How to Tie and Fish a Texas Rig for Florida Bass

Part of Knots & Rigs · All fishing tutorials

The Texas rig is a soft plastic worm or creature bait rigged weedless behind a bullet weight, and in Florida it is not one technique among many — it is the technique. Kissimmee grass, lily pads, hydrilla, eelgrass, and fallen timber cover most of our lakes and canals, and the Texas rig is the setup that goes into that cover, thumps around in it, and comes out with a bass attached.

Tied right, the hook point hides in the plastic so the rig slides through vegetation without snagging, then pops free and buries itself when a bass crushes the bait. The build takes a minute, the variations are endless, and the same rig you pitch to a pad edge in the morning will punch a hydrilla mat at noon with just a heavier weight.

Jump to: What You Need · Rigging Weedless, Step by Step · Picking Weight and Pegging · Pitching Florida Vegetation · Keep Learning

What You Need

• Bullet weights in 1/8 to 1/2 ounce for everyday work, up to 1 1/2 ounces for punching mats
• Offset worm hooks or extra-wide-gap (EWG) hooks, 3/0 to 5/0, matched to the bait
• Soft plastics: ribbon-tail worms, stick baits, creature baits, and craws in junebug, black-and-blue, and watermelon
• A bobber stop or toothpick for pegging the weight
• 15- to 20-pound fluorocarbon, or 40- to 65-pound braid for the heaviest cover
• A medium-heavy to heavy rod with enough backbone to move a fish out of the grass on the hookset

Rigging Weedless, Step by Step

1. Thread the bullet weight onto your line, pointed end facing the rod tip so it slides nose-first through the grass.
2. Tie on the offset worm hook with a Palomar knot.
3. Push the hook point straight into the nose of the worm about a quarter inch, then bring it out the side.
4. Slide the worm up the shank and over the hook eye, then rotate it so it hangs straight on the offset bend. A crooked worm spins and twists your line — take the extra second to line it up.
5. Lay the hook along the worm’s body to see where the bend reaches, pinch that spot, and push the point straight through the worm and out the other side.
6. Skin-hook the finish: push the point just barely back under the skin of the worm so it sits hidden against the body. The rig is now weedless but the point is a fraction of an inch from daylight, ready to pop out when a fish bites down.

Picking Weight and Pegging

Weight choice is a conversation between the cover and the fall. Around sparse Kissimmee grass and pad stems, a 1/8- or 3/16-ounce weight lets the worm flutter down slowly, and most Florida bites come on that first fall. In thicker hydrilla go to 3/8 or 1/2 ounce to penetrate between the stalks. True punching — through matted vegetation floating on the surface — takes 3/4 ounce and up, a compact creature bait, and braid.

Peg the weight whenever you fish in cover: a bobber stop snugged against the bullet, or a toothpick jammed in its nose, keeps the weight and bait together so they enter the grass as one unit instead of separating on every stem. Leave the weight unpegged only on clean bottom, where a little freedom lets the worm move naturally — the same sliding-weight idea as a Carolina rig, miniaturized.

Pitching Florida Vegetation

Pitch the rig underhand so it lands softly at the edge of the cover — a pad pocket, a grass point, a hole in the hydrilla — and let it fall on a semi-slack line while you watch the line where it enters the water. If it jumps, ticks, or swims sideways before the bait should have landed, reel down and set the hook hard: a bass already has it. If the bait reaches bottom untouched, hop it twice with short lifts of the rod, let it fall again, then reel in and pitch to the next target. Florida bass in cover are ambush fish; ten good pitches beat one long cast retrieved through open water.

This is close-quarters fishing, so gear up for the hookset and the first five seconds. That is how the pros fishing the Kissimmee Chain and Okeechobee do it, and the full picture of seasonal patterns is in our largemouth bass fishing guide. In summer, work the thickest shade at midday and the grass edges at dawn; in winter cold fronts, slow the fall with a lighter weight and give fish more time to decide.

Do not overlook plain-looking water, either. South Florida’s canals and the rock pits scattered around the state hold bass that rarely see a lure, and a Texas rig pitched to shade lines, culvert mouths, and the deep side of the bank you are standing on will find them. Work parallel to the bank before you cast across it — Florida bass hold shallower, and closer, than most visiting anglers expect.

Keep Learning

Master the rest of the soft plastic family in rigging jigs and soft plastics, and when the water turns clear and the bass turn fussy, trade power for finesse with the drop shot rig. The free What Should I Target? tool matches month and region to the bass patterns worth fishing, and our largemouth bass guide covers the lakes, seasons, and limits in full.