ALL You Need to Know about the Texas Rig (T-Rig)

ALL You Need to Know about the Texas Rig (T-Rig)


ALL You Need to Know about the Texas Rig (T-Rig)

The Texas rig is arguably one of the most versatile methods of rigging a soft plastic to catch a multitude of fish species. What is it? Why is it so effective?


The Texas rig if often one of the earliest learned rigs for most new anglers chasing bass. For good reason too! The Texas rig catches lots of monster bass. It is also one of the easiest systems to rig and fish. It is weedless, tough, and efficient.

The Texas rig is essentially a weight (often a bullet shaped weight) that is threaded onto your line before tying on your hook. Your soft plastic is then threaded onto the hook a short distance before exiting the bait. The hook is spun, and enters the bait again further down. Your hook is then either hidden or texposed into the soft plastic to create “weedlessness”. The weight that often moves freely above the hook, MAY be pegged (or held in place by a stopper) for fishing different styles of cover or punching thicker mats.

Changing the size of your bait, and weight will offer advantages in certain scenarios over others. For example, a pegged heavy 1.5oz. weight with a narrower creature bait on a size 4/0 EWG hook is a fairly standard punching rig for thick cover. Where, a lighter ¼oz. weight with a smaller profile stick worm and a size 3/0 straight shank worm hook would be a fairly typical sparse cover rig.

Choosing your weight is important for both penetrating power as well as sink/fall rate. You may want heavy weight to punch through mats, but you sacrifice fall rate sink time. Finding the perfect match is an art, but makes the challenge of the Texas rig exciting. When pitching your t-rig into thicker cover, you may want to peg the weight closer to your bait to allow you to pull the bait through the thick cover a little easier, but it also changes the action and presentation of the bait.

The Texas rig or t-rig is an extremely versatile and staple for bass anglers looking to win tournaments or to break their PB by catching a monster. Understanding the relationship between the hook size, profile shape, and bullet weight will better your catch rate, and push you to the next level as a bass angler. Definitely spend some time to master the Texas (t-rig) next time you find yourself on the water. You’ll may just hook a Monster Bass!

Colton Orbaker 
Author, teacher, guide, media creator... 

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April Breakdown | Platinum Series

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