The Texas rig just might be a bass angler’s best option for early summer action. There are limitless options of bait styles you can put on your hook, and depending on the size of your bullet weight, there are endless ways to fish it.
Most bass anglers learn the Texas rig as one of their first bass-specific techniques, and for a good reason. It is an incredibly versatile rig that tricks both aggressive and lethargic bass. It’s also straightforward to rig up, making it a go-to for beginner anglers.
You can fish a Texas rig anywhere, but it truly shines in and around underwater vegetation or in laydowns along the bank. In any case, if you’re headed out for a day of summer bass fishing, don’t sleep on the Texas rig. Here’s everything you need to know to catch bass on this technique.
How to Tie the Texas Rig
Gear Used in this Video
The Texas Rig
The standard Texas rig consists of a bullet weight and an EWG hook with a soft plastic rigged onto the hook to make it weedless. If you’re fishing in thicker grass, sometimes it can help to add a small rubber peg, also known as a bobber stopper, on the line above the bullet weight to keep the weight and bait in contact to reduce the amount of weeds that could get stuck on your line. In most scenarios, however, I prefer to go with an unpegged Texas rig to maximize the action of my soft plastic.
As for the soft plastic you choose, your options really are endless. To make your life a bit easier, I recommend using a stick bait, a ribbontail worm, a creature bait, or a crawfish imitator. Those four soft plastics are my go-to options when I’m rigging up for some early summer post-spawn action.
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What Makes the Texas Rig so Effective?
The Texas rig has caught bass in every state where bass exist. It’s not just a beginner’s technique, many professional anglers rely on the Texas rig to produce bites when it matters most. But why?
The versatility of a Texas rig is what makes it so effective. Having the ability to put practically any soft plastic bait on your hook and fish it effectively can’t be understated. Most other techniques won’t be very effective if you’re not using the right type of soft plastic. But the Texas rig seems to shine no matter what you want to throw. Swimbaits, stick baits, creature baits, crawfish imitators, and big ribbontail worms will all catch fish on a Texas rig. Having a banner day simply requires figuring out where and how you’re going to fish this weedless rig.
Furthering a Texas rig’s versatility is controlling your bait’s fall rate. Fall rate may be a bit more of an advanced term, but it’s pretty self explanatory. With the ability to select any size bullet weight, you have all of the power to have your soft plastic slowly sink through the water column, or have it rocket to the bottom. Depending on the mood of the bass and the weather conditions, those options could make all of the difference in getting a bite or getting skunked.
The fall rate can also be affected by the use of a bobber stopper. Putting a bobber stopper above your bullet weight can keep the entire rig together, allowing it to slip in and out of holes in the grass more easily. The downside is that you don’t get nearly as much action from your soft plastic. Without a bobber stopper, on a slack line, your bullet weight will sink to the bottom, but your soft plastic will slowly glide towards the bottom while enticing hungry bass into biting. As you hop the weight along, the soft plastic will dance behind it, leaving space between the weight and the bait, causing action in the soft plastic that’s hard to replicate using any other technique.
However, my favorite part of this technique is that it catches both largemouth and smallmouth the same. In the early summer, both bass species congregate in and around grass lines to feed. As ambush predators, the aquatic vegetation provides the perfect spot to sit and wait for an unsuspecting baitfish or crawfish to meander by. When that baitfish or crawfish is your Texas rig, they won’t know the difference.
In my opinion, when it comes to fishing for springtime or early summertime bass, there’s no better technique than a Texas rig.
How to Fish a Texas Rig
Whether you’re fishing your Texas rig in vegetation or thick laydowns, you have a few options for how to work the rig in and around cover. This isn’t a one way type of technique, and depending on the conditions on any given day, how you work the rig can make all the difference in getting bites or going home scratching your head.
My favorite way to work a Texas rig is jigging it. In the same way I would work a football jig in and around cover, allowing the bait to sink down into the cover and then lifting it out, dropping it back down in, and repeating that cycle seems to trigger their predatory feeding response.
But, if you find yourself jigging a Texas rig without any bites, rest assured you’ve got other options. Another great way to work a Texas rig on days where the bass may be more lethargic is a slow drag. Similar to fishing a Carolina rig, a slow, methodical drag along a grass line or rock ledge can get you plenty of bites. As the bullet weight clinks and clacks along the bottom, bass will key in on your rig and follow it. Typically, you’ll get a bite after a long drag. As the bass is following the slow moving rig they’re looking for an opportunity to strike, but once you stop the drag, they’ll suddenly be right on top of the bait and feel like they have to eat it.
If jigging or dragging aren’t getting it done, throwing on a soft plastic with flapping claws also allows you to fish a Texas rig similarly to how you’d fish a swim jig. While it doesn’t stop there, one of these three ways will typically get the bass fired up on any given day. The biggest key is experimenting while you’re on the water and being willing to switch it up to give the bass what they want.
When to Throw a Texas Rig
Typically, fishing a Texas rig around aquatic vegetation in the early summer is a surefire way to get a few bites. By the early summer, most of the bass have finished spawning in the shallows and have now pushed back to deeper water to find their summer haunts. Grass lines in 8 to 15 feet of water make a perfect location for ambushing their prey and hiding from other predatory fish like muskies.
I’ve found over the years that the best grass line or weed bed consists of two types of grass converging together. Whether that’s milfoil and hydrilla, eelgrass and waterweed, or any other combination you can dream up, finding those areas can lead to some of the best days you’ll have fishing a Texas rig.
I wouldn’t recommend using a bobber stopper when you’re fishing younger, emergent grasses. You’ll see much more benefit having the increased action in your bait and you shouldn’t reel back too many weeds. But as the summer wanes on and the grass gets thicker, a bobber stopper might be necessary to get your bait through the holes in the grass and to the bottom where the bass lie in wait.
As you fish in and around grass, you’ll learn that losing fish in the grass is just a part of the game. Not every hooked fish will end up in your hands, they’re pretty good at digging into the thickest weed patch they can find to avoid capture. The Texas rig, however, seems to be a technique that leads to fewer lost fish than other popular grass fishing options.
The reason why boils down to how the fish are typically hooked on a Texas rig. It seems like nine out of ten times, when you set the hook with a Texas rig, the hook is buried right where you want it, in the roof of their mouth. This location allows you the most control over the bass during the fight, and once the hook is in there, it’s not easy for the bass to shake it.
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