Soft Plastic Rigging Guide: Texas Rig

What Is It?

A soft plastic rig commonly utilized by bass and other freshwater anglers, the Texas Rig is known for its ability to remain weedless and be retrieved through all types of cover such as submerged vegetation, rocks, and wood without hanging up. 

How To Rig It

Slide a worm weight onto your line and tie on the worm, wide gap, or flipping hook of your choice. Insert the point of the hook into the nose of your worm, stickbait, lizard, creature, or craw and push it about a 1/2 inch into the bait, then exit the body. Slide the body over the eye of the hook, turn the hook 180 degrees, and re-insert the point. On some occasions, you may want to fish it weightless, like when in very shallow water or when you want your bait to fall through the water super slowly.

Push it all the way through, then back it off so that the hook point lies just beneath the surface of your bait. This position of the hook point is what makes it weedless while still being poised for quick penetration when a fish picks up the bait.

How To Fish It

The Texas Rig is a great choice anytime you need a weedless, natural-looking bait worked slowly. You can allow the worm weight to slide freely to hold onto a light bite, peg it for better control in heavy cover, or fish the rig weightless.

A Texas Rig can be fished successfully through the thickest cover you can imagine — hydrilla, bulrushes, lily pads, grass mats, brush, and timber. It works the best and is most often used best in shallow to moderate depths.

Tips & Tricks