Selecting the best type and size of sinker is the last bastion of rigging refinement.

The pro angler recalls how the Lindy sinker played a key role in his victory during the 1999 BASSMASTER Alabama Invitational on Lake Martin. While dragging Carolina rigs through brushpiles, Gluszek used the Lindy sinker and his partner opted for a barrel weight. “Carolina-rigging in brushpiles is challenging because snagging is almost inevitable,” Gluszek says. “But I hung up my rig maybe once for every 10 snags my partner had.”

The weight also is effective for working through weeds and preventing scum from accumulating when it’s dragged along an algae-coated bottom. “When you’re Carolina rigging ultraslow, you may make one cast in several minutes,” Gluszek suggests. “If you’re fishing around algae on the bottom and your lizard gets coated with it, you’re wasting your time.” The thin shape of the Lindy No-Snagg sinker prevents this scum from building up on the weight and the lure.

In most situations, Gluszek attaches his Lindy sinker to a main line of 17-pound mono. He will, however, scale down as light as 8-pound test if the bite is tough. His leader length varies from 2 to 5 feet, depending on water and weather conditions. If he encounters clear water, warm weather, or finicky fish, he ties a longer leader, using a shorter one in dirty water or heavy cover.

“In finesse situations, I fish a 3/8-ounce sinker on spinning tackle,” Gluszek reports. “I also like lighter weights around vegetation.”

The Lindy sinker requires some adjustment to the feel of the weight as it contacts bottom. “You can easily feel the difference between sand and rocks,” Gluszek says, “but it’s not as distinct as a barrel sinker.”

Although the Lindy sinker is effective for Gluszek in most situations, he sometimes switches to a different-shaped weight. “If I want to get a reaction strike, I want that bait to slam into the cover, so I use a barrel sinker because it contacts the cover a lot harder.”

Prerigged Weights

After years of tinkering with different styles of weights, Carolina-rig expert Tom Mann Jr. now depends on the Extra Edge Carolina Dredge, a prerigged system featuring an anodized brass sinker with a built-in scent chamber, metal ticker, small bead, and swivel on a short wire leader. The Carolina Dredge weight has a blunt point on the front end that tapers into a rounder midsection and a squared-off back for the metal ticker to contact. “It comes through rocks and trash better than most sharp-point Carolina-rig weights,” Mann says. “Since it’s brass, the Dredge also makes more noise than lead.”

Mann ties the Dredge to main lines and leader lines of 17-pound-test mono. “Sometimes I use thinner line for my leader in super clear water or with a finesse-type bite,” Mann says. When Mann needs to catch a limit, he scales down to a 14-pound-test main line and a 10-pound leader.

“Never downsize too much when Carolina rigging because you need a hefty weight to keep the line constantly on the bottom. It’s always rubbing on something down there,” Mann warns. “Thin line and Carolina rigging don’t go well together.” Leader length is more important than line diameter to Mann, who starts with a 3-foot leader, shortening it in short aquatic vegetation or stubble brush.

Other prerigged Carolina weights similar to the Dredge include Strike King’s E-Z Rig, Hawg Caller’s Carolina Mag Weight, Kalin’s Carolina Clacker, and Bass Pro Shops Carolina Shortcut. The E-Z Rig features a squat bullet-shaped weight with a glass bead and steel wire, and the Carolina Shortcut adds a brass clicker to the setup. The Carolina Mag Weight consists of a bullet-shaped brass weight and two plastic beads attached to a stainless steel wire.

The weight and beads of the Hawg Caller rig both contain circular magnets with reversed poles so when the components hit each other, the magnets cause them to immediately separate. This separation creates more clicking noise than the average Carolina rig in which the weights and beads remain together when dragged along a smooth bottom.

*John Neporadny, Jr. is a writer and angler from Lake Ozark, Missouri