Texas Rig

A bullet weight ahead of a soft plastic on a hook whose point is buried back into the bait — the weedless bottom rig every bass angler owns, tunable from a weightless flutter to a mat-punching brick.

Also known as: Texas Rig · T-rig · Texas-rigged worm · peg-and-worm · weedless worm rig · bullet weight rig · Tex-posed · texposed

The most-fished bass rig in the world: one offset hook, one bullet weight, and every soft plastic ever made.

• Always an offset (Texas) hook — the point buried in the bait is what makes it weedless
• The weight decides everything: pegged for cover, sliding for open bottom, weightless for the fall
• Hook size follows bait length: 3/0 finesse for 3.5 in, 6/0-8/0 heavy for 7 in+
• Lost fish are a rigging problem first, a hookset problem second

A Texas rig is three parts on one line: a cone-shaped bullet weight that slides on the main line, then the hook, then a soft plastic threaded up the shank with the point buried back into its body. Because nothing sticks out, it goes through wood, rock, grass and mats that an open hook or a jig cannot — and because the parts are separate, every one of them is a knob you can turn.

Those knobs are what the family is really about. The weight sets fall speed and where the rig lives: 1/16 oz (1.8 g) barely sinks a worm, 1.5 oz (43 g) drives a bait through a floating mat. Tungsten is smaller and harder than lead, telegraphs bottom better and slides through grass cleaner. Pegged (a bobber stop against the weight) the rig is one compact unit that enters cover and stays together; free-sliding, the weight lands first and the bait glides down behind it, which draws bites in open water and on sparse cover. The hook is always an offset hook — the Z-bend behind the eye is what holds the bait straight and lets the point bury — but it comes in several builds, and the build follows the bait: light-wire finesse for small baits on spinning gear, a round-bend worm hook for slim worms, a wide gap (EWG) for bulky creatures, craws, stick baits and flukes, heavy wire for flipping and punching on braid, a screw-lock or keel-weighted swimbait hook for paddle tails, and a shank-weighted hook — lead moulded onto the shank, hidden inside the bait, no bullet — for a fluke or swim worm that needs a little sink without losing the weightless look. Below the hook, the bait's profile — slim worm, bulky craw, stick bait, paddle tail — is the last knob, and it also decides the knot: a fluke on a loop knot darts, a fluke on a Palomar does not.

Reach for a Texas rig whenever bass are on the bottom or in cover and you need to put a bait in their spot and leave it there. It is the default answer on laydowns, docks, brush, riprap, ledges and every kind of grass, in every season, for both bass. It is not a search bait — it covers water slowly — and it is not for fish suspended off the bottom in open water, where a jerkbait, swimbait or drop shot beats it. Its one real weakness is the hookset: a buried point on heavy plastic needs a hard, upward set on a rod with backbone, and a too-big hook on a too-slim bait costs fish.