Big worms are fantastic fish catchers year round, but especially in the summer. An 8-inch ribbon tail worm can be rigged up and fished a variety of ways this time of year, throughout a wide range of depths. You can throw one on a Texas rig in a foot of water, or drag one over a gravel bar on a Carolina rig in 20 feet. These baits also work well on swing heads, Tokyo rigs and magnum shaky heads.

You can fish them in current or slack water, in brush or vegetation, across hard bottom or soft, in ponds or lakes and the list goes on. The options are near limitless with a big worm; you just need to find yourself a good one. And I believe I’ve done just that with the GrandeBass MegaTail Rattle Snake.

Intro to the 8” Rattle Snake -

The 8” GrandeBass MegaTail Rattle Snake is a superb worm. Though I was only recently introduced to this bait (as it came to me by way of my August MONSTERBASS subscription box) I have been thoroughly impressed by it. In the pack, these worms looked pretty good. The ribs on them were a bit more exaggerated than most other worms. And their long curly tails looked like they would have good action. But it was when I took one out of the pack that I really became impressed.

Thanks to a combination of the material used and the ribs, this worm is super soft and flexible—which is something that always encourages bass to hang onto a bait longer. There’s a fairly durable core running through the middle of the worm, hidden beneath the ribs. The thick, spongy body tapers down to a flattened, curly, ribbon tail.

When I tossed this bait in the water, the tail came alive immediately, and some of the tiny air bubbles caught between the ribs started to free up and float away from the worm. You could also see a little bit of oily residue circling on the surface, as the Rattle Snake released its GrandeBass Mega3 attractant.

I don’t hype up products—this really is a pretty special worm when looking at it in comparison to the masses. I suggest you try one out for yourself. If you choose to do so, here are three different ways you can rig it.

Texas Rig -

The most versatile way to rig the MegaTail Rattle Snake is to use it with a Texas rig. You’ll need a few components. If you want to control the movement of your weight, first start by sliding a bobber stopper onto your line. Then slip a bullet weight on next, choosing between a 3/16 ounce and a 1/2 ounce based on how deep you’re fishing. After that, you’ll need to tie on your hook. A standard 5/0 offset shank worm hook will suffice, but a 4/0 or even 5/0 EWG (Extra Wide Gap) hook would probably be even better.

Then slip the point of the hook through the tip of the nose, push the point in about 3/8ths of an inch and pop it back out of the bottom of the bait, slide this portion up onto the bend of the hook to cover the eye and finally run your hook point back through your bait and skin hook the point into the back of the worm.

The EWG hook is a little better suited for this worm because of the amount of material in the midsection of the Rattle Snake. The larger gap in the EWG hook provides more room for the core of the bait and the ribs to bunch up out of the way during the hookset. And, when skin hooking the hook point, make sure you tuck it back into the core of the bait a little and not just the ribs, if you’re fishing around wood. This will make the bait as weedless as possible.

Carolina Rig -

The Carolina rig is another great presentation to use with the 8” Rattle Snake. MONSTERBASS has a convenient Carolina Rig Kit with everything you need to rig a C-rig and we also have this helpful tutorial on how to setup a Carolina rig.

There are a few reasons that this particular worm is good for a Carolina Rig. The ribbon tail has a nice flow to it and I think the Mega3 scent probably helps draw more strikes and encourages fish to hang on longer. But it’s the softness of the bait and the way the ribs lock in air that are the two things that I think really set this bait apart.

Carolina rig bites are hard to detect sometimes. You rarely feel a hard thump like you do with a jig or a Texas rig. Instead, the fish will just eat the bait and start to swim off with it. As they do this, they pick the weight up off the bottom. So, what you feel on the other end of the rod is just a mushiness, as you go from dragging your weight along feeling the bottom to suddenly feeling nothing at all. The softness of this bait will encourage the bass to hang onto it long enough for you to detect the bite and set the hook.

The ribs also hold air—you can see little air bubbles trapped all in them when you put this bait underwater. These air bubbles make the Rattle Snake pretty buoyant. I filled my sink with water and tossed one of these worms in. It floated back to the surface. I had to push it under and rub the air bubbles out of the ribs for it to stay under water, and it still tried to nose up even then. This buoyancy will help the bait rise up off the bottom on a Carolina rig, which is always better than the bait burying down in the muck.

Shakyhead -

Lastly, I think this is a great worm for fishing on a magnum shakyhead. Using a 1/4-ounce to a 5/8-ounce shakyhead with this worm will allow you to drag it along the bottom through rocky terrain, keeping the tail up off the bottom and the head pecking along. Though this is a similar presentation to what you’d see with a Texas rig, the shakyhead is better suited for deeper water with hard, gravely bottoms and sandy clean spots, where the Texas rig works better a little shallower around grass and wood.

The reason a shakyhead reigns supreme in these situations is because you can feel the bottom better. The jighead makes solid contact with the bottom and then sends vibrations back up your line and to your rod better than a sliding bullet weight. And when you pair this type of jighead with the Grande Bass MegaTail Rattle Snake, you’ve got a pretty nasty combination to swim, crawl and drag along a ledge or point.

To rig this technique up, slip the head of the worm up on the hook like you would with a Texas rig and butt the nose of the worm against the jighead. You won’t need to go all the way through the belly of the worm with your hook point and then skin hook the back though, the way you would with a Texas rig. Instead, just stick the hook point into the core of the bait, stopping just short of exposing the point on the other side. Because of the angle of the hook to the worm, the hook point will pop through pretty easily and stick the fish well.

In Conclusion -

The 8” GrandeBass MegaTail Rattle Snake worm is one that slipped by me unnoticed for the last few years, but it’s the latest in a growing list of products that I’m glad I’ve been introduced to by my MONSTERBASS subscription. This is a worm that I truly believe can hang with any other big ribbon tail worm on the market, and even outshine most of them. It’s got a great action, a good scent, it’s super soft and fairly durable. It’s a great option for fishing on a Texas rig, Carolina rig, magnum shakyhead and more. I like this one a lot and look forward to playing around with it more in the near future.