook drove home on the bass. This rig can really cast a long way especially when you use a heavy weight.
Check out this list of gear and baits with links to help you get started out right with fishing swimbaits on a tokyo rig.
Check out the video below of when and how to use a tokyo rig swimbait to catch bass. It includes footage of how to rig up your tokyo rig. Plus, some tips on retrieving this lure. Lastly, the video contains some fish catches to help you see how stoking this bait can be. Check out my YouTube channel for more great fishing tip video’s. This was filmed in the summer when the bass love deep grass at Sand Hollow Reservoir.
The Tokyo Rig with a steady retrieve on your swimbait is exceptional for fishing from the shore. This is important to know about when to use a tokyo rig swimbait to help you out. It prevents you from hanging up as much, and you can slowly drag it uphill easily. I’ve been throwing it from the bank with success quite consistently. Plus, the extra casting distance you can get with this rig helps a ton.
Lastly, The links above and below in this post are affiliate links were you can pick up baits, rod’s, reels, line, and anything else I use to “Krak” some bass on the Tokyo Rig. Krakenbass receives a small percentage of the sales through these links. I only use links to baits, and gear I personally trust and know work. These links are supposed to be helpful for you, and not for the small amount I make for the sale of the products. I hope these products can help you “krak” some bass like they have for me. Thank you for your support!
As Always,
Stay Stoked!!
You need a system to know where to go, what to use and how to work your lures to catch more bass in every situation.
Use this lure color selection chart and perfectly match the color of your lure to what bass are wired to eat without trial and error so you can catch the monsters!
Discover how to perfectly match the color of your lure to what bass are wired to eat so you can catch the monsters!
2 Responses
Just wanted to say Thank you man. When I’ve got the bug on the couch and can’t get out, or when I’m studying and learning new techniques, I seem resort back to a lot of your articles. You sound like you know your stuff. You’ve been doing this a long time now. Congratulations. Much respect. I’m headed to Clear Lake last week in April for my first pro tournament. Wish me luck? Thanks again. And just remember when things get Tough in Life or Fishing, just know there’s people out there that are grateful for you taking the time to help others learn this amazingly hard sport.
Thanks for the kind words. Not enoughof that kindness on the internet. Stoked to keep you slaying, when your feeling down. I appreciate the motivation.
-JB