Bass Fishing - How to fish the Texas Rig

hey guys this is gene Jensen today I want to attempt to tell you everything that I know about a Texas rig alright so basically what a Texas rig is is it's a bullet weight be it lead or tungsten like this one is and some type of a worm hook I've got two types here I've got an offset round band you see a little offset thing in the hook and then I've got a straight shank little flipping hook and those are the two I like to use the most for Texas rigging my nose which is sorry but another one is like extra wide gap hook anything that's designed for for fishing a worm that is a soft plastic worm not a real one so but the key component is a bullet weight now over the years there has become it's been basically commonly said that Texas rigging our Texas rigging a worm is just what I do my worm it's just the way that you hook the the warrant of the hook and the worm and so you have to really pay attention to what people say when they're using a Texas rig they're using a bullet weight in front of the worm if they're Texas rigging a worm they're basically rigging it weightless so this is how you do it you take this little worm hook right here this is an offset round Bend and the key is is that you've got to start with the tip right through the center of the of the head of the worm a very top of the worm and you come out the side just like that and you pull it and as you get to this little round Bend you pull and you turn the hook at the same time okay and then what I do is I lay the hook oops I dropped it I lay the hook alongside the worm okay and so I can see where that hook is going to go into that worm and then I just basically pull it down and then push it through and make sure that the tip almost comes out to the end this is this worms a little worn out so it has a little bit of trouble but I've got a video that I made years and years and years ago about how to put a hook in a worm it's old really bad quality but it will it'll help you learn how to put a hook in or might say it's a lot more detailed and it's a lot you know just it's just too much to put on this one video but that's how you Texas rig a worm now how you rig a Texas rig let's go into that okay you rig a Texas rig pretty simple um basically you take your bullet weight with the narrow side of the bullet weight you put it on the line and let it go hold on to the line tie the hook on the two different knots that I use when I'm just using like a regular worm hook is either a Palomar knot or an improved clinch knot I'm going to tie an improved clinch knot and then if I'm using a flipping hook I actually what's called snail the hook it's just a different type of knot that you tie around the around the hook okay so I've got that and that's your basic Texas rig it's a free-floating weight okay and then you just Texas rig whatever plastic soft plastic you want on there I'm going to go with I have no clue yeah let go with a little plasma tail alright so the things that you can Texas rig are there whatever whatever Plus off plastic that you want to fish with you can texas rig I mean creature baits crawl baits anything that's off plastic you can put a put a worm hook in and you can go out and you can flip it into whatever you want to flip it into cast it or anything else so this is just a straight tail worm I'm going to do that little I'm going to Texas rig it real quick now the things to consider when Texas rigging my favorite weight to Texas rig it with is a quarter of an ounce but I let the brush and the thickness of the cover that I am fishing pretty much dictated I try to go with the lightest weight that I can get away with I'll even do an eighth of an ounce but it's a little bit more difficult to fish I have to go to a little bit lighter rod just because of the weight sometimes but I mean this is right this right here is about a half an ounce of weight on this with this plasma tail I don't really care about colors of weights silver black whatever it just really doesn't matter to me I'm not I'm not too concerned with that I just want enough weight to get it through the cover but not so much that it just goes crashing through and spooks the fish there are times when you want to do that but I don't run into those very often so that's the Texas rig that's that's how I rig it now let's talk about how to fish it let's talk about what to fish it on first rods and reels depending on the cover depending on the weight of the rig depending on the kind of bass that are going to be in there I might go with a heavy action rod when I'm flipping a pitch into the heavy cover I'm going to I'm going to literally go to a heavy rod I'm going to use heavy braided line I'm going to what's called PEG the hook I'm not going to talk about that right here Oh take too much time but I put a bobber stop basically a bobber stopper peg in front of the the hook or I run a piece of rubber or toothpick or something down to stop that weight from sliding up and down the line is what the key is and that will keep you when you're flipping into heavy cover it will keep that weight pegged up again setups that lure and it won't go on and it won't get hung up as much it'll go down through that thick stuff a lot easier but if I can get away with not pegging it I will because a lot of times you can lose fish the heavier the weight if you peg it you know the fish grabs a hold of the whole weight and the sinker or the whole sinker the whole hook and everything else and it'll blow the fish's mouth open on the hook set you just got to be careful of that all right so what might cause me to use something a rod that's a little bit lighter like a medium action or medium heavy action is is going to be like I said the weight of the of the sinker and the type of cover I'm fishing if I'm just dragging if I'm just throwing out on a point and dragging it off of a point through the rocks I'm going to use a medium heavy rod if I'm if I'm using a real light weight like a quarter of an ounce or an eighth of an ounce sinker I'm going to use a medium action rod because it's got a little bit more flex it's a little bit easier to cast it loads up well on the back cast so like I said you can do anything with a Texas rig you can rig it on anything any way spin and rod it doesn't matter so let's talk about how to fish it alright so um basically I switched it up a little bit this the water color here is very very muddy and in my liking invisibility is about 4 to 5 inches so I went to a darker color went to something that's got a little bit more vibration to it so I picked up a vile craw I put it on braided line I pegged it's because I think I'm going to be you know just in case I get into some heavy cub cover as I'm as I'm going through still a half ounce weight still a you know still a Texas rig but it's got its got braided line it's for heavier stuff and I'm going to go and I'm gonna flip into this grass I'm gonna flip into the cover I'm just going to cover water with it and try to catch something the way you you decide or kind of a you know one of the questions I get asked all the time is how do I choose the right color soft plastic for the water color it's simple starting with muddy water you want to use dark or really bright bright colors a lot of times especially when it's sunny but I like to use darks black and blues black and purple black and something and then as it gets clearer and clearer you can change your colors and go a little bit more natural up to the green pumpkins and then to the clearer colors as the water gets clear and for some odd reason bright bright colors like pink and white and yellow will work in any water color just depends on the fish's mood so that's kind of a rule of thumb as the the water gets clearer the the baits or the soft plastic color choices get more and more natural that's how I do it now it's summertime and the reason I chose this spot is because the channel of this Creek runs right up against this Bank so I'm going to fish the cover that is around the the herb that is along the edge of this Creek because the deep the deep water especially when it's shallow everywhere else the deep water is where the bass it feels safe so if anything happens anything scares it or anything else it's going to come up in it's going to go down into that deeper water so that's why I chose a spot whether I catch anything or not I have no clue but I'm going to cover water until I catch something or until it's time to go home the different ways you can cast however you want to I'm I'm pitching right now and I have my reel set up to where if I got to make a long cast I can make a long cast I love sidearm and underhand cast like that because it's got a lighter splash when it hits the water so it doesn't spook the fish quite so much and right now I'm just kind of dragging it on the bottom and I'm feeling to see if the bottom is a hard bottom that's why I like that tungsten weight to a floor to a braided line because you can feel everything and if it's a hard bottom I'm going to drag it a little bit if it feels kind of mushy it means it's a muddy bottom and that bait has sunk down into the mud and the bats aren't going to touch it so like when I'm fishing lily pads or matted grass or anything like that I'm paying for the first few minutes I'm paying real close attention on what is underneath that stuff what's on the bottom is it real silty real muddy does the bait sink in through all that all the stuff that's on the bottom and that really makes a difference on where those fish will position on those mats and on those lily pads so if there's if it's a hard bottom I'm going to let the bait go down I'm gonna let it hit the bottom every time I cast i'ma bounce it off at the bottom I'm going to bring it up to the to the canopy and I'm gonna bounce it on the bottom underneath the canopy and then i'ma pull it out and make another cast now if it is a soft bottom if there's a lot of junk on the bottom and and the bait sinks in there then I'm not going to let it stay on the bottom I'm going to cast it in there I'm going to let it sink to the bottom and I'm going to bring it up and I'm going to bang it off of something so if this was real thick matted grass I'd bang it off of that canopy or if it's you know if it's a lily pads I'd bang it off the bottom of the lily pads but I wouldn't worry about letting that thing sit down at the bottom because the bass aren't going to be down there and they're not going to be feeding off of that junk that's in the silt this right here it's kind of sparse grass so how would I fish this people say a frog oh you see grass you got a fish a frog I catch bigger fish doing this a lot of times so I'm looking for the thickest spot in that little area that I'm casting to so I'm going to try to get the bait in there and I'm trying to try to get in there the end there where it's not going to splash so much you got a little bit of grass right here that's laying down under the water so it creates a little bit when I missed it creates a little bit of a shade little shade area and I'm going to get it right down in that spot bounce it around a few times okay and now one thing I've learned over the years one one of my favorite things to do see say if you're throwing it into cover or even not into cover you're just working it all of a sudden you hit something where that bait gets hung up but you know the hooks not hung in there that was something that was definitely a fish it took all my claws anyway let me rear it I'll get back to that thought all right so what happened on that fish was I threw it in and it never hit the bottom and then all of a sudden the when I picked up the lure was not where it was supposed to be had it moved not all by itself but a fish had grabbed it and moved it so that's why I set the hook didn't wait to feel it because I never did feel the bite it just was different it wasn't doing what it was supposed to be doing or what I expected to doing you know expected it to do so I set the hook so I'm going to turn around I'm gonna try this spot again that's nice all right so say you're pitching into anything really when I'm fishing it anytime I'm fishing it and I and I like throw into a bush or throw up into cover if I'm dragging it on a point and I hit something and it gets hung up but I know that the hook is not hung in in that and it's just a sinker I'm going to sit there and shake it or if it's a if it's a limb I'm gonna let it drop to the bottom and bring it up and tap it up against that stick or whatever it was hung on a few times before I bring it over that log or over that stick or through that grass or anything else because a lot of times there will be a fish sitting right there and it hasn't quite committed to your bait but a way to get him to commit is to bounce it up and down in front of his nose a few times you're in the strike zone keep it in the strike zone so say threw it into a brush or anything like this and I've got this stick I'm sticking it I've got it on I'm gonna bounce it up and down and I'm going to actually sit there on that up against that stick and i'ma pop it until I either feel like I'm not going to get bit or until something bites it plain and simple now the limitations of a Texas rig there is one thing I don't like to fish a Texas rig or one one way I don't like to fish a Texas rig is on big huge flats where I'm dragging it I think a Texas rig is better when it's falling so you want to hop it a lot and if I'm going to drag something across the point or across the lawn or a Long Point or a big huge flat it's going to be a jig or a Carolina rig I just get more bites that way so I really think a Texas rig is more of a type of rig that you want to throw at something add a piece of cover just past a piece of cover and bring to it but it's a it's a spot you know a place where you fish a spot not a area and so I'm sitting here and I'm you know I'm right now I'm fishing visible cover and if I wasn't fishing visible cover I usually prefer going to a Carolina rig or a jig or some type of a moving bait but when you're fishing cover it is hard to beat a Carolina or a Texas rig now does weight really make that big of a difference sometimes not all the time but you know like I said the beginning you just want to fish the lightest weight you can get away with I'm I'm lazy I'll throw a half ounce or quarter ounce on there and I'll fish it no matter what until I literally convinced myself that that's the problem because I hate to retie well guys I sure wish I would have caught a fish in this video I'm sorry about that but a Texas rig is just an outstanding bait it's a good first one to learn it's a good first one to learn when you want to learn soft plastics it's just a good all-around rig that you can get into anything and catch a ton of fish with it's one of my favourite rigs it has been since I started fishing it's one that I always have tied on somewhere in the boat but it is what it is I've got to head out I've got to head to the FLW Championship Expo I'm going to go hang out there for a couple of days and and just enjoy myself and enjoy meeting people and running into old friends but anyway like I always say be sure to introduce somebody to fishing introduce into my videos let me help you teach them how to fish check out my fishing shirt of the Month Club links down the description more important to get out on the water going catch some fish have a great day see ya

Channel: Flukemaster

Views: 1,186,423

Rating: 4.863317 out of 5

Keywords: bass fishing, how to fish, texas rig, fishing tips, texas rig bass fishing, how to, fishing videos, bass fishing tips, pond fishing, largemouth bass, fishing video, texas rig fishing, best fishing, bass fishing tips and techniques, fishing baits, bass fishing texas rig, summer fishing, fishing for bass, fishing texas rig, texas rigging, summer bass fishing, how to fish for bass, how to fish a worm, plastic worm, bank fishing, how to fish texas rig

Id: 5uUhUwWgiyM

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2016