Texas Rig

Perhaps the most common weedless (snagless) rig and can often times be the most effective weapon you have in catching fish, is the Texas rig You are going to find it rigged with every kind of bait including plastic worms, lizards, tube baits and some larger grubs. In most cases, you want the hook point inserted just below the head, pulled down so the eye of the hook sticks out the head of the bait, after which the point is turned, embedded and secured into the bait’s body.

The sinker most commonly used on the Texas rig is a cone-shaped (“bullet”) weight with a large hole running through the center. This large hole allows the bullet weight to freely slide up and down the line, and when a fish strikes the plastic lure, it feels no resistance as it pulls slack line through the sinker. However, Texas-rigged plastic baits can be just as effective when fished without any sinker at all, especially in very shallow water.

There are several other ways to rig a plastic bait for weedless performance, but most are variations of the basic Texas rig.

Common techniques: Casting a Texas-rigged plastic worm or lizard for bass in flooded timber; casting a weedless minnow imitation to schooling striped bass; drifting a weedless grub through deep weeds for crappie to name a few.