How to Rig a Texas Rig, Step by Step

The Texas rig is the first thing most bass anglers learn and the last thing they stop using. It is weedless, it casts well, and it puts a soft plastic anywhere a fish can be. The rigging is simple, but there is one step people get slightly wrong for years without realising.

What you need

• A tungsten worm weight — the cone-shaped one your line runs through.
• An offset worm hook, sized to your plastic rather than to the weight.
• A soft plastic worm or creature bait.
• Optionally, a bobber stop if you want to peg the weight in place.

We make the weights and the stops; the hook and the plastic are yours to pick.

Step 1 — thread the weight on nose-first

Run your line through the weight so the narrow end points up the line, toward your rod. The wide end sits against the bait. Get this backwards and the rig will hang on everything, because you have turned a cone into a scoop.

If you are pegging, slide the bobber stop on before the weight and leave it loose for now.

Step 2 — tie on the hook

Any solid connection knot is fine. Snug it down with the line wet, and trim the tag close so it does not collect grass.

Step 3 — enter the nose of the bait

Push the hook point into the very centre of the plastic's nose and out through the side, about a quarter-inch down. Not further — this short bite of plastic is all that holds the nose in place.

Step 4 — slide the bait up and rotate the hook

Pull the plastic up over the eye of the hook so it sits on the line, then rotate the hook 180 degrees so the point faces back toward the bait.

Step 5 — the step people get wrong

Lay the hook alongside the worm to see exactly where the point will land, then push it through so it comes out and just barely re-enters the plastic — buried under the skin, not driven deep into the body.

That skin-deep seating is the whole trick. Too shallow and the point catches every stem you touch. Too deep and the hook has to tear through a quarter-inch of plastic before it reaches anything, and you lose fish you never knew you had. You want it hidden and nothing more.

The bait should hang straight when you hold it up. If it curls, back the hook out and start the nose entry again — a bent Texas rig spins on the retrieve and fish refuse it.

Peg it, or let it slide?

A free-sliding weight lets the bait fall on its own after the weight lands, which looks more natural in open water. A pegged weight moves as one unit, which is what you want in cover.

Short version: peg in grass and wood, let it slide in open water. The longer answer, including why a bobber stop beats a toothpick, is in pegged or free-sliding.

What size weight?

Start lighter than feels right. The most common mistake is over-weighting, which buys depth you did not need and costs you the slow fall that gets bitten.

As a rough start: 3/16 or 1/4 oz covers most Texas rig fishing. 1/16 to 1/8 oz for shallow, clear or pressured water. 5/16 to 1/2 oz when there is wind, depth or thicker grass. Past that you are flipping rather than Texas rigging, and the flipping weights take over.

The full breakdown by cover, depth and current is in what size weight for a Texas rig.

Fishing it

Cast, then watch the line rather than the rod on the fall — most bites happen while the bait is dropping and feel like nothing at all. Drag it slowly, pause often, and let it sit longer than is comfortable.

When you do get bit, reel down until you feel weight before you set. Braid has very little stretch, not none, and that small amount is exactly what you take out by tightening up first. Worth saying plainly because it gets repeated backwards: the weight does not set the hook. It gets the bait to the fish.

Where a Texas rig earns its keep

It is the most forgiving presentation in bass fishing, which is exactly why it stays tied on.

• Grass edges and scattered vegetation. Weedless enough to come through, heavy enough to get down to the base of it.
• Laydowns and brush. The rig's whole design is about entering cover and coming back out. Peg the weight here.
• Docks. Skips reasonably well with a lighter weight and a compact bait.
• Rock, transitions and points. This is where tungsten's hardness pays for itself, because you can feel the bottom change under the weight.

It is a poor choice in one place: a thick matted canopy. There the free-sliding design works against you and you want a pegged punching setup instead — see what size weight for punching matted cover.

Bait choice, briefly

Almost any soft plastic will Texas rig, but the shape changes the rig's character. A slim straight-tail worm slips through cover on less weight and falls quietly. A bulky creature bait with wide appendages catches water, falls slower and needs more weight to get down — which is often why people end up over-weighted without realising the bait caused it.

If you are fighting to get through cover, try a slimmer plastic before you reach for a heavier weight. You will usually drop back a size and get a better fall out of it.

Three things that go wrong

The weight is on backwards. Narrow end up. It hangs on everything otherwise.

The bait is not straight. Look down the length of it before you cast. A curled worm spins, and a spinning worm twists your line all day.

The hook point is buried too deep. It should be under the skin, not through the body. This is the single most common reason a Texas rig gets bit and does not hook up.

Why tungsten for this rig in particular

A Texas rig is fished by feel — you are reading the bottom through a weight, a line and a rod tip. Tungsten is far harder than lead, and hard materials pass vibration on instead of soaking it up, so gravel feels like gravel rather than like something.

The smaller profile matters too, since the whole point of the rig is getting through cover without collecting it.

Shop tungsten worm weights and bobber stops.

Built to be what it says it is

Every Tungsten Edge weight is 97% tungsten, laser-engraved with its size, and finished with the EdgeGuard No-Chip coating so it survives rock and timber rather than just looking good in the package. The bore is insert-free, so there is no plastic sleeve to work loose and no rough edge to saw at your line.